ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- There are many words to describe quarterback Josh Allen's performance on "Monday Night Football."
Accurate. Elusive. Stupendous even.
Historic, however, is the one that continued to follow the quarterback as he led the Buffalo Bills to a 47-10 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars to keep Buffalo a perfect 3-0 for the first time since 2020. The Bills had five straight touchdown drives in the first half to take a commanding lead after a long stretch between games, as they last played on Sept. 12 against the Miami Dolphins.
"It feels good, I'll tell you that," Allen said. "I think this could have easily been a game where we had 10 days off and let up on the gas. Didn't sense that from our guys -- a lot of urgency throughout the week, practiced really hard, had a really good game plan. I thought [offensive coordinator] Joe [Brady] called a great, great game today. We went out there and executed."
Allen is off to the best start of his NFL career. He has the highest total QBR (92.6), completion rate (75%), first down percentage (43%), passing touchdown percentage (9.7%) and yards per dropback (8.2) through three games in his seven-year NFL career. It is also the first time he has thrown zero interceptions through three games to start a season.
That 92.6 total QBR is the best of any quarterback through three games since the statistic was first tracked in 2006.
Allen is putting up these numbers while getting a variety of players involved. He completed 23 of 30 passes for 263 yards and four touchdowns on Monday. He also rushed for 44 yards on six carries. Allen decimated the Jaguars' man defense, going 10-of-14 and accounting for each of his scoring tosses. It was Allen's fifth career game with four passing touchdowns and a 75% completion rate, tying Matt Ryan for the fifth-most such games in NFL history. The only other player with five such games in his first seven seasons is Peyton Manning.
Allen also is now is tied for the second-most "Monday Night Football" games with four or more touchdowns and zero interceptions with four (behind only Drew Brees with five). The performance by Allen was similar to what he did in the 2021 postseason game against the New England Patriots, against whom Buffalo scored a touchdown on every drive that didn't end a half; that was only game Allen has finished with a higher QBR in his career (98.8 to 98.3).
"Honestly, I didn't think about it, but it feels very similar," tight end Dawson Knox said when the similarity was mentioned. "Close to a perfect game."
Four different players caught those touchdown passes. And the Bills got rushing scores from James Cook and Ray Davis. The six players with a touchdown tied for the most in a game in franchise history (1990, 1998). The multitude of players involved is part of Brady's philosophy for the offense this season of "everybody eats," emphasizing the involvement of many players and needing to stay prepared.
"I think it's paying dividends of what we've worked on throughout the entire offseason and through training camp of the everybody eats mentality," Allen said. "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 don't, I'm going to have opportunities.'
"And it's a fun and wonderful thing when you got 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.' That's what we're doing right now."
One of the players Allen threw a touchdown pass to was rookie Keon Coleman on the first drive of the second quarter, Coleman's first career score. The drive marked the first snaps of the game for Coleman after he was benched for the first quarter due to an issue with tardiness, per coach Sean McDermott.
"It will be a learning opportunity for him, and really, it was an issue that dealt with being on time, and he knows he's accountable to his teammates," McDermott said. "We addressed it, we support him and we move forward. And I thought he played a good game tonight."
Coleman finished with the one target on 19 snaps played.
"It lived up to the expectations, 100 percent. Just feeling the crowd was electric," Coleman said of his debut score. "That was [my] first catch of the game, for it to go for a touchdown, 'Monday Night Football,' can't ask for nothing better."
Another highlight for the Bills came when safety Damar Hamlin, taking advantage of a poor throw by quarterback Trevor Lawrence, registered his first career interception in the second quarter. It was his first "Monday Night Football" start since he suffered cardiac arrest against the Cincinnati Bengals in January 2023.
"We all know my last start on 'Monday Night Football' and how that game went," Hamlin said. "So, to be able to come all the way back from that and to have a special moment like that, it's all God right there. So, I've been giving him the praise like crazy lately, because it wasn't easy. But I'm super thankful to my teammates for just the support and the love. That was encouraging."
The Bills will now have a short week before traveling to Baltimore to play the Ravens on "Sunday Night Football."
While Allen continues to set marks and make impressive plays, his level of play and consistency doesn't surprise his teammates.
"Whether I'm on the sideline or actually on the field, just seeing him run around, making the throws he does, making scramble plays, making guys miss, I mean, doing all this, it's weirdly not surprising at this point," Knox said. "But it's still fun to be a fan from time to time. Just watch him do what he does and scramble outside the pocket. He's impressive, man."