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00:00Tyler, it's great to have you back on. Sorry that Bulldog is not here for this. I know he
00:03is disappointed to miss you. The story about Josh Allen, which is a few weeks ago now,
00:10or at least a couple, there was the one particular quote that got maybe more attention than anything
00:16else about the excellent piece, and that's Allen referring to, you know, maybe suggesting that
00:23his career might not last as long as we want it to. When I can't play the way I'm used
00:29to or want
00:29to, that'll be it. What was it listening to him, looking at him when he said that? Did the response
00:36to that quote seem commensurate with how you feel like he meant it? Well, I mean, I hopefully wrote
00:44it this way as well. You know, this was, if I remember correctly, we're talking about Denver
00:50and those two plays that were on his mind this particular day. The fumble right before halftime,
00:56the throw to Dawson Knox that he missed, and that's really where the root of all his pain was
01:02in that postgame presser, the tears, the emotion. I think he really felt like, whoa, this is on me,
01:08and he absorbed all the blame. And so, yeah, those two plays are still on his mind. He's thinking
01:15about them. We're chatting about it. And it was me who kind of posed it this way. Like, and obviously,
01:22we've talked about it a million times at Golong and writing about it for a while. I don't know,
01:27like, my personal opinion, like, you've got to let Josh Allen be Josh Allen. This is how
01:33he just took a blowtorch to all of the doubters, you know, back to every college coach not wanting
01:39him out of high school, you know, onto college, you know, Fresno State in the backyard. They don't
01:45even want him multiple times over. Onto the NFL. I mean, the guy's getting mocked and memed and
01:49ridiculed, you know, when he misses a pass in training camp, like, he has been himself
01:55every step of the way. And I always liken it to, like, trying to tell a comedian like Dave
02:01Chappelle, you can't swear. Like, the second you kind of put fear or doubt or, you know,
02:08rules and red tape and construction cones in somebody's mind, like, they're not going to
02:13take the chances they otherwise would. And then you're going to get this stale, bland
02:19version of this artist, this creator. Like, creators must create. And that's how I posed
02:26in so many words to Josh Allen. Like, this is kind of how I've always viewed it. Josh Allen's
02:31got to be Josh Allen. And he, if I remember right, is nodding along. Like, he gets it and
02:37then said, quote, I'm going to play football how I know how to play it until I can't. And when
02:41I can't play it the way I want to play it, it's probably when I'm done. But hopefully
02:44that's still quite some time. So I think I view it as a good thing. Like, if you're
02:49going to win a Super Bowl, if you're going to get to the Super Bowl first, which they
02:51haven't done this era, and then win it, you're not going to do it with a quarterback who is
02:58playing it safe. You're going to do it with Josh Allen's stiff arm and hurdling and, yeah,
03:04taking that chance in a double coverage. Like, everything gets tougher in the playoffs.
03:08You need your quarterback playing purely as he's always intended to play to get there and to win
03:16it. So I think it's a good thing. Now, how long does it last? Who the hell knows? You know,
03:21we've seen the likes of Cam Newton and, you know, I mean, go back to Mike Vick and Russ Wilson
03:27and
03:27the quarterbacks who do use their legs more than most. Things can fall off, you know, into your late
03:3330s. Josh Allen's proven people wrong time and time again. I don't think he's close to falling
03:40off that cliff. Very interesting for so many reasons. Allen doesn't, in my opinion, Tyler,
03:47Allen doesn't have to keep up his rushing pace to qualify as playing the way he wants to or does
03:56already. Like, we're talking about over 100 rushes a year for seven straight years. I mean,
04:03an insane 79 touchdowns. I don't think he needs to even eclipse half that for him necessarily to feel
04:09like he's diminished. You know, I mean, it could just be sort of how you evolve. And so I would
04:17say
04:17that about him that, I mean, Newton was out of the league at 33. Like, I feel like we're not,
04:23we're not trying to scare anybody here. You don't sense that Allen gave off in this interview,
04:28which also, by the way, he talked about, I think probably very genuinely just his devotion to
04:35trying to win a championship here. And you'll talk about that maybe next, but I don't think we're
04:40like near the end. How about that? No, no, not at all. And you know, the Cam Newton comparison gets
04:47thrown around a lot. Maybe the better comparison. And I heard this from the Hall of Famer himself. I mean,
04:53he sees himself in Josh Allen. It's Brett Favre, you know, who started 321 games in a row,
05:00including the playoffs. Josh Allen has the longest current streak for current quarterbacks at 142.
05:06I mean, he played the last month of the last season with a broken fifth metatarsal in his foot.
05:12I've never heard teammates talk about a quarterback the way they do Josh Allen. I mean, they would run
05:17through a wall for this guy. Been in a lot of different locker rooms, covered a lot of different teams.
05:21It's rare. It's special. And this is why. Like, he plays through pain. He plays through stuff that
05:27very few quarterbacks do. Let's just be real. There's been contemporaries of Josh Allen who
05:33missed games late in the season. And who are we to say what the pain threshold is for different
05:39players, different quarterbacks? All we know is Josh Allen has played through a lot. And I think that
05:45that endears himself to teammates. And Brett Favre was playing really damn good football late in his
05:51career. You know, 07 with the Packers. They're an OT interception away from the Super Bowl. But he's
05:58unbelievable that year. 09 with the Vikings. Same deal. An OT away from the Super Bowl. But he was
06:04incredible that year. One of his best statistical seasons. So very similar arms. Arm strength can age
06:11well. And say what we will about Aaron Rodgers. I mean, his arm's still really dang good. And he's
06:16starting to quarterback in this league. So I think the shelf life is strong for Josh Allen. And more
06:22than anything, physical. And I hope people have this takeaway when they read the story at
06:28golongtd.com. It's where Josh Allen is mentally. You know, we all saw him in that postgame with the
06:34emotions, with the tears. And you couldn't help but wonder, where is he right now? It looked like
06:39somebody who, frankly, didn't want to play for the Buffalo Bills. And who could blame
06:44him? I mean, it's just another playoff loss. Again, bashing your head against it in a different
06:50way. And so, to me, I think the takeaway is he is in a fantastic place in mind, body and
06:59spirit with a new coach, a new stadium, a new receiver, and best of all, a new daughter.
07:04And you can just see how he's reborn, how this has completely rejuvenated him in a million
07:09ways, you know, this next stage of his career as he's now a 30-year-old quarterback.
07:14Not sure if you agree, Tyler, that that emotion in the locker room was some reflection that
07:22he probably felt his coach was cooked after that loss. But I don't know, not everybody would
07:27subscribe to that theory. One thing about that game that stands out in his playoff career
07:32is that, I mean, he turned the ball over four times. And he would naturally have more
07:38frustration and whatever else, emotionally, internally, from his performance. We had that
07:45phase for a couple of years where we all tried to sort of correct the so-called national narrative
07:51that these playoff losses were on him at all. And you look at his stats and he's like the
07:56best playoff quarterback we've ever had. But they're just, you know, wildcard games, divisional
08:01round games. But it wasn't like he stacked up turnovers. And he's had to kind of reverse
08:08or just try to correct that reputation from when he came into the league that he was sort
08:13of a wild man and there'd be all these, quote, mistakes. But the Denver game was different
08:17in that way. The Denver game, there were five turnovers by the Bills, two lost fumbles from
08:22him and two picks. So it's not, it's different. That game is different in his career, you know,
08:29his past. Totally. I think that you're on to it completely. I mean, he started 15 playoff
08:38games, his passer rating of 101.5. It trails only Mahomes, Kurt Warner, and Bart Starr for
08:46quarterbacks with at least five starts. He's thrown for 3,915 yards, rushed for 767, scored
08:53139 touchdowns, only has six interceptions. So big picture, I don't know what else he can do in
09:00these games. He's doing enough. He shouldn't have to be perfect. I get it. Yes, the offense had the
09:07ball late in a lot of these games. At some point, the defense should throw him a bone and get
09:13a stop.
09:14You know, we've gone back to 13 seconds time and time again. These losses, they've left some scars.
09:20So it was probably the buildup of that all. And yeah, feeling a little guilt like this, this time
09:25it's on me in his head. You know what though? I think that Josh Allen is really approaching
09:31this season, 20, 26 at age 30, similar to how he approached the sport itself back, back at age 18.
09:39Like he told me, I don't want to go down as the best to never win a championship. That's not
09:44something
09:45to be proud of. You get the sense he does kind of hear the whispers out there, the grumblings,
09:50out there that this one's on him and he owns it. And out of high school, look, this is somebody
09:57that didn't have any stars. As everyone knows, no, no offers out of high school. And then
10:03he tears it up at Juco. Talked to his Juco OC for this story. Some great stories there.
10:08Got an offensive lineman, got kicked out of the dorm. Josh just took him in, let him live
10:12with him for a month. You know, even, even then, you know, barely anybody wanted him when
10:17he sent out those thousand plus emails. So I think he's approaching like this obstacle
10:23now winning a Superbowl, exactly how he approached just trying to play for a division one college
10:28football team way back when his emails, you know, they're treated like a Nigerian Prince
10:33scammer. Like nobody's even reading them. Nobody's even cared. Nobody wants them. And by force
10:38of Will gets to Wyoming and changes everything. Yeah. Maybe he needed to code those emails
10:43differently or because people might've just put them in a, they hit the spam folder or
10:47whatever. I mean, there've got to be some regrets with Tyler Dunn, golongtd.com. So through all
10:54this, what do you think of their chances at this point with Joe Brady on top? I mean, I think
11:01there is the case to be made that it's the same play caller and maybe much of what the
11:08bills have been on offense will be similar. I mean, there's always a couple of new players.
11:13You have DJ more now, as you alluded to earlier, that's different, but also depending on how you
11:19want to see it at this point, until we have games, you're going to make your own assumptions
11:24about what Brady couldn't do that he would have wanted to do, where he was not like the
11:29ultimate boss in this. And that's been one of the more interesting discussions to have
11:34this off season is like, all right, well, how much of that was there? So what's your feeling
11:39about how this is going to go?
11:44There's, you know, there's no way to tell how any first time NFL head coach is, is going
11:51to react because everything's great now, right? That down with Joe Brady, Brandon being Josh
11:56Allen for different stories. And you can follow the logic of everything. You just don't, don't
12:03know when, when the team is health four and four, whatever the record could be in the middle
12:08of the season and scrutiny is getting louder. How does a head coach in that position react?
12:15How do they react in the course of a game? You know, there's a minute left. It's fourth
12:19and three you're at midfield. You know, you're running those numbers to your head, Mike, and
12:23you're going to talk about it on Monday morning. They've got to make that decision now, like
12:28in the snap of a finger, you can talk about it. You can think about it. And then all these
12:32head coach interviews, they, they, they simulated that experience and they had a pretty good sense
12:38that Joe Brady could react the right way in those situations. You don't know until you see
12:43it, but I'll, I'll say this. I think that nothing in sports matters more, no relationship
12:48in sports matters more than the one between a head coach and a quarterback. And this relationship
12:55is really, really strong. Um, and it started way back in 2022. Joe told the story of, you
13:01know, he's walking into that room, first quarterback meeting. He'd just been fired by Carolina and
13:07he's, he's trying to basically hit reset on his coaching career. He's nervous. He's uptight,
13:11very rigid and Josh Allen just cracks a joke that he couldn't repeat. And our interview
13:17and it completely lightens the mood. Everybody's laughing. They're off and running. I think that
13:22it's not just the case of a, you know, an inmate running the asylum or anything like that either.
13:28I think that Joe Brady and Josh Allen have gotten to a point where there's a lot of love
13:32there and it's a real relationship. So he can be hard on him now. And when he's hard on him,
13:37I think the quarterback will take it in the right way. Like Joe Brady said, I'll be yelling
13:41him on the sideline. There'll be times where I get on him. I think that what matters more in sports,
13:45they finally got right. And that's a hell of a place to start. Well, that's one thing not to just
13:52be the same way about Allen on every topic, but, or every, every, from every angle, but he just,
13:58to me seems so believable. Like why, why do the players respect him so much for durability,
14:05playing through the broken foot bone and everything else? Because he seems, I think
14:10he's just seems so believable, whether it's winning a championship or the effort he's willing
14:15to put in. I wonder, do you think that that's changed from him? Was he always, maybe I'm wrong
14:19in the first place, but if I'm not, did he, did he become this player where, okay, well I'm, I'm
14:26good
14:27and I'm the quarterback. So it has to be that I set the standard here. I'm willing to do that.
14:31Did that, did that evolve in him in your, in your mind or did he sort of show up that
14:36way?
14:38I think it's really innate. It's in him. He's been this way since fireball, right, right,
14:45right on to Juco, right, right on to Wyoming to Buffalo. It's yeah. He, I asked him where,
14:52where that toughness comes from. And it really does start back there on the ranch, right?
14:56Working for his dad, seeing him moving irrigation pipe and, and doing God knows what to keep
15:02that farm going through all those different droughts. I think that that, that toughness
15:06is absolutely just who he is. And he's not going to think twice. If he can, if he can play,
15:12unless something is, is broken, fractured, you literally can't do a thing. If you can shoot
15:20yourself up and throw yourself out there and you're willing to deal with the pain on Monday,
15:24when that's when the pain that's we're off, some players are willing to make that negotiation with
15:29the sport and some aren't. And Josh Allen's always been the type that has been, I think.
15:35GolongTD.com is more than just Josh Allen and Joe Brady, as Tyler has proven for, for years now.
15:40What's next for you this summer?
15:44Yeah. So I, I've been traveling a lot, Mike went to, uh, let's see,
15:49Minnesota down to Miami for a few days. I mean, that's an interesting team. They,
15:54gosh, they're eating almost 200 million and move on from all these players starting,
15:58starting from scratch. So it was really interesting to, uh, talk to players and some sources around
16:04that team to see what in the hell happened with Tua, Mike McDaniel, and, and, uh, a really promising
16:09group to now completely starting over. So that's a story we'll have down the line. I was in Minnesota
16:16watching Kyler Murray. I mean, it can, can you just install this former number one pick who washed
16:22out in Arizona. Basically they're looking for the next Sam Darnold, right? If only they had Sam
16:27Darnold in the building. Uh, but that's an interesting team. And I'll be heading out to,
16:32uh, Detroit in the future. God, they're kind of the forgotten group. So definitely all over the place
16:38and try to cover that league through, uh, you know, different long form lens and stuff that's
16:43out there. Talking about Allen and just the last decade of quarterbacks in the NFL to think there
16:48could possibly be a sentence that holds water. We're looking for the next Sam Darnold. That's
16:53where we're at as an organization, but I get it. I mean, Superbowl winner. That's so funny,
16:59isn't it? I mean, that's a rag on him, but for Allen not to have been to one and Jackson
17:04not to
17:05have been to one with their stacks of MVP awards. And here you've got Darnold and he was not a
17:09passenger. I mean, he, he was, he was great. Really interesting. I mean, they're hoisting him on
17:16their shoulders when they beat green Bay in Minnesota late that season. Yeah. He's got
17:21to go water all over the place. They're, they're singing many men by 50 cent. Like everything's
17:25great. And then they lose the next week. They lose in the playoffs. There's the door. It is a
17:32crazy sports story. You had him in your building. Love it. Tyler, thank you very much for today.
17:37Go long TD.com for everybody tuning in. Talk to you next time. Anytime, man. Thanks so much for
17:44having me. You're welcome. Tyler.
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