The Bills’ quarterback is Sports Illustrated’s NFL Player of the Year, not just for his MVP-worthy output, but for his tangible contributions to the Buffalo community.
As 2024 comes to a close, SI is recognizing the top performer in each sport—athletes who have excelled on the field through record-breaking or championship performances, or those who have distinguished themselves through significant off-field achievements as well.
In August 2023, Jake Dionne was on a gap year from college as he recovered from his second round of treatment for leukemia. The initial round of chemotherapy had him in the hospital for a month, with the only respite being the short hallway he could walk outside of his tiny room and the nights spent playing Fortnite after he managed to get a PlayStation smuggled in. Because he wasn’t yet in remission, he had to get injections for CAR T-cell therapy.
He had plans to go out and see his friends before his mom, Danielle, told him he needed to return to the hospital to meet with the doctors and discuss his progress. After so many months of feeling tired, beaten down and nauseous, the thought of dragging himself back there sparked a firm protest.
“I was like, why are we doing this? I was so aggravated, I just wanted to hang out with my friends,” Dionne says.
His mood shifted when he walked into the doctor’s office and standing there was Josh Allen, the quarterback of the Buffalo Bills, one of Dionne’s heroes. Allen had come by to see Dionne after receiving word through the hospital that Dionne wanted to meet him.
“And he was just, like, one of the best human beings I’ve ever met,” Dionne says. “It was surreal.”
After Dionne’s high school baseball career ended, the former middle infielder took up golf for a competitive spark and whittled his way down to an eight handicap. This summer, less than a year after he met Allen at 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 benefiting the John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital of Buffalo. After eight holes together, Allen had to be taken off the course to speak and receive an award and Dionne had assumed his brush with Allen had ended. Then, Allen and his brother saw him as they went to head back onto the course and called for 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 his freshman 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 most insane day of my life,” Dionne says.
Allen has formed a special relationship with the Buffalo community through his work with the Children’s Hospital. / Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated
Allen ends 2024 on a crash course to what could be his first league MVP award. At the time of publishing, 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 typical box score statistics. After the Bills shed some of their most tenured players like 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 out 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 community of Buffalo and, in particular, the Children’s Hospital where Allen is a regular visitor, fundraiser and cheerleader. He is in the hospital at least a few times per season.
“Josh is one of a kind,” says Andy Lashua, the 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 great.
“Plus, the money he has raised has changed our hospital.”
Buffalo, Lashua says, is in a precarious position when it comes to its 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 moms, the kids and the babies at our hospital are so fortunate that he’s here in Buffalo, and, as a Bills fan, we’re fortunate he’s 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’ tentpole players have found themselves further woven into the community. The city reeled from deadly blizzards and a mass shooting over the past three years, with Bills players bookending the recovery effort with acts of charity and service.
Allen balances his community efforts with the outsized expectations that one places on a modern quarterback. He is the commercial and physical face of the franchise, an emotional tentpole for a team that has dealt with gutting losses and the near-death of a teammate, Damar Hamlin, on the field. And, for patients at the hospital, he’s a lifeline pulling 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, the hope of those he comes across every day is that we learn more about what Allen does away from the field.