How Firebaugh cultivated the rise of Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen

The land is completely flat here, as firm as a Johnny Unitas haircut, an endless earth quilt that produces cotton, wheat, grapes, melons and pistachios. In normal times, on a certain autumn night, you can stay in a small town and see the glow of the football field the next, from Kerman to Tranquility to Mendota; Firebaugh to Dos Palos to Los Banos.

Two-way lanes and generations of bitter rivalries separate the agricultural communities of the San Joaquin Valley, where local sports border on religion and heroic high school acts become tradition. However, nowadays, these jostling cities seem to be one, with everyone going in the same direction, the Hatfields proudly giving the McCoys arms.

Because this is Josh Allen’s country.

Allen, the Buffalo Bills’ third-year defender, gave his team a Super Bowl victory and two in the Lombardi trophy for the first time. On the way are the Kansas City Chiefs, Super Bowl champions, who will host the Bills on Sunday in the AFC championship game.

“People say Josh is a special kid,” said Bill Magnusson, his trainer at Firebaugh High. “You could say that a million times and it wouldn’t be enough.”

Even old opponents are puffing out the chest.

“I’m embracing the race he’s in,” said Beto Mejia, coach of archrival Mendota Aztecs, who handed Firebaugh his only two losses in Allen’s senior season. “I can sit and say to myself, ‘Man, I trained against that boy. ‘… And if I take some enthusiasm and pride out of it, I can imagine their Firebaugh coaches, how excited they are. “

Three of the four remaining NFL quarterbacks are from California – Tom Brady from Tampa Bay, Aaron Rodgers from Green Bay and Allen – with the outlier being Patrick Mahomes from Kansas City, who grew up in Texas.

In Firebaugh, the excitement is palpable among residents who saw Allen move from a skinny boy – generously measured six feet tall and sixty pounds – to a 6-5 and 237-pound bruise reminiscent of John Elway’s ability to cause damage with the arm and legs. At 24, Allen made a convincing case for the most valuable player, breaking Buffalo pass records along the way.

Alternating red and blue “Allen 17” banners will celebrate O Street in the middle of Firebaugh this weekend. Allen’s extended family owns about 1,200 acres of agricultural land in the region, not to mention the land his late grandfather donated to build the school.

“Our community is a very special place,” said Allen’s father, Joel. “We kind of take care of each other.”

Joel and LaVonne Allen, who have two sons and two daughters, rarely miss one of Josh’s games. They fly across the country every fall weekend to watch him play. But Joel will not be at Sunday’s game because he is recovering from a severe case of pneumonia that took him to the hospital this month.

LaVonne is making the trip, along with a contingent of Firebaugh’s family and friends that includes Josh’s uncle Todd Allen, among his most dedicated fans.

“Nobody works in his craft more than Josh,” said Todd, sitting in the family farm office, wearing a Bills T-shirt and displaying his nephew’s bobblehead on his desk. “I don’t care what it is – baseball, basketball, football, and he also swam in the summer. I just can’t say enough about it. “

Allen set Bills records for conclusions, passes and touchdowns, taking the team to a 13-3 record and his first AFC East title since 1995, a year before he was born. Buffalo won eight consecutive games and has a chance on Sunday to avenge his 26-17 home loss to Kansas City in week 6.

“They showed some different things in defense, things we probably didn’t expect,” said Allen this week about the Chiefs. “I think we’ve improved a lot since that game.”

Under the guidance of Bills’ offensive coordinator Brian Daboll and the transformative tutelage of offseason quarterback coach Jordan Palmer, Allen has made remarkable strides during his three seasons. His completion rate jumped from 52.8% as a rookie to 69.2% this season. This is the biggest improvement in two years in NFL history.

This is just a continuation of the surprising trajectory of a player who was snubbed by Fresno State, which was once his dream school, and took a more tortuous path for professionals via Reedley Community College and then the University of Wyoming.

When Bills made Allen the seventh choice in the 2018 draft, many people thought he was too raw and inaccurate to land an NFL position and bring the franchise back to prominence.

But Allen has the drive and determination forged on the farm, where he and his younger brother, Jason, would pull weeds, dig ditches, move irrigation pipes and even choose huge cotton fields at the wheel of $ 350,000 tractors. While his family was at one end of the economic spectrum, Allen had many friends and teammates at the other.

“Every summer, you have half the football team that works in the fields, and they do that to buy school clothes and stuff,” said Alex Gutierrez, who was Allen’s quarterback and baseball coach at Firebaugh. “Many of them, the parents work hard, but they need help to pay the bills. There were often tournaments in the passing league and his teammates worked, and it was Josh who ran and picked them up. He had the truck and his truck was always full. He always had three teammates with him. “

In the years that followed, Allen took the entire region on a different type of tour, a surreal tour.

“There is a photo from Josh’s debut year, when he was shaking hands with Tom Brady, he was hugging him after the game when they played against each other,” said Gutierrez, standing on the dirt track around the playing field. football Firebaugh, where Allen is retired No. 15 is painted in the press box. “You see this and it’s like, wow, this is really happening now.”

Todd Allen has many memories of his nephew to tell. One in particular stands out. It happened at West Hills Community College in Coalinga, when a burly Josh was in Reedley and had just discovered his ability to run over defenders.

“His team was losing 28-7 at halftime, and Josh made such a ferocious turnaround that he almost won the game,” recalled Todd. “I just remember him starting to run in that game, and I thought, ‘Where’s this coming from?’ He was running across the field, and I was running along with him over the top of the stadium. “

When people asked what he was doing, Todd said, “I’m running against Josh.”

Years later, the entire Central Valley can say the same.