Josh Allen forever changed Buffalo on and off the field

As 2024 comes to a close, SI recognizes the top performers in every sport – athletes who have distinguished themselves on the field through record-breaking or championship-winning performances, or those who have also distinguished themselves through significant achievements off the field.

In August 2023, Jake Dionne took a year off from college as he recovered from his second round of treatment for leukemia. The first round of chemotherapy left him hospitalized for a month. His only relief came from the short walk he could take out of his tiny room and the nights he spent playing Fortnite after he managed to smuggle in a PlayStation. Since he was not yet in remission, he had to get injections for CAR T-cell therapy.

He planned to visit his friends before his mother, Danielle, told him he needed to return to the hospital to meet with doctors and discuss his progress. After so many months of feeling tired, depressed and nauseous, the thought of retreating there provoked a determined protest.

“I asked myself: Why are we doing this? “I was so upset that I just wanted to spend time with my friends,” says Dionne.

His mood changed when he walked into the doctor’s office and there stood Josh Allen, the Buffalo Bills quarterback and one of Dionne’s heroes. Allen had come to Dionne after receiving word through the hospital that Dionne wanted to meet him.

“And he was just one of the best people I’ve ever met,” says Dionne. “It was surreal.”

After Dionne’s high school baseball career ended, the former center fielder took up golf to establish himself competitively, improving to an eight handicap. This summer, less than a year after meeting Allen in the hospital, he was joined by Allen and several of the quarterback’s close friends and family for a 117-hole marathon golf charity event to benefit the John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital of Buffalo . After eight holes together, Allen had to be taken off the course to speak and accept an award, and Dionne had assumed his clash with Allen was over. Then Allen and his brother saw him walking back to the court and yelled to Dionne to get his clubs. They played another 20 holes together, with one of Allen’s friends offering to donate an additional $1,000 for every birdie the group hit. Dionne — now in his first year at Ole Miss and a member of the school’s club golf team — birdied the next two holes.

“Playing golf with Josh was the craziest day of my life,” says Dionne.

Allen ends 2024 on a crash course to what could be his first league MVP award. At the time of publication, Allen ranks first in Expected Points Added (EPA) per play and second in a combination of Expected Points Added per play and Completion Percentage Over Expectation (EPA+CPOE), a metric that measures quarterback Skills beyond the typical box measures score statistics. After the Bills released some of their most trusted players this offseason, such as wide receiver Stefon Diggs and safety Jordan Poyer, the team was expected to regress. Instead, the team is off to a 10-3 start and has a stranglehold on the AFC East.

Allen’s four-and-2 game-winning touchdown run against the rival Kansas City Chiefs from 26 yards out is on a short list of the best and most critical plays of the year.

But what helped Allen win NFL Player of the Year is his relationship with the Buffalo community, particularly the Children’s Hospital, where Allen is a regular visitor, fundraiser and cheerleader. He’s in the hospital at least a few times a season.

“Josh is one of a kind,” said Andy Lashua, COO of the Children’s Hospital of Buffalo Foundation. “He is so committed and super authentic every time. Especially with children. He understands it. He has this unique ability to make people feel good.

“Plus, the money he raised has transformed our hospital.”

Buffalo, Lashua says, is in a precarious position when it comes to hospital operations. The city has the second highest child poverty rate in America and the highest Medicaid rate of any hospital network in New York State. When Lashua was asked to estimate Allen’s value to the hospital system, he said the number was in the millions.

“The mothers, the children and the babies in our hospital are very lucky to have him here in Buffalo, and as Bills fans, we are lucky to have him as our quarterback,” Lashua said. “I thank Brandon Beane (Buffalo Bills general manager) every time I see him.”

Because this new iteration of the Bills has given the city its most competitive and consistent team since the early 1990s team that reached four consecutive Super Bowls, the Bills’ tentpole players are even more embedded in the community. The city was hit by deadly snowstorms mass shooting Over the past three years, Bills players have completed their recovery efforts with charity and service efforts.

Allen balances his community efforts with the outsized expectations placed on a modern quarterback. He is the commercial and physical face of the franchise, an emotional pillar of support for a team struggling with bitter losses and the near death of a teammate. Damar Hamlinon the field. And for patients in the hospital, it is a lifeline that carries them through a grueling experience. As the Bills continue to pummel opponents this year en route to one of their best regular seasons in franchise history, those he faces every day hope we learn more about what Allen is doing off the field.