Here's the thing about having Josh Allen running the show for your team: He can cover up for a whole lot of ills, woes and deficiencies all by himself. Allen possesses the dangerous combination of a powerful arm, respect-worthy ground speed and a let's-see-what-happens attitude that effectively disguises Buffalo's deeper problems.
In a game with an astounding 10 lead changes, Buffalo outlasted Tampa Bay 44-32 almost entirely because of Allen's spectacular heroics. Sunday will look very good on Allen's year-end stat line — three passing touchdowns, three rushing ones — but it only adds to the continuing questions about a team that's a Super Bowl contender with the ability to cough up maddening losses.
What exactly is the identity of the 2025 Buffalo Bills? Who knows? How can you call this team a legitimate Super Bowl contender when it gets blown out by the Falcons and Dolphins … but then again, with Allen in command, how can younot? There's evidence that this is a great team with sloppy mistakes, and then there's evidence that this is an overrated team with occasional highlight-play ability.
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For instance: Buffalo's defense suffered mightily at the hands of Baker Mayfield, who spent most of the first 3 1/2 quarters picking apart the Bills' secondary. Tampa Bay's Sean Tucker carved up Buffalo for 106 rushing yards and two touchdowns. He scored another on a 28-yard reception from Mayfield. But then again, Buffalo's defense stepped up in the game's final moments, forcing first an interception and then a Mayfield fumble to effectively ice the game.
And then there's the receiving corps. On one hand, you've gotKeon Coleman as a healthy scratch, benched and deactivated by Sean McDermott in a message-sending move. On the other, you've got Tyrell Shavers and Ty Johnson on the receiving — pun intended — end of moonshot Allen passes.
Or consider the plight of Mecole Hardman, signed just this week to the practice squad and elevated to the active roster after Coleman's benching. Hardman made a fine first impression by running back a first-quarter kick 61 yards, setting up a Buffalo touchdown. But then he also muffed a third-quarter punt, setting up a Tampa Bay go-ahead touchdown, before leaving the game with a calf injury in the fourth quarter.
And then there's Allen, who can redirect the entire momentum of the game by himself — and did, several times Sunday. But then, "redirecting the momentum" doesn't always mean in a positive direction … like with his early-game desperation heave that ended up in Tampa Bay hands on the Buffalo 10:
🚨 INTERCEPTION ALERT 🚨📺:#TBvsBUFon CBSpic.twitter.com/qroGghyD6c
— Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@Buccaneers)November 16, 2025
Allen finished with 317 yards passing and six total touchdowns, including three on the ground. But he also threw two interceptions that, fortunately for Buffalo, led to only a total of three Tampa Bay points.
The Bills' usual strong run game was nowhere to be seen Sunday. The team's leading rusher until the final minutes of the fourth quarter: Allen. (His third rushing touchdown of the afternoon tied Cam Newton for the most all-time regular-season touchdowns by a quarterback with 75.) That's not exactly a formula for sustainable success, but it worked well enough Sunday against one of the better teams in the NFC.
Buffalo now goes on the road for games against Houston and Pittsburgh before returning home to start December against Cincinnati, followed by a crucial divisional rematch against New England. You'd think that Buffalo should be, at worst, 2-1 in that stretch heading into that Patriots game … but then you remember the way that the Bills rolled over against Miami last week and you reconsider.
As Sunday demonstrated, Allen is capable of winning a game almost entirely by himself, and against a very good team, too. That's a very good asset to have — perhaps the best asset in the league — but how reliable is that when the calendar turns to January? As Buffalo continues to try to keep its Super Bowl window pried open, the Bills still have many questions to answer.