The Buffalo Bills face a crucial offseason in the coming months as they aim to build on a promising season where they won the AFC East and were a mere seconds away from a second consecutive trip to the AFC Championship game.
For Bills general manager Brandon Beane, he has a number of dilemmas to address in the free agency period and the draft. But among his top orders of business will be to provide Allen with some more breathing room in the backfield.
“First thing, I'm going to try and protect him,” Beane said, per Bills.com. “As I said earlier, I have to make sure the O-line is set and that we're confident in them. But beyond that, always looking for the various pieces.”
The Bills offensive line sure had quite an up-and-down campaign over the 2021 season. The unit did notch a 64 percent pass block win rate, which ranked eighth in the NFL over the campaign. Allen was sacked 26 times in 17 regular season games played, although his sack total may have been much more if he did not bolster the prowess to scramble out of the pocket and improvise plays while on the run.
More so, only three Bills offensive linemen featured in at least 90 percent of snaps on offense in the season. For one, right tackle Daryl Williams was once again a reliable pass blocker in his second season in Buffalo. He wound up logging 1,172 total snaps played, which led all Bills offensive players.
Beane is at the least set to face one notable dilemma with the team’s offensive line, as guard Ike Boettger will become an unrestricted free agent in March. He ended up missing the Bills’ playoff run after being placed on injured reserve in December due to an Achilles injury.
Nonetheless, Beane may have big plans in store for the offseason in the coming months. However, as he noted on the “What’s Next with Eric Wood” podcast, he is not much intrigued with the idea of following the Los Angeles Rams’ blueprint of making all-in, win-now moves.
“But yes, if there’s the right opportunity to add a good player and we can fit him in our cap and it makes sense and it’s not a one year– I’m not really into the one year, all or nothing type of thing because you can do that, and one or two things go wrong, get the wrong person injured or just things happen,” Beane said.
A decisive offseason sure awaits Beane and the Bills front office. It is well evident that the team is structured to win now, especially as Allen has now hit the prime years of his career. Whether it was in the regular season road win over the New England Patriots or his pivotal performance in the AFC divisional round clash against the Kansas City Chiefs, he sure proved that he can be relied upon to rise to the occasion in the Bills’ biggest games of their season.
Still, Beane’s task to get the most out of the best days of Allen's run in the NFL may end up being an effortless one due to one notable reason.
“People want to join a quarterback like Josh Allen,” Beane said.
It sure will be noteworthy to see whether Beane can haul in any big-name free agents in the upcoming offseason.