Josh Allen Officially Hit The "God Mode" Difficulty Setting
After a monstrous performance in 2021, there's reason to believe he could be even better this season.
Veteran video game players are undoubtedly familiar with what often happens when you crank up the the difficulty level of the game you’re playing, to the hardest possible setting (sometimes called “God mode” or “Deity mode,” depending on the game you’re playing).
That’s when the AI (aka “the computer”) in the game continually pulls out a string of unfair, ridiculous, and downright bullshit maneuvers that seemingly defy the laws of physics built into the game construct itself, effectively communicating to the human player: no matter what you do, or now how skillfully you play, you’re still going to be unsuccessful in your current efforts.
Last Thursday evening, the Los Angeles Rams entered their 2022 season opener as the uber-skilled human player. After all, they were the defending Super Bowl champs, with an offensive savant for a head coach and a defense that finished 5th in the NFL in overall defensive DVOA last season.
Except, Buffalo had the misfortune of trying to square off against Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, who was basically the football manifestation of the computer playing on the “God mode” setting.
Throughout Buffalo’s 31-10 dismantling of Los Angeles, Allen spent the game pulling annihilating the boastful challenger in a variety of seemingly unbelievable ways. He completed 26 of 31 passes for 297 yards and three touchdown passes, while adding another 56 yards rushing and a touchdown on the ground as well.
To contextualize how exceptional his performance was:
No quarterback in the past 72 years has registered 250+ passing yards, 3+ passing touchdowns, 50+ rushing yards, and a rushing touchdown in a single game. Not a single one.
The Bills didn’t have to punt the ball a single time in the game
The manner in which Josh Allen has steadily improved from the highly unpolished and wildly errant passer with the howitzer of an arm, to arguably the most lethal dual-threat quarterback in the NFL who is equally capable of beating you by throwing to level of the football field as he is running with the ball (he finished 3rd in the NFL in rushing yards by a quarterback in 2021), is downright staggering.
(I have said this often, and I will continue to repeat it often: Allen—with huge assists from Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert—has made me entirely reconsider how college quarterbacks should be scouted moving forward.)
And yet, it was only within the past couple of weeks that I was telling a cousin about my worries regarding a regression from Allen this season. After all, no quarterback in NFL history finished a season with 4,400+ yards passing and 700+ rushing yards (Allen finished with 4,407and 763 last year).
From a purely long-term statistical standpoint, that type of production felt like an outlier. Plus, future opponents of the Bills, having seen what Allen did last season (especially in the AFC Championship game), would try to conjure up some type of game plan exclusively focused on limiting Allen’s singularly destructive abilities. And Buffalo would have to counter the countermeasures made by said opponents without the resourcefulness of Brian Daboll, who left to take the head coaching position for the New York Giants.
But, as is so often the case: I look like an idiot—yet again—for buying into any of that.
Not only did Allen have his way with the Rams’ offense last week (a whopping 94% of his passes were considered to be on-target), but he seemingly do so at will. What makes it even more alarming (for future opponents and opposing defensive coordinators) was that the Rams’ game plan involved using a lot of two-deep or three-deep coverage shells, forcing the rocket-armed Allen to repeatedly take the boring underneath stuff, and daring him to remained disciplined enough to beat their defense that way — and he did so, in merciless fashion.
Here’s a great example. Los Angeles literally rushed five and dropped six, basically forcing Allen to either wait for something underneath to come open, or make a play with his legs. Was that a misguided strategy? Considering this play ended in Allen delivering the stiff arm that sent Rams’ safety Nick Scott straight to the depths of Tartarus, you should be able to answer that question yourself.
In general, Allen made the Rams entire game plan look like a colossal misfire, because he methodically, efficiently, and ruthlessly gashed Los Angeles with the short stuff. 18 of his 20 passing attempts in the first half went for 12 yards or less, and he completed 17 of them. Over the aggregate, Allen got the ball out out of his hands in less than 2.2 seconds after the ball was snapped.
And as the Rams’ defense started to lose their downfield coverage discipline, given the way they were getting gashed underneath, that opened the door for situations like Allen chucking the ball 55 yards in the air—delivering that throw while scrambling, mind you—right over the heads of the entire Los Angeles defense.
Despite a rather wretched performance for most of the game, the Rams were still hanging around in the fourth quarter; we’ve seen countless instances where a two-touchdown lead can evaporate in a handful of minutes in the final stanza.
But returning back to the original metaphor: upon watching Allen’s final moonshot (putting the Bills up by a three-touchdown margin), McVay and company might as well have thrown their (metaphorical) video game controllers across the room in realizing there’s basically nothing you can do to overcome the Matrix-bending performance of your opponent.
What’s even more terrifying in all of this is the that new offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey could further unleash even more of Allen’s still-latent talents, while devising a scheme that continues to keep opposing defenses off balance.
To be clear, there’s still a long, long season ahead, with plenty of football left to be played.
But it’s got to be a terrifying feeling for future opponents of the Bills this season, if Allen continues to discard and dismantle the NFL’s mightiest defensive heroes in the manner he’s currently doing so. ■
2022 NFL Picks — Week 2
My picks in bold
LA Chargers at Kansas City (-4)
Washington at Detroit (-1)
Miami at Baltimore (-3.5)
NY Jets at Cleveland (-6.5)
Tampa Bay (-2.5) at New Orleans
New England (-2) at Pittsburgh
Indianapolis (-3.5) at Jacksonville
Carolina at NY Giants (-1.5)
Atlanta at LA Rams (-10)
Seattle at San Francisco (-8.5)
Cincinnati (-7) at Dallas
Houston at Denver (-10)
Arizona at Las Vegas (-5.5)
Chicago at Green Bay (-9.5)
Tennessee at Buffalo (-10)
Minnesota at Philadelphia (-2)
Last Week: 10-5