Josh Allen and the Bills may never get a better chance

Deep down, a part of every Buffalo Bills fan knows how this will end.

Josh Allen will lead a heroic touchdown drive to give them a last-minute lead in Sunday's wild-card game. And then the Jacksonville Jaguars will eliminate them from the postseason on a Cam Little 67-yard field goal as time expires.

As in, a kick from 20 yards further out than the one Scott Norwood missed 35 years ago this month to lose Super Bowl XXV. That's the kind of salt in the wound that Bills fans have come to expect.

Perhaps the fates won't be quite so cruel, but the Bills are definitely on Heartbreak Watch. One of this week's most popular takes has been that this season, of all seasons, is when Josh Allen Must Finally Get Over the Hump.

Sorry, is he supposed to stop the run and also throw passes to himself?

The argument that it must be Allen's year is simple. Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson are not in the playoffs. Mahomes has been the Bills' primary postseason tormentor, Burrow knocked Buffalo out once, and Jackson almost did so and was always a threat, especially with Derrick Henry alongside him.

Allen's the only quarterback in the AFC field with a real playoff pedigree, unless you count Aaron Rodgers, who is a pale imitation of his MVP-era self. So this must be Josh Allen's Big Chance.

But the thing about this season's Bills is - not to get too technical - they kind of stink. They aren't bad in the traditional sense - they did win 12 games, after all - but they have glaring weaknesses that are no secret.

On defense, they are terrible against the run. That problem was immediately exposed in the season opener against Henry and the Ravens, when they gave up 238 yards on the ground, and was never really resolved. They gave up 210 rushing yards in a loss to the Falcons and 197 rushing yards in a loss to the Dolphins. They also surrendered 246 yards on the ground to the Patriots but still won that one because, well, Josh Allen. Only four teams - the Jets, Commanders, Giants, and Bengals - gave up more rushing yards per game than the Bills during the regular season.

Is there a scenario where Travis Etienne Jr. and the Jaguars simply gash the Bills' run defense and leave Allen to tap his toes impatiently on the sideline? It's certainly possible, if only because it's already happened to Buffalo so often.

On offense, the Bills have a league-leading rushing attack behind James Cook, and they have the freakish playmaking ability of Allen. Beyond that? Woof.

After slot receiver Khalil Shakir, who was fine, Buffalo's next leading wide receiver was Keon Coleman (38 catches), the former second-round draft pick whose most notable contribution this season was getting benched repeatedly for being late to meetings. Get a watch, Keon.

The Bills' big offseason addition was Josh Palmer, who missed time due to injury and managed fewer than two catches per game when he did play. Other guys like Curtis Samuel and the now-departed Elijah Moore were similarly irrelevant, and Allen spent the year desperately looking for a wideout to find some separation. The situation was so bad that the Bills repeatedly snapped up receivers who had been released (Gabe Davis, Brandin Cooks) in hopes that someone, anyone, could provide Allen with a downfield threat.

No team allowed fewer rushing yards over the regular season than the Jaguars. If they can slow down Buffalo's ground attack, it's not clear that the Bills have a Plan B other than hoping that Allen can run around and make plays. Which he might!

Allen has enough playoff credibility that it's foolish to write off the possibility that he could overcome his team's weaknesses on his own, which he has done more than a few times in recent seasons.

That possibility is also greater against a Jaguars team that isn't exactly battle-tested. Jacksonville's only playoff appearance with Trevor Lawrence was three years ago and he was mercurial, to say the least, tossing five touchdown passes along with five interceptions in his two playoff outings.

Two months ago, Bills fans would have jumped at a first-round matchup against the Jags and their turnover-prone quarterback, but Jacksonville has grown into a team that should be, at the very least, a tough out. Lawrence caught fire down the stretch, and the Jaguars enter the postseason on an eight-game winning streak that includes impressive victories over the Chargers and Broncos.

But Sunday's game shouldn't be a referendum on Allen because we already know that sometimes, it's impossible to do everything on your own.

How about the divisional round in 2021, when he threw for 329 yards and four touchdowns - including a would-be game-winning drive - but lost to Kansas City because Buffalo's defense couldn't come up with a stop? Or how about last year, when he bought time in the dying seconds, made a crazy throw in the direction of Dalton Kincaid, and saw the ball slip through Kincaid's arms? That AFC title game ended in another defeat to the Chiefs. And those Bills teams were better than this one.

Of course this could turn out to be Allen's year. But that's not the same as saying it should be his year.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.