Josh Allen showing no signs of regression in preseason debut

There doesn’t appear to be any sign of possible regression in Josh Allen as he made his 2021 preseason debut for the Buffalo Bills.

Josh Allen absolutely exploded in his third NFL season with the Buffalo Bills, going from being a 56.3 percent passer in his first two NFL seasons to being a 69.2 percent passer in 2020. Allen not only improved his completion percentage in a dramatic way, but he also became a legitimate MVP candidate for the Bills last season with 37 passing touchdowns and eight rushing touchdowns along with 4,544 passing yards and 421 rushing yards.

It was an amazing burst of production from Allen, who had still been productive even while he was erratic as a passer in his first two NFL seasons.

Allen’s rocket of a right arm was no longer just an impressive physical tool, but a weapon he truly honed in 2020.

As a result, the Buffalo Bills decided to give Allen a six-year, $258 million extension and get on with the future rather than wait any longer. What they saw in 2020 was enough.

Even with Allen’s explosion in 2020, it was reasonable to anticipate that it might be difficult for him to duplicate that level of success, possibly even regress slightly closer to what he had been prior to 2020.

That was squashed a bit in his preseason debut against the Green Bay Packers.

Allen was white-hot in the first half against the Green Bay Packers. Yes, it’s a preseason game, but it was great to see Allen sort of picking up right where he left off last season.

The Buffalo Bills don’t necessarily get talked about enough as a legitimate threat in the AFC to the Kansas City Chiefs. Buffalo’s roster is outstanding on both sides of the ball, they have a pretty rare coaching staff that has now been together for a much longer period of time than most are in today’s NFL, and they have a superstar at the QB position.

Josh Allen’s emergence in 2020 has given this Buffalo team a massive boost moving forward and his preseason performance is proof that he’s ready to make another run at it in 2021.

It was also great to see Allen getting Gabriel Davis so involved. Davis was one of a plethora of stellar receivers taken in the 2020 NFL Draft but he was drafted way lower than he otherwise should have been because of the ridiculous depth of the class.

The Bills have Stefon Diggs as the entrenched WR1 and then both Cole Beasley and Emmanuel Sanders will be factors, but Davis could take a huge leap forward in 2021 as well with the rapport he showed with Allen in this game.

At 6-foot-2, 216 pounds, he’s just a different type of physical specimen than the other top receivers Buffalo uses and he adds something to the offense that the other guys can’t.