How Bills’ Josh Allen rose from Firebaugh to evolve into one of the NFL’s top quarterbacks
It was a Sunday in January 2020 as fans settled in at the PressBox Sports Grill in northeast Fresno. Among the crowd? A guy named Josh Allen, the kid from nearby Firebaugh who like many there was sitting with friends as an AFC divisional playoff game got underway.
The Kansas City Chiefs, continuing a run that would see them win the Super Bowl a few weeks later, were hosting the Houston Texans.
Josh Allen was on the TV screens, too, that day. Highlights from the previous week included Allen’s Bills facing those same Texans. But instead of getting a chance to stop Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs’ magical journey, Allen’s season had ended.
The Bills lost to the Texans 22-19 in overtime of the wild-card game.
“We were sitting there and enjoying ourselves,” recalls Allen’s friend, Greg Panelli, who trains local athletes. “They showed replays from the week before and reality was setting in. He said they were a few plays away. It gave him a sense of push.”
Whatever the trigger, the lessons learned from the prior season apparently took hold. The former Firebaugh High and Reedley College star has the Bills in this season’s AFC championship game where the defending champion Chiefs await.
Kickoff at Arrowhead Stadium is set for 3:40 p.m. PST Sunday on CBS 47.
Next stop for the winner: Super Bowl LV, which kicks off at 3:30 p.m. PST Sunday, Feb. 7, in Tampa, Fla.
Big opportunity
Allen’s ascendancy comes as no surprise to many in the central San Joaquin Valley, not after all that he overcame to even make the NFL. The Bills made him the seventh overall pick in the 2018 NFL draft.
In each of his first three seasons, Allen has kept working to get better, still overcoming the doubters, and his NFL numbers prove that.
In 2018, Allen threw for 2,074 yards and 10 touchdowns. The totals grew in 2019 to 3,089 yards and 20 TDs.
This season, Allen set another career high and even sparked some MVP talk as he passed for 4,544 yards and 37 TDs while leading the Bills to their first AFC East title since 1995.
He set franchise records for passing yards, completion percentage (69.2%) and passing touchdowns.
Allen remains a two-way danger, with 25 rushing TDs in his first three seasons — second most all-time among NFL quarterbacks.
Key lessons along the way date to his Firebaugh High days and later at Reedley College, where he turned to continue his dream after failing to receive a single offer from an NCAA Division I program.
Even when his big break and life-changing opportunity came at Reedley in fall 2014, patience was required. Allen didn’t start for the Tigers until an Oct. 4 game against Fresno City.
“If I didn’t have to go (to community college), I wouldn’t have,” Allen told The Bee then. “I had no Division I offers, and I really felt like I was a Division I football player. Going the JUCO route helped me get to the situation I wanted.”
In the game against perennial Valley Conference power Fresno City, Allen completed 16 of 25 passes for 275 yards and three touchdowns against one interception and ran 17 times for 57 yards and two touchdowns.
The Tigers lost 49-44, but it turned into a win for Allen. A highlight reel from that game alone might have been enough to finally get him that first D-I offer. After he finished his one-year JUCO career with 2,055 passing yards with 26 touchdowns (seventh in the state), he moved on to the University of Wyoming.
He led the Cowboys, who bottomed out at 2-10 in 2015, to consecutive eight-win seasons and two bowl appearances, culminating in a 37-14 victory over Central Michigan in the Idaho Potato Bowl that earned him game Most Valuable Player honors.
Striving in Buffalo
NFL coaches and opposing players alike have taken notice of Allen’s growth since he entered the league in 2018.
Tons of praise have poured his way.
“This guy has incredible passing ability,” Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden said before taking on Allen and the Bills during the 2020 regular season. “They throw it everywhere. He might throw it out of the stadium if they let him. This guy is really hot right now as a quarterback.
“I don’t know what the stats say, but he’s completing passes to all kinds of receivers on all parts of the field. It’s a lot different because of the way he’s throwing the ball from first down on to the end of the game.”
Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu notes Allen’s rising confidence.
“He’s coming into his own,” Mathieu told reporters in a Zoom teleconference. “He’s definitely growing into his own — more comfortable, more confidence. I was able to play against him in 2018 when I was in Houston — obviously, he was a younger quarterback, but to just see his progression from there to now, he’s clearly one of the better quarterbacks in the league.”
Panelli has been up-close to witness much of that growth, while also getting glimpses of the relationship Allen has built with Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll — sometimes when Allen and Panelli are just hanging out, playing golf or having appetizers at a Fresno-area restaurant.
“(Daboll) will call it seems like at least once a week when we went golfing,” Panelli said. “He’ll give him a shot on FaceTime and catch up with him and see how he is doing. They touch base and keep that good relationship going, not just during the season but in the offseason. I think that is instrumental as far as having a solid foundation with the team and just the growth where he is at.
“He’s treating Josh like the franchise guy where they’re talking about sets and personnel groups, plays and schemes that may work against certain defenses and what they have planned moving forward going into the upcoming season.”
This story was originally published January 23, 2021 at 1:22 PM.
