Super Bowl contenders but no appearances
Buffalo and Baltimore have been two of the best teams in the NFL since drafting their respective superstar QBs in 2018, yet neither team has reached the Super Bowl in that time frame.
Much of the Bills and Ravens’ failure to get over the hump can be attributed to the Kansas City Chiefs, who have reached four Super Bowls, winning three of them, over the past five seasons.
Both Buffalo and Baltimore saw their seasons end at home against Kansas City last season, with the Chiefs beating the Bills, 27-24, in the Divisional Round and then defeating the Ravens, 17-10, in the AFC Championship Game.
Jackson and Allen linked from the beginning
In the 2018 NFL Draft, the Bills selected Josh Allen with the seventh overall pick and the Ravens took Lamar Jackson with the 32nd overall pick.
Allen and Jackson were two of five quarterbacks selected in the first round of that draft and are the only two who are still with the team that drafted them. The other quarterbacks taken were Baker Mayfield (Browns now with the Bucs), Sam Darnold (Jets and now with the Vikings) and Josh Rosen (Cardinals. He is now out of football and enrolled at UPenn’s Wharton School of Business).
Jackson has two MVPs, will Allen join him?
While Lamar Jackson has two MVPs already on his resume, Josh Allen enters Week 4 as the MVP favorite with an NFL-high 9 total TD (7 pass, 2 rush) and no interceptions this season.
It’s the first time in his career that he has opened a season with no interceptions through the first three games (Allen only had three games in the 2023 regular season without an INT). He is coming off an excellent performance in the Week 3 win vs. JAX, throwing for 263 yards with 4 TDs (also had 44 rush yds). His performance earned him the AFC Offensive Player of the Week award