Josh Allen has forever changed Buffalo, on and off the field

As 2024 draws to a close, SI recognizes the top performer in each sport – athletes who have excelled on the field through record or championship performances, or those who have also distinguished themselves through significant achievements off the field.

In August 2023, Jake Dionne was on a gap year from college as he recovered from his second round of treatment for leukemia. The first round of chemotherapy had him in the hospital for a month, with the only respite being the short time he could walk outside his small room and the nights spent playing Fortnite after he managed to smuggle in a PlayStation. Because he was not yet in remission, he had to have injections for CAR T-cell therapy.

He had plans to go out and see his friends before his mother, Danielle, told him he had to go back to the hospital to meet with the doctors and discuss his progress. After so many months of feeling tired, beaten, and nauseous, the thought of dragging himself back there elicited a firm protest.

“I was like, why are we doing this? I was so upset that I just wanted to hang out with my friends,” says Dionne.

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

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

After Dionne’s high school baseball career ended, the former middle infielder took up golf for a competitive spark and shot down to an eight handicap. This summer, less than a year after meeting Allen in the hospital, he was paired with Allen and some 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 brush with Allen was over. Then Allen and his brother saw him as they left to go back onto the court and asked Dionne to grab 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 her 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 for what could be his first league MVP award. At the time of publication, Allen is first in Expected Points Added (EPA) per play and second in a composite of Expected Points Added per play and Completion Percentage Over Expectation (EPA+CPOE), a metric that measures quarterback skill beyond the typical field score statistic. After the Bills lost some of their most established players, such as wide receiver Stefon Diggs and safety Jordan Poyer this offseason, the team was expected to regress. Instead, the team is off to a 10–3 start with a firm stranglehold on the AFC East.

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

But what pushed Allen over the edge for NFL Player of the Year is his relationship with the Buffalo community and especially the children’s hospital where Allen is a regular visitor, fundraiser and cheerleader. He is in the hospital at least a couple of times a year. season.

“Josh is exceptional,” said Andy Lashua, COO of the Children’s Hospital of Buffalo Foundation. “He’s so engaging and super authentic every time. Especially with kids. He gets it. He has this super unique ability to make people feel comfortable.

“Also, the money he has raised has changed our hospital.”

Buffalo, Lashua says, is in a precarious situation 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 asked to estimate Allen’s value to the hospital system, Lashua said the dollar figure is in the millions.

“The mothers, children and babies at our hospital are so lucky to have him here in Buffalo, and as a Bills fan, we’re lucky to have him as our QB,” Lashua says. “I thank (Buffalo Bills general manager) Brandon Beane every time I see him.”

As this iteration of the Bills has given the city its most competitive and consistent team since the team of the early 1990s — which reached four consecutive Super Bowls — the Bills’ marquee players have found themselves further woven into the community. The city raged from deadly blizzards and a mass shooting over the past three years, where Bills players have bookended the recovery effort with charity and service.

Allen balances his efforts in the local community with the high expectations placed on a modern quarterback. He is the commercial and physical face of the franchise, an emotional tentpole for a team that has dealt with cleanup losses and the near-death of a teammate. Damar Hamlinon the pitch. And for patients in the hospital, he is a lifeline that pulls them through a grueling experience. As the Bills continue to beat opponents this year en route to one of their best regular seasons in franchise history, the hope of those he runs into every day is that we learn more about what Allen does off the field.