Miami Gardens, Fla. — When Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane signed wide receiver John Brown in the offseason, the motive was simple: get franchise quarterback Josh Allen a playmaker.

Brown’s been that and more and in just 10 games has become indispensable to Allen, who said after Sunday’s dominant 37-10 win against the Miami Dolphins that he wouldn’t trade Brown for anybody.

“He goes and attacks. He is an all-time teammate, a guy that nobody can say anything bad about. Just a guy that goes in and works and wants to get better,” Allen said. “(He) doesn’t care about stats, doesn’t care about scoring touchdowns. He cares about winning, and when you have a recipe like that you’re destined for success.”

The Bills improved to 7-3 on the season for the first time since 1999 and are in excellent position to make a run at the playoffs. Brown’s arrival has helped lift the passing offense out of the basement of the NFL. The Bills entered Week 11 ranked 24th in the NFL with 212 yards per game compared to 174 per game a year ago.

Brown, 29, has 56 catches on the season for 817 yards and four touchdowns. Those numbers all either tie or eclipse the season leaders from the Bills last season. Brown set the franchise record for receiving yards in a players’ first 10 games with the Bills (817), consecutive 50+ yard receiving games to start a season (10), and consecutive four-catch, 50-yard games (10).

Pretty good numbers. Brown, who stands just 5-feet-11 inches and weighs only 180 pounds, has even impressed future Hall of Fame teammate Frank Gore, which isn’t always easy to do.

That is playing fearless.



Josh Allen with the bomb to John Brown #Bills pic.twitter.com/oj1k7EoT1Z — Jenna Cottrell (@JennaCottrell) November 17, 2019

“John Brown is a baller,” Gore said. “He’s been doing great all year. I’m happy that he’s getting an opportunity to show people the type of receiver he can be in this league. … Like I told him, (people have) been sleeping on him a whole lot.”

Brown was all over the field on Sunday and the Miami secondary couldn’t keep up with him. Making his game even more special is the fact that he was agitated because he felt like he was getting held all game. He said those are the types of things you have to fight through to be good in this league. He’s a veteran, and it shows up in everything he does - even to the players on the other side of the ball.

“He’s a real good receiver - a veteran receiver,” said Miami rookie cornerback Nik Needham. “He’s got good speed and understands the game well. That’s what he went out there and did today. We got ahold of him on a lot of plays but I think Allen was like, ‘I’m just gonna throw to him every play.’ Because he kind of got it rolling.”

Brown and Allen’s rapport has been developing day by day since Brown showed up to Organized Team Activities in the spring. They even created a nifty new handshake and showed it off Sunday after Brown’s second touchdown (see tweet below).

Brown has earned Allen’s trust and he thinks it’s just the beginning.

“We just worked at it and every day we’re working real hard,” Brown said. ”We haven’t played our best game yet. That was our best game but we still have a lot of corrections to do.”

Brown, who played his first four seasons in Arizona and last year in Baltimore, is on pace for 90 catches, 1,300 yards and 7 touchdowns.The last time the Bills had a 1,000-yard receiver was Sammy Watkins in (2015), at least 90 catches was Eric Moulds (100 catches in 2002), and at least 1,300 yards was Moulds in 2000 (1,326). It’s been a bad two decades for the Bills at wide receiver. The only two players to record double-digit touchdowns were Moulds with 10 in 2002 and Stevie Johnson with 10 in 2010. Brown was targeted 14 times on Sunday and if he continues to develop with Allen it could mean even more chances at the end zone.

“We wanted to try to feed him the ball and it didn’t really matter who was out there (covering him),” Allen said. “We didn’t really care about that. We just wanted to find ways to get our playmakers the ball, and we did a good job of that today.”

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