Bills QB Josh Allen will square off against Ravens QB Lamar Jackson in a highly-anticipated divisional round matchup today. This offseason, Allen may receive a bump that puts his pay more in line with his Baltimore counterpart and his other peers in the top tier of the league’s signal-callers.
According to Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network (video link), Buffalo could offer Allen a contractual adjustment in the coming months, which sounds as if it would take the form of a raise. The Bills restructured their franchise passer’s deal last March – a standard maneuver that converted salary to signing bonus for cap purposes – though Allen subsequently said he was not looking for an increase in pay.
That is despite the fact that the six-year, $258MM deal Allen signed in 2021 is looking more and more like a team-friendly accord. Not only is Allen under club control through 2028 – he is the only non-Patrick Mahomes passer to have signed for more than five years since the Chiefs icon’s pact was finalized – but his $43MM AAV currently ranks 14th in the league’s QB hierarchy, behind a number of less-accomplished players like Trevor Lawrence and Jordan Love, among others. His $100MM in full guarantees is now outside the top-10.
On the other hand, Allen’s cap charge increases from just over $30MM in 2024 to over $43MM in 2025, and then it spikes to a perhaps untenable ~$64MM in 2026. Some sort of reworking could serve the dual purpose of smoothing out those cap hits while bringing Allen closer to the top of the market.
And he has certainly earned it. While it remains to be seen whether the Wyoming product will land the first MVP award of his career for his 2024 efforts, his consistently excellent play has transformed the Bills from one of the AFC’s doormats to a conference powerhouse.
Since Allen entered the league in 2018, he has piloted Buffalo to a 76-34 regular season record, and the team has reached at least the divisional round of the playoffs in each of the past five years. Like Jackson, his fellow 2018 draftee, the lone knock on Allen is the fact that his club has not yet secured a conference championship, a shortcoming that one of those players will be able to address next week.
In 2024, Allen compiled his lowest passing TDs (28) and passing yards (3,731) totals since 2020, but he led the league in QBR (77.5) and was eighth in traditional quarterback rating (101.4), largely because he was much more careful with the football. He threw just six interceptions – compared to 18 picks in 2023 – and fumbled just five times (the lowest mark of his career). He remained an invaluable asset in the running game, racking up 531 rushing yards (on a 5.2 yards-per-carry average) and 12 rushing scores. That production was in spite of the fact that Allen played through a fractured non-throwing hand for most of the season.
As Rapoport notes, Allen has a great relationship with the Bills, and a revised deal benefiting both parties makes plenty of sense.
Big game tonight! Looking forward to watching it.
It appears the weather will be bearable but scheduling night games in mid winter in that part of the country seems a bit crazy to me. GO BILLS!
Sub freezing weather isn’t my idea of ‘bearable’! It’s 64 in N Florida today.
You should go up to Lake Ontario and take one of those polar plunges…I hear they are very refreshing 🙂
I’ll head to the Caribbean, thanks!
I hate looking at these numbers.
You know what I hate more? Not having Josh Allen.
I think he has proven he can carry a mediocre WR corps so I think that helps offset some of that cost for the future.
Buffalo’s found a ground game led by James Cook, who had a 1,000-yard season. Bills don’t lose when Cook has a 100-yard day.
He got a 1000 yard season in 18 games.
He is fine. Im content with Cook, but Im not paying a RB over mvp candidate QB. Thats silly.
18 week season. 17 games apologies.
What’s the point of a long term deal if they’re just gonna adjust it each year when their guy falls down the list of highest paid? I think he’ll be able to survive at $43m a year.
It’s shocking to think a guy making 43 mill deserves a raise, but this guy does. The thing about Josh though, I’d bet anything I have that he doesn’t take a new deal that eclipses that awful Prescott contract. He wants the team to have cap flexibility.
Its rigged … Chiefs riding the Swifty Hoodoo … can the Bills-Ravens winner prove me wrong?
The biggest winner of the weekend isn’t a quarterback. Eagles vs. Skins in the Linc on Fox for the NFC Championship game, winner to appear in Super Bowl 59 on Fox.
NFC East uber alles.