The postseason ride for the Buffalo Bills has come and gone. The Bills are now kind of waiting to transfer trains at the station. Just Super Bowl LV separates Buffalo between the postseason and offseason’s start.
But before we get to the offseason, let’s take a quick look back… because we never really did with the playoff excitement of the past few weeks.
Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen and wide receiver Stefon Diggs hit the NFL by storm this season… hopefully for the first of many times. On occasion, both led their respectively position’s statistical categories throughout the year. Of the two, one did finish at the top of the mountain, and let’s start right there.
With 1,535 receiving yards, Diggs led the NFL. It wasn’t particularly close, either. Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce had a ridiculous season himself, but was still more than 100 yards behind Diggs.
Here’s the full rundown of the NFL’s top-five receivers in 2020:
Naturally with success in what is considered the top honor for a wide receiver, other great statistics followed Diggs. In yards per game, he finished second to Adams, who edged him out 98.1 to 95.9. Adams happened to miss two games for the Packers this season.
But in that same kind of mindset, Diggs wasn’t exactly a full participant in Buffalo’s season finale and he still blew the NFL away in catches. He had 127 total and Adams and Hopkins finished in a tie for second with 115. Diggs was also top-three in first-down catches with 73, tying Adams in that category and finishing behind Hopkins (75) and Kelce (79).
However, in one major statistic, Diggs was lacking throughout 2020. That one was touchdowns as he only hauled in eight. Not a bad number considering the Bills spread the ball around, but Adams led the NFL with 18 and Buffalo’s No.1 was nowhere near that.
Speaking of spreading the love, the guys doing that was Allen. His ability to do so helped him finish among the top-five of passers in 2020:
Allen landing in the top-tier of passing yards in itself is surprising enough… but another one of his numbers might top that in terms of it being shocking. Remember how Allen only completed about half of his passes as a rookie? He was also top-five in completion percentage this season, as his 69.2 percent was No. 4 behind the Packers’ Aaron Rodgers (70.7), Saints’ Drew Brees (70.5) and Watson (70.2).
These two are just scratching the surface of his top-five finishes as well. Here’s a quick rundown of a couple of others:
- TD passes: 37 (4th)
- First down passes: 228 (4th)
- QB rating: 107.2 (4th)
- QBR: 81.6 (3rd)
- Game-winning drives: 3 (T-4th)
Pretty good thrower now, huh? And let’s not forget, Allen still continued to rush the ball well in 2020, too. His yards on the ground totaled 421, eighth-most in the NFL, while he also scored eight times rushing the ball, a tie for third-most.
But before we round this out… considering this is the last time we’ll be reflecting upon Bills stats from 2020, let’s not forget the cherry on top we always provided at the end: Cole Beasley. Buffalo’s slot receiver had a heck of a season himself, and was en route to have more than 1,000 yards passing until he missed Week 17 due to injury.
In total, Beasley had 967 receiving yards, good for 22nd most in the NFL. That’s a bigger number considering all of it came out of the slot, too. His 82 catches was ranked even higher, 13th most.
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