Josh Allen got through the bumps of the draft process, and then met a role model.
Now it’s on him to do the thing the Bills traded up in the first round for him to do.
Allen said after his first rookie minicamp in the NFL that he knows there are adjustments he’s going to have to make, but he’s confident he can handle them.
“I’m going out there and I’m going to play football how I know to play football,” he said, via the Buffalo News. “I’m still working on a lot of things. Coach [Brian] Daboll’s going to help me out. Through this whole draft process, I felt like I’ve made a lot of strides. . . . As we progress through this rookie minicamp, and through the rookie developmental period, I plan to improve every day.”
He caught the eye of some of his new teammates, impressing his fellow rookies with his command of the huddle.
“The biggest thing is you can tell how a quarterback’s going to act in the fourth quarter by the way he treats his huddle,” fifth-round guard Wyatt Teller said. “He was very respectful, but he was very stern. He complimented us if we had a good break and if we made the play right, but he had great huddle presence. If someone’s out of place or if someone’s like leaning in too far, he’s like, ‘Hey, hey, hey. Work on the huddle, fix the huddle.’
“You can kind of tell that he’s taking it serious. He’s more than an arm, obviously. He’s a smart kid, he works hard.”
He’s going to have to, as the Bills have invested a lot in him being the kind of face-of-the-franchise player they lacked.