Bills' Josh Allen has huge praise for 'everybody eats' mentality after offensive onslaught against Jacksonville
Everybody eats. Always and forever.It's the new mantra that's been used in meeting rooms of the Buffalo Bills offense since early in the offseason, as the Bills have somehow perfectly mastered addition by subtraction.Typically, when you lose your No. 1 wide receiver, it's not a good thing. Whether it was Joe Brady's idea before or […]
Everybody eats. Always and forever.
It's the new mantra that's been used in meeting rooms of the Buffalo Bills offense since early in the offseason, as the Bills have somehow perfectly mastered addition by subtraction.
Typically, when you lose your No. 1 wide receiver, it's not a good thing. Whether it was Joe Brady's idea before or after Stefon Diggs was traded is currently not known, but the offensive coordinator has the entire unit bought in on a mentality that leads to prosperity for all.
Khalil Shakir looks to be emerging as the team's No. 1 wide receiver. He's a stud, I've been pounding the table for him since early summer, and I believe he's deserving of that badge. Josh Allen sure does love him as well.
"I mean, I can say this over and over, he's a freaking football player. He's like, emphasis on football, um, he loves the game. He does things the right way. He's so selfless in his approach," Allen said of Shakir following Monday's big performance. "Throughout the week, he may get two passes during practice. And again, he just keeps finding ways to be in the right spot at the right time, and he makes place. And that's just kind of his MO I freaking love him. I'm so proud of him and his trajectory that he's done in his career so far, we got a lot of work to do, a lot, a lot to learn from and grow from, and that's where I'm excited because, again, he's just a football player. He does things the right way, and you can't help but root for the guy."
Shakir finished the game with six catches on six targets for 72 yards and a touchdown, which, in typical Shakir fashion, featured a ton of yards after the catch. Shakir now has caught all 14 of his targets for 168 yards and two scores through three games.
I believe he's the team's WR1, but not in the traditional sense. Shakir isn't your prototypical X or boundary wide receiver that's going to command a massive target share, that you're going to throw the ball up to on sideline jump ball situations and say "there it is, go get it." He's a route runner, a separator, and a weapon after the catch. And while he's currently leading the team in targets, something that should continue as the season progresses, Allen doesn't seem to feel any sort of pressure to get the ball to him.
"I think paying dividends on what we've worked on throughout the entire offseason and through training camp, of the 'everybody eats' mentality," Allen said. "And again, it could be your play, this play, you never know when it's going to happen. And that's the beauty of it, when guys get to buy into this and really understand, like, I may not get the ball four or five times thrown to me a game, but the one or two times I do, I'm gonna have opportunities to be in the end zone."
"And you know, it's a fun and wonderful thing when you have a bunch of guys that don't care about the stats, they don't care about the touchdowns. And again, I think throughout practice, we just had this mindset of like, hey, let's just do things the right way and find ways to win football games," Allen continued.
It's all in harmony, it's all balanced. Allen sees a true team of playmakers that are selfless about how they go about things, and that understand that the only thing that matters at the end of the day is winning football games.
In Monday night's game, Allen completed passes to 10 different players. Two players had only one target, Shakir led the way with six, and seven other players all saw multiple targets in between. It's about as even a distribution as you're going to see in today's NFL, and it led to six different players scoring touchdowns in a 47-10 route.
Through three weeks, it's safe to say that the "everybody eats" Buffalo offense has plenty of food to go around.
Follow along all season for all the latest Buffalo Bills news. You can also find me on X @JonHelmkamp.
