The Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen is the only quarterback in the league this season to throw a touchdown on five percent of his passes or more while also throwing an interception on three percent or more. He is the primary reason that Buffalo is the most volatile offense in the conference, prone to frequent mistakes but usually with the firepower to make up for it.
The question is how deep a hole they can dig for themselves that they can still climb out of. The Pittsburgh Steelers hope to find out, and S Eric Rowe, one of Allen’s longtime adversaries as a member of both the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins, shared his insight on how to play him.
“Getting that pressure on him. If you let him sit in the pocket, he has arm talent for days, for years”, he said on NFL Total Access. “He’s mobile. He can run. Getting the pressure on him, getting him flustered [is key]. Going against him every year, he’s a big trash talker. Try to get in his head first. He might not say it flusters him, but it will. Just getting that pressure on him, just don’t let him sit back there”.
Rowe was in his final season with the Patriots in 2018 when Allen was drafted, but he spent the next four years in the Dolphins. Almost his entire career after his rookie season and up until now has been spent in the AFC East so he knows Allen and the Bills quite well.
It’s not exactly a secret that Allen likes to talk trash. You can do a little bit of googling yourself if you’d like to see his history, some of it recent, and including names like Jalen Ramsey. He once told former Green Bay Packers DB Rasul Douglas that he’s…um…not very good. And then the Bills traded for him.
One does wonder how easy he might be to get to verbally. Rowe speaks as though he has some experience rattling Allen in the past. He’s never picked off the Bills quarterback—in fact, he’s 1-6 against him, with one pass defensed. But it’s not like the Dolphins were a good team for most of that time.
One thing I don’t think we really need to worry about is Allen’s trash talk getting to the Steelers. This is a veteran defense full of players who have seen and done it all. Aside from DL Keeanu Benton, the only real rookie is CB Joey Porter Jr., who has trash talk in his genes.
More important than flustering him with words will be doing so with actions. The pass rush will have to be not only aggressive but also disciplined because Allen is more than capable of burning a defense with his legs. He rushed for 15 touchdowns this year. He’s a big body with a big mouth. But force him into mistakes and see how big he is then. He’s not unflappable.
