Bills quarterback Josh Allen sometimes gets called “overrated.” As G.M. Brandon Beane said last month, the label shows there are “idiots everywhere.”
Allen doesn’t mind it, even if a recent ESPN poll of anonymous players had 11 of them dub him as the most overrated player in the league.
“So my reaction is I’m not mad that 11 players not on my team don’t like me, right?” Allen told Adam Schien of SiriusXM Mad Dog Radio. “So that’s number one. I actually think that’s a term of endearment. When other players don’t like me that means I’m doing something the right way. I am mad at, however, I’m never, ever invited to participate in these anonymous surveys. So, that’s where I find this frustrating. I want to be a part of these surveys, too, and give my input as well.”
Allen also was asked whether it motivates him. Like many players, he said it doesn’t (even if it sort of does).
“I would love to say. ‘Yes, it does motivate me,’ and I could put it on my locker and use it as bulletin board material,” Allen told Schein, “but the fact is . . . I’m going into year seven, I’m coming out of a small farm town called Fireball, California, I had no offers, went the junior college route, ended up having one offer, University of Wyoming, got drafted seventh overall by the Buffalo Bills. So, again, I’m in a spot where not many people — maybe me and my family are the only people that thought that I’d ever be here — so I’m gonna keep running with that, it serves me well, and I’m just gonna keep playing football the way I know how to play it.”
It’s the right attitude. Still, he should use anything he can to motivate him to do more than he’s done. If people think he’s overrated, he should be on a mission to get people to think he’s underrated.
Along the way, it will become even more clear that he’s underpaid.