National Post

Allen can take Bills to new territory

Buffalo, a City that is snake-bitten in super bowl history, might not have to wait much longer

- Steve simmons in Toronto ssimmons@postmedia.com Twitter.com/simmonsste­ve

Wide right would not have gone wide right and missed had Josh Allen been the quarterbac­k of the Buffalo Bills in the now famous Super Bowl XXV.

They may not have needed Scott Norwood’s leg to make that 47-yard field goal to win the NFL championsh­ip.

The kick might have been shorter, easier or no kick at all, except the extra point. And the Bills, with Allen, who wasn’t even born until after the team had lost four straight Super Bowls, might have scored a touchdown, coming back to win their only Super Bowl.

This is all imaginary now, a great what-if, with Allen and the Bills one win and a Patrick mahomes injury away from going back to the Super Bowl all these decades later. But the more we see of Allen and his array of talents, the more we realize we are watching the greatest quarterbac­k Buffalo has ever had.

Some people in Buffalo don’t want to hear that, not about how great and unstoppabl­e Allen happens to be — they know that — but how ordinary the legendary Jim Kelly was in his four Super Bowl starts. In fairness to Kelly, the Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterbac­k who has come to symbolize the heart and soul of the city of Buffalo and its beloved football team, he was like the Bills themselves: He never had a great championsh­ip day.

He never even had a good one.

But the first one, that ended with Norwood’s infamous kick missing from 47 yards, that was the game that should have been won. That was the game to change history. It was all there for the Bills in the final minutes.

All they had to do was score.

In the other three Super Bowls, well, the Bills were there in name only. They lost 37-24 to the Washington redskins and followed that by losing 52-17 to Dallas and then 30-13 the year after that to the Cowboys.

The first two Super Bowl defeats always hurt more than the last two. Jeff Hostetler was the quarterbac­k for the Giants when the Bills lost 20-19. He’s not the worst quarterbac­k to win a Super Bowl, but he’s certainly on the list. The next year they lost to mark rypien, the sort-of Canadian. He started one more season with the redskins and that about was it for him.

All Kelly had to do in the final minute of Super Bowl XXV was get one more first down. maybe five more yards. maybe 10 more yards. And all he had to do was manage the clock a little better in a game that was all about coaching and time of possession.

A 47-yard kick on grass back then was not like the automatic 47-yard field goals of today. It was a 50-50 kick in those days. I’ve always thought that holding Norwood responsibl­e for the Bills’ 20-19 defeat was somehow misplaced. Coach marv Levy and quarterbac­k Kelly and a defence that couldn’t stop the run cost Buffalo the Super Bowl it needed to win.

But you look at Allen now, and the way he plays and the way he runs and how difficult he is to bring down at any time and at 24 years of age he is doing things, and you wonder if this is the year or next year or the year after that. The possibilit­ies are endless.

There always will be Patrick mahomes in the AFC standing in front of Allen and the Bills. Just as there was Dan marino and Warren moon in the AFC during Kelly’s best seasons.

Allen does things Kelly could never do. He’s already run for 1,562 yards in three seasons: Kelly rushed for 1,049 in his career.

Allen has run for 25 touchdowns already. Kelly ran for seven in his entire career.

Kelly came to the Bills at the age of 26, having already had played two seasons in the USFL for the Houston Gamblers. Allen was 22 years old when he began starting for Buffalo, an erratic kid with arms and legs flailing in all directions, a quarterbac­k inside of him in need of coaching and teaching and smoothing out to reach this remarkable level which has him in an MVP conversati­on not far behind Aaron rodgers and mahomes, two of the five most creative quarterbac­ks to ever play.

Kelly’s Buffalo teams were extraordin­ary, not just for getting to four straight Super Bowls, but for the collection of talent that couldn’t exist in today’s salary capped world. He had an all-time great, Thurman Thomas, in the backfield, and a Hall-offame wideout in Andre reed and a defence that included Bruce Smith and Cornelius Bennett and Darryl Talley, a team that really had everything but a ring.

Josh Allen has backs you might not know and an absolute gem of a receiver in Stefon Diggs. I could argue that Allen and Diggs surpass everything that was Kelly and reed already, only that would be premature and disrespect­ful. There is no Smith on the Bills defensive line, no Bennett at linebacker. No Thomas anywhere to be found.

But they have Allen, who has already orchestrat­ed a 13-win season, passed and ran for more yards than Kelly ever managed, and thrown for more touchdowns this season than Kelly ever did. He is 24 years old.

In Super Bowl XXV, the Bills went 1-for-8 in third down conversion­s against the Giants. That never would have happened if they’d had a quarterbac­k like the explosive Josh Allen back then.

 ?? BRYAN m. BENNETT / GETTY IMAGES ?? Josh Allen just might be the quarterbac­k to take the Buffalo Bills where Jim Kelly never could, columnist Steve Simmons writes — to a Super Bowl championsh­ip.
BRYAN m. BENNETT / GETTY IMAGES Josh Allen just might be the quarterbac­k to take the Buffalo Bills where Jim Kelly never could, columnist Steve Simmons writes — to a Super Bowl championsh­ip.

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