Oct. 14, 2018, a rookie Josh Allen earned his fifth career start. The Buffalo Bills quarterback would win up throwing for 84 yards in the eventual loss to the Houston Texans. He did not finish the game, as he sustained a throwing-elbow injury that sidelined him for the next four outings.
On Saturday, Allen will return to NRG Stadium to face the Texans in a wild card matchup. The winner of the tilt goes on to the next round of the playoffs. For the 23-year-old quarterback, that means recollect not so pleasant memories, that he also learned from.
“Obviously going through that game there’s not great memories, no one likes getting hurt, but having the opportunity to have Derek [Anderson] and Matt [Barkley] come in, learning from those two guys, it was a blessing in disguise,” Allen told Buffalo media on Wednesday. “But having that experience of playing there, seeing a familiar stadium — the crowd’s going to be hyped up a little more being a playoff game, but kind of having a feel for that is experience we can take into that game.”
Allen ultimately eventually found himself back in the Bills’ lineup and started for the entirety of his second season. In year two, the Wyoming product led Buffalo to a 10-6 record, passing for 3,089 yards, 20 touchdowns and nine interceptions on a 58.8% completion rate. He recorded 510 rushing yards and nine touchdowns in the process.
Allen feels as if he’s a different player than what the Texans saw early in the 2018 season.
“Yeah, going back and looking at our notes from last year — being in the same system that they’ve had — just going back and watching that film, seeing how they may have played me, not saying that they’re going to do that again, but I feel like I’m a different player from last year and it’s a different offense, so we have to go out there and control what we can control and do us,” Allen said.
The Texans did a good job containing Allen before his injury in October of 2018. Only time will tell if they did that again on Saturday against a “different” version of him.