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Bills LT heaps praise on QB Josh Allen: ‘Stop playing with his name’

Buffalo Bills left tackle Dion Dawkins had a message for Josh Allen's doubters after the team's Week 1 win.

Kyle Silagyi

Jamie Germano/Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / USA TODAY NETWORK
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For a player who is unequivocally one of the NFL’s most talented and prolific, there’s an odd amount of discourse suggesting that Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen is unworthy of his standing among the league’s elite. Rumblings of the conversation are always present, but they’ve been amplified in recent weeks after an ESPN survey of 103 anonymous NFL players determined that Allen is the NFL’s most overrated signal-caller, a patently outrageous claim that, expectedly, evoked pushback from all corners of the sports world.

Most wrote the poll off as, at best, bitter and, at worst, poorly constructed, but the point remains: there’s still a contingent of individuals who do not believe that Allen is one of the league’s best quarterbacks, this despite the fact that the 28-year-old has earned NFL MVP votes in three of the last four seasons and is the only player in league history to best 40 total touchdowns in four consecutive campaigns. The quarterback didn’t let the survey impact him, instead telling Adam Schein that he viewed it as a “term of endearment” and that he was “just going to keep playing football the way [he] know[s] how to play it.”

Related: Bills teammates react to QB Josh Allen’s touchdown hurdle: ‘That’s our Josh!’

And play football the way he knows how to play it is exactly what he did in Buffalo’s Week 1 win over the Arizona Cardinals, totaling four touchdowns as he passed for 232 yards and rushed for another 39. Among his scores was a six-yard fourth-quarter scamper in which he leaped over Arizona safety Budda Baker en route to the house, an impressive display of athleticism that, at this point, is a trademarked Allen play.

The touchdown hurdle expectedly sparked a lively reaction from his teammates, with three-time Pro Bowl left tackle Dion Dawkins being among those who were excited by Allen’s score. He spoke about his quarterback’s touchdown after the game, essentially telling naysayers that their schtick is tiresome.

“He shocks me every time,” Dawkins said. “When he gets airborne, I’m like, ‘Josh, please bro, please.’ But he does it. It looks good, it feels good, and he gets up. I’m happy that Josh is 17 and 17 is Josh. I love him, and he continues to show the world to stop playing with his name. Stop playing with him. Yes, yes, we get it, we get it, we get it, but 17, that boy is a dog. He is a dog, man, and I ride for him.”

Buffalo’s starter at left tackle since midway through his 2017 rookie season, Dawkins has protected Allen’s blindside throughout the entirety of the passer’s professional career; he’s, thus, watched the quarterback develop from an athletically gifted, but mechanically unrefined passer into a worldbeater of a player, an individual who teammates can’t help but want to play for. Allen’s doubters will likely focus on the quarterback’s first-quarter fumble as their takeaway from this contest, but the Buffalo faithful will take a 4:1 touchdown-to-turnover ratio any day of the week; the quarterback will have his next opportunity to add to his touchdown total this Thursday night when the Bills take on the Miami Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium.

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Kyle Silagyi
KYLE SILAGYI

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