Josh Allen carried the Buffalo Bills back into the playoffs this season, but with a looming cap hit in 2024, the franchise's Super Bowl window might have already closed.
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It's almost as if the story never changes for the Buffalo Bills and their fans. Another year, another brutal playoff loss to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. These two teams have been the class of the AFC over the past half-decade, but there's a clear No. 1-2 hierarchy. They've met in three of the past four playoffs, with Kansas City winning each time. This time, the Bills finally got to play at home, but the Chiefs still got the job done.
But there's always next year, right? That might not be the case thanks to Josh Allen's massive cap hit in 2024.
Josh Allen cap hit by season:
2019 -- $4.8M (lost Wild Card)
2020 -- $5.9M (lost Conf Champ)
2021 -- $10.2M (lost Divisional)
2022 -- $16.4M (lost Divisional)
2023 -- $18.6M (lost Divisional)
2024 -- $47.1MIt's about to get much, much harder.
— Paul Hembekides (Hembo) (@PaulHembo) January 22, 2024
The harsh reality is that things are likely to get worse in Buffalo before they get better. And if things become as bad as is seems they might, the Bills' championship window could be as good as closed. These strong-but-not-quite-good-enough seasons have all come with quarterback Josh Allen being severely underpaid relative to the caliber of his play, allowing Buffalo to build a great roster around him. That's ending next year, as Allen is owed just short of $50 million in 2024, compared with just $18.6 million this year.
Buffalo has a couple of options. The simplest — although almost certainly not the best or most likely — is simply working with less. They attempt to build a better roster with a budget that is nearly $30 million smaller, pending details about the salary cap in 2024. Allen isn't the only big-money player on the roster, so filling in all 53 spots could be a real challenge.
The other direction they could go is the world of restructuring and void years. This is a method teams have used with some success, but it's quite the gamble. Allen has to be paid eventually, so any form of restructuring that lowers the financial burden this season means that the money they save will have to be paid later.
This would mean that the Bills are more or less deciding to go all-in the next few years, and sacrificing competitiveness when the deferred money hits the books. They've already done something similar with the contract of star wideout Stefon Diggs, so they'll need to be careful with just how much money they defer to future years.
One serious issue for Buffalo is that many of its big-money players are performing well below their price tags. The defense is aging — most notably star edge rusher Von Miller, who looked like a shell of himself at times this year and is still owed plenty of cash going forward. Even Diggs was a much-diminished version of his usual self, which is an All-Pro-caliber player. He just turned 30, so it's fair to wonder how much longer his "prime" will last, if it's not already over.
We'll have to see what financial maneuvering the Bills attempt and, perhaps more importantly, whether they're able to shift from retaining their core to building a new one around Allen. If they don't take the exact right steps, their roster and finances might both keep them from contending. If they aren't able to find a savvy solution, the past years could turn out to have been another era of great play from Buffalo that sees the team just unable to get over the hump.
