Josh Allen Saves The Buffalo Bills

Buffalo Bills Fans Think Josh Allen Might Have Saved The Franchise

The NFL Buffalo Bills have a wall of heroes, posted on a ring around the inside of High Mark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York. It’s a list of legends from the storied franchise; Cookie Gilchrist, Joe Ferguson, Jim Kelly, even OJ is up there.

There will be a new name there in the near future, Josh Allen. Some fans think it should be on the outside of the new stadium being built for the team.

The Bills are a small market NFL team, second smallest only behind the City of Champions Green Bay Packers. The Bills market size is around 632,000 people, and Highmark Stadium holds 71,608 people.

Since Allen first suited up in his #17 Bills uniform, five years ago, Buffalo has played nine Monday Night games. It took them nineteen years to play that many games before Allen. They’ve played twelve Sunday night games. It took twenty-four years for them to play twelve games pre-Allen. The renewed relevance of this small market team can be attributed directly to Allen and his Superman play on the field. He’s a needle-moving Q-Rating machine. When he plays, people watch.

NFL teams move for greener grass, especially when they can’t fill stadiums and generate local revenue. Owners get fidgety when local governments don’t support the team (with tax incentives to build new venues). In 1999, rumors that the Bills would leave Buffalo filled the air in Western, New York (two years prior the Browns bolted for Baltimore, to replace the Colts who left a decade earlier). They were coming off a 6-10 season, missing the playoffs. The stars of the team, who propelled the franchise to four straight Super Bowls were moving on, retiring or being traded.

Along came Doug Flutie. He started fifteen games for the Bill in 1999, winning eleven. They went to the playoffs as favorites (losing to the Tennessee Titans in the Music City Miracle). It would be the final season that Bruce Smith, Andre Reed, and Thurman Thomas were on the team together. All three were released at the end of the season due to salary cap issues.

The Bills wouldn’t get back to the playoffs until 2017.

Flutie filled Rich Stadium with his inspired play, his David versus Goliath routine. He sold jerseys, he prevented TV blackouts, they made a breakfast cereal bearing his name, Flutie Flakes. He might have saved the franchise in Buffalo.

In 2014 Bon Jovi and none other than Donald Trump sought to buy the team. Bon Jovi failed when it was learned he would try to move the team to Canada. Trump couldn’t get a bank to loan him the cash. But the rumors started again that the Bills were for sale and ripe to be located to a larger market.

Josh Allen has put a stop to all that chatter. He’s a marketing, seat-selling, NFL prodigy, and the Western New York has responded to his mega-stardom. The Buffalo Bills’ New Highmark Stadium, nicknamed “The Pit,” is under construction in Orchard Park, New York. Designed by Populous, it will seat 62,000 fans and feature a grass surface. The project, costing over $2.1 billion, is scheduled to open for the 2026 NFL season.

A lot of fans believe the stadium would not have been built without the newfound popularity of the team, the Buffalo Bills mafia, and the play of the best quarterback in the NFL.