Bills QB Josh Allen celebrates a TD pass, Nov. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes)
Chances are you’ve heard this before: The Buffalo Bills look like Super Bowl contenders.
They boast a 6-1 record and currently hold a half-game lead over the Denver Broncos and Pittsburgh Steelers for the top spot in the AFC. It’s quite a familiar position for a team that has spent most of the last eight years at or near the top of the conference, accumulating five consecutive AFC East titles (2020-24) and making seven straight playoff appearances during that time.
The 2026-27 Bills seem destined to be right back there again, but this time, they hope to summit a mountain they haven’t yet been able to climb. They hope to advance to the Super Bowl.
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Much of the credit for Buffalo’s sustained success for the better part of a decade rests on the broad shoulders of quarterback Josh Allen. The 30-year-old Firebaugh, California, native transformed a once-middling franchise into a perennial powerhouse virtually overnight when he was drafted out of Wyoming with the No. 7 overall pick in 2018.
The 6-foot-5, 237-pounder is the NFL’s all-time leader in rushing touchdowns by a quarterback (88), and he’s eclipsed 500 yards rushing in all but one of his professional seasons. Allen was also the 2024 NFL MVP. In his acceptance speech, he delivered a line that has become a catchphrase among Bills fans: “Be good. Do good. God bless, and go Bills.”
Through seven games this fall, Allen has thrown for 1,793 yards with 11 touchdowns and five interceptions. He’s added 270 yards and nine TDs on the ground.
In Sunday’s 36-10 drubbing of the Baltimore Ravens, Allen surpassed the franchise record for passing touchdowns set by Bills legend and Hall of Famer Jim Kelly, and he’s nearing Kelly’s franchise record for passing yards. In the postgame press conference, Allen was asked about the feat.
“To break the records, it’s cool but I understand it’s not just me,” he said. “There’s a lot of guys who have put a lot of work into this, that have helped me get to this spot right here, and I don’t take that for granted, to be the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills. … God’s placed me here for a reason, and I’m gonna continue to trust His plan.”
The acclaim Allen receives for his exploits on the field is often matched by the criticism directed his way for not “winning the big one.” A Super Bowl championship — something Kelly was never able to accomplish — would cement Allen’s legacy as one of the greatest quarterbacks of his generation.
Living with such high expectations is a level of pressure that would crush many people, but Allen has been able to press on in the face of it. It appears he’s turning to God for the strength to endure. At the beginning of the 2025 season, Allen was asked again about the ever-more-glaring missing piece in his growing list of accolades.
“You have to continue to keep giving yourself chances,” he told ESPN. “I feel like one thing that I’ve for sure learned this last offseason is trusting in God’s timing. It’s never wrong, and when it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen, and you just gotta continue to keep putting yourselves in opportunities where it could happen.”
Before this season, Allen was asked in an interview with NFL Network how his thought process around chasing a Super Bowl has shifted in recent years. He admits football glory used to be the most important thing in his life, but getting married, having a daughter, and growing in his faith has changed all that.
“There’s going to be the ups and downs in life,” he said. “I’m a big proponent on, ‘It’ll happen when it happens.’ I’m gonna trust God’s timing when it does. Just gonna keep having fun and playing the game the way that I know how to play it.”
One of the more impactful moments of Allen’s growth in faith was teammate Damar Hamlin‘s terrifying on-field cardiac arrest in January 2023 and subsequent recovery. Hamlin’s initial outlook was incredibly bleak in the hours after his collapse, but he continued to progress rapidly in the days and weeks that followed.
“God is good. He really is,” Allen told CBS Sports after Buffalo’s first game since the incident. “I just urge everybody to keep praying for [Hamlin].”
A few days later, Allen expanded on how God was at work in his heart amid the chaos.
“Kind of a spiritual awakening really for me, and I know for a lot of other people that maybe didn’t have the strongest belief, or wasn’t one of the biggest, strongest Christian followers,” Allen said on “Kyle Brandt’s Basement.” “To see what’s transpired here, it’s a crazy, crazy feeling. It’s something I’ve never felt before.
“… I’ve never been struck like that before from a play, from an experience, from an emotion. It’s never hit me that way before. And look, I’ll be the first to admit, I haven’t been the most devoted Christ-follower in my life, and I’ve had my different beliefs and thoughts and ideas and stuff like that, but something got hold of me there, and it was extremely powerful, [something] that I couldn’t deny.”
Allen said he went to church sometimes as a kid, but had gotten away from the practice as an adult.
“I can’t chalk [the experience with Hamlin] down to anything else but a Higher Power,” he told Kyle Brandt later. “Yeah, I’m extremely moved. I don’t really have the words to explain it.”
Allen has seen the power of God at work in Hamlin’s life, in the lives of his teammates and coaches, and in the lives of millions who followed the heart-wrenching story. Through it, he’s come to recognize that some things are simply more important than winning a Super Bowl, like trusting in God and His timing.
Now, as that truth sinks deeper into his soul by the grace of God, he can pursue a Super Bowl title with open hands rather than succumbing to the crippling pressure. He knows God is in control of all things, not him.
Allen will seek to inch his team a little closer to the Super Bowl in a “Monday Night Football” showdown against one of the NFC’s best teams, the Minnesota Vikings (6-1). Kickoff from Minneapolis is set for 8:15 p.m. ET.
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