With the departure of wide receivers Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis this past offseason, many thought the Buffalo Bills offense would be taking a giant step backwards in 2024.
To the contrary, the Josh Allen-led Bills offense has been humming through three games this season. It has looked as good as ever—culminating this past Monday when they put up 47 points with 388 total yards and zero turnovers.
The Bills’ new “everybody eats” mentality has allowed its offense to utilize their high-efficiency pass catchers. In fact, the Bills top-3 receivers this season, Khalil Shakir, Dalton Kincaid and James Cook have caught 88.2% of their targeted passes. That is over 20% higher than any season in the Josh Allen era:
The “new look” Bills offense has seen Josh Allen take off his “hero ball” hat and methodically check the ball down for easy receptions that yield high yards after the catch. Allen is giving his pass catchers the opportunity to make plays with their legs as opposed to Allen’s arm.
Allen ranks second in the league in yards after catch (YAC) so far this season after ranking 19th in 2023, 32nd in 2022 and 31st in 2021.
Over the past four seasons, Allen has ranked in the top 10 in Intended Air Yards per Pass Attempt (IAY/PA). This means that he had been chucking the ball downfield, a lot.
This season he ranks 20th in the NFL—proving the fact that he’s been committed to taking the easy check-down to pick up the yards that are given to him.
Allen has bought into new offensive coordinator Joe Brady’s philosophy and it has yielded him a 133.7 QB Rating (best in NFL), 75% completion percentage (2nd in NFL), ZERO interceptions, seven touchdown passes (2nd in NFL) and his team has averaged over 37 points per game (most in NFL).
Most importantly, the entire offense is onboard with Joe Brady’s scheme and the “everybody eats” mentality has led the Bills to move from a “window closed” AFC pretender to a “window wide open” Super Bowl favorite in only three weeks.