National Football League

Josh Allen outduels Tua Tagovailoa as reminder of who is QB king in AFC East

Updated Oct. 1, 2023 6:17 p.m. ET

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Henry McKenna

AFC East Reporter

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Josh Allen's performance on Sunday seemed to send a warning to the rest of the NFL: Don't forget about me.

Allen and the Buffalo Bills saw the Miami Dolphins put up 70 points last week. Miami briefly held the No. 1 seed in the AFC (and the AFC East). And then Allen and the Bills looked like they were striving to put up the same sum against the Dolphins in Week 4 at Highmark Stadium. Buffalo won 48-20 with Allen accounting for five total touchdowns.

To be clear, he didn't actually send any warnings. In fact, he directly avoided it. He was asked if he had any messages for his naysayers, who ripped him after Week 1.

"Nah," he said at his postgame press conference. "No thank you."

I'll say it for him: It was the best version of Allen, the one that takes what the defense gives him. It's not that he played safe, because he did take some risks. It's just that he didn't have a single what-were-you-thinking moment. The fewer of those, the better Buffalo plays. The Dolphins certainly tried to make Allen play patient, particularly early in the game, where all they gave him — from a coverage standpoint — was the check-down option. And while Tua Tagovailoa made a strong case for MVP consideration over the first three weeks of the season, Allen seems poised to steal away the spotlight after this win.

How did Allen do it? Smart quarterback play. He had more touchdown passes (4) than incompletions (3). He got his team the lead and then never put it in jeopardy with turnovers.

Sometimes that meant checking down to tight end Dalton Kincaid (four catches, 27 yards) or his running backs (who combined for 72 yards). But that didn't mean Allen would abandon the deep shot. It's just that he was more judicious about when he used it. He completed a 34-yard kill shot to a wide-open Gabe Davis in the fourth quarter.

No one — not even the Bills — saw it coming.

"I think that they thought that we would run it to get the clock out, so they just kinda jumped it early. And then I was able to sneak in the back door behind them," Davis said postgame. "Usually that's not the throw. It's usually Dawson [Knox] coming out. 

"So me, being so wide open down the field, it kind of surprised Josh."

It was a great play. Surprising. Exciting. Though maybe not perfectly executed, according to Davis. The hiccup was that Allen underthrew Davis. Had the throw been a little deeper, Davis might have scored a touchdown. So on the sideline, Davis ribbed his teammate for the underthrow.

"You can throw like 80 yards but you threw like 30. What's going on?" Davis said postgame. "So I was messing with him about it because usually that's not a route that pops. So to see it pop like that, it's good."

Champagne problems.

Allen also completed basically every throw to receiver Stefon Diggs, who found himself in single coverage against cornerback Kader Kohou for a shockingly high number of snaps. While Kohou has proven he's a capable slot corner, he was entirely beyond his depth against Diggs, who racked up six catches for 120 yards and three touchdowns. 

"Fun to watch," coach Sean McDermott said postgame of the Diggs-Allen tandem. "Big-time players have big-time games in these types of settings. … Those guys played at that level."

One of Diggs' catches went for 55 yards, when Diggs ran through two missed tackles. He also drew a defensive pass interference penalty that was good for 43 yards. The culprit? Kohou. The Dolphins' second-year cornerback finished the day with two penalties, the other being an unnecessary roughness on Diggs.

Kohou was filling in for Eli Apple, who was filling in for Cam Smith, who was filling in for Jalen Ramsey. And Miami's cornerback depth proved too thin.

"It's a humbling experience, but there's a lot to learn from," Kohou said postgame. "Just like when you have good games you don't let it get to your head. So I don't let bad games get to my head. It was a bad game for sure, but we've still got — what? — 13 more. If I let this game dictate my season, I'm just going to tail receivers."

That matchup might have been the most important one in the game, along with defensive end Gregory Rousseau feasting on left tackles Terron Armstead and Kendall Lamm. (Armstead left the game in the first half with a knee injury.)

But Allen was able to keep it simple. He fed Diggs, who had a massively friendly matchup. (Why didn't Dolphins defensive coordinator Vic Fangio do something to amend this situation? I don't know.) Allen didn't take unnecessary contact. He didn't make unnecessarily risky throws. So far as I could tell, he didn't have any turnover-worthy passes.

It's important to emphasize this smart play, because of what we saw in Week 1. Against the New York Jets in the season-opener, Allen committed four turnovers, including three in the second half. That wasn't so much a Jets win as it was a Bills loss. The blame fell on Allen. It wasn't anything catastrophic. It was simply a wakeup call. Allen made that clear this week. At least, that's what his teammates thought.

"He learned from the mistakes he made," Davis said postgame. "People keep going back to Week 1. It just was a bad day at work. And that's what it was. These days [from Weeks 2 to 4] he's having are normal."

Another element of the Buffalo offense that deserves credit is the run game. Maybe it wasn't incredibly efficient, but the backs were better than the numbers showed, perhaps because of how big a lead the Bills built on the Dolphins. Buffalo had 29 carries for 104 yards and two touchdowns. James Cook might have had just 12 carries for just 29 yards, but he added a 48-yard reception. Allen and offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey seemed to trust the run game more than they did in 2022. That kept the checkdown game relevant for the passing offense. Because the ground game chewed away at about four yards per carry, Allen could dump off the ball for a short gain and still pick up first downs.

It's a team win, for sure. But it was orchestrated through Allen, who is anything but content.

"I still think we have more," Allen said. "We left a lot out there."

The AFC East still goes through Allen. And while everyone was talking about the unstoppable Dolphins offense, it was the Bills who looked more formidable in Week 4. With Allen at the center of their production.

Prior to joining FOX Sports as the AFC East reporter, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna.

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Henry McKenna