Brian Daboll can't say enough about his former QB, Bills' Josh Allen
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, left, talks with offensive coordinator Brian Daboll before an NFL football game against the New England Patriots in Orchard Park, N.Y., Monday, Dec. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus) Credit: AP/Adrian Kraus
Giants coach Brian Daboll can be a man of few words when answering questions from reporters. To many queries, a one-word answer is likelier than a soliloquy. Occasionally, he elaborates.
That was the case when Daboll was asked, ahead of Sunday night’s game in Buffalo, what he sees in Bills quarterback Josh Allen now compared with when he was coaching Allen two years ago.
(Daboll left the Bills, and Allen, to become the Giants’ coach in January 2022.)
“Josh Allen is an unbelievable player, one of the best in the league,” Daboll said. “You can put him in probably any offense and he’s going to produce. You know, I miss him as a person, we are close, but as a player, he’s a heck of a player. Put on any tape, he’s exceptional at everything.
“He can run [and] he can throw it and he can throw it wherever he needs to throw it — 80 yards down the field, drop a dime, on the move, to the right, put it back across his body, scramble, back up, scramble around, throw it out, throw it on time.”
Whew.
That might be Daboll’s longest answer to a single question since he was introduced as Giants coach.
Daboll referred to Bills wide receivers Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis as “unbelievable players.”
And, significantly, he observed that the Bills’ “offensive line is intact.”
If only the Giants were as fortunate with the state of their linemen.
Daboll ended his assessment of the Bills with this about Allen: “He’s one of the best in the league. And he makes you better as a play-caller, too. So he’s one of a kind.”
Allen flourished under Daboll’s coaching from 2018-21.
“He’s meant so much to me in my football career and in my life, for that matter,” Allen said this past week. “I spent a lot of time with him.”
In Allen’s rookie year, he threw for 2,074 yards, 10 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.
In Daboll’s final year as the Bills’ offensive coordinator, Allen threw for 4,407 yards, 36 touchdowns and 15 interceptions.
Now with offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey, Allen has continued to excel this season. He
has completed 73.1% of his passes, which leads the league. He’s thrown five interceptions, three of them in the season opener against the Jets.
If Daboll is a bit wistful, one can’t blame him. The Giants listed an untenable 17 players on their injury report Friday, including quarterback Daniel Jones, who has a neck injury. He was ruled out of Sunday’s game.
In his years in Buffalo, Allen has found his voice and his place. He is every bit of what is expected from a franchise quarterback. And that role, at times, has included defending Diggs, a terrific player whose frustrations sometimes get the better of him.
That was the case last week in London, where the Bills lost to the Jaguars, 25-20.
After one play, Diggs slammed a tablet on the ground. (Giants fans also know about such tablet escapades.) And his actions apparently were criticized by some.
“He’s a fiery competitor,” Allen said. “I’m tired of hearing all this nonsense from people. Frankly, it kind of ticks me off when people want to say stuff about him.”
Allen said that Diggs, in that moment, was angry at himself for running a wrong release on a route.
When Allen talks, Buffalo listens.
There may be no other quarterback in the league who has the kind of relationship that Allen has with the hometown fans.
When Allen’s grandmother died in November 2019, Bills Mafia showed support for their quarterback and his family by donating $1.4 million to Buffalo’s John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital.
A year later, the hospital honored Allen’s grandmother, unveiling the Patricia Allen Pediatric Recovery Wing. Allen toured the 10th-floor wing, which also honors the 27,000 fans who donated to the Patricia Allen Fund with a playroom called the “Bills Fans Fun Zone.”
Allen chose Buffalo as his long-term football home in August 2021 when he and the Bills agreed to a six-year contract extension that has a maximum value of $258 million, with $150 million of that guaranteed.
Allen is the Bills’ quarterback because he was drafted there and wears the uniform. He’s part of the Buffalo community because he’s chosen to be. And on Sunday night, Bills fans will be happy to have Allen on their side.
Daboll remembers those days fondly.
Kimberly Jones covers the Giants for Newsday, a beat she first worked in the early 2000s before joining the YES Network to cover the Yankees. She worked for the NFL Network for more than a decade and has been heard semi-regularly on WFAN.