They all hold their breath when Josh Allen goes rogue. He'll be a little laggy at the start of a game, his legs twitchy and his brain unfocused, and that's when they know -- and fear -- what's coming next. He'll stand before them in the huddle and get a certain look in his eye or a tone in his voice. They just shrug inside and think, Oh, well. Here we go. Maybe he'll call a play and then change the protection at the line to make sure he puts himself one-on-one with a defensive end. Maybe he'll drop back and hold on to the ball a split-second longer than necessary. Maybe he'll run around like a flag in a hurricane and stay in bounds one or two strides beyond comfort, just long enough to take a hit. Whatever form it takes, they'll watch it unfold and think, Uh-oh. Good luck, Josh.

Everyone has their motivations. Some guys like to close their eyes and envision the game unfolding in their mind. Some scream and yell and listen to music that sounds like a bandsaw going through sheet metal. Some, like Allen, simply need to take a hit, to feel alive and engaged, to give the game its shape and life its purpose.

"Does it scare me, his running around?" asks Bills left tackle Dion Dawkins. "Hell yeah. Hell yeah. When we see Josh taking off and hurdling people and running over people, it's a scary thing. He's a big kid, but sometimes that kid stuff doesn't transfer. Yeah, you're a big kid. We get it. But if you fall, we all fall. It's scary as hell, and we can't hit him and say, 'There, you got your hit in.' Because what if we hurt him?"

Even in our quarterback-centric universe, Allen is uniquely tethered to this team, this region, the elusive goal of winning a Super Bowl. "He's everything," Dawkins says, and general manager Brandon Beane says his quarterback "wants to show his teammates he's willing to do anything." The trick is to determine, often in a split-second, the moments when those two concepts collide, when doing anything gets in the way of being everything. It's a lot of psychic responsibility, all this shouldering of hopes and expectations. "He's here for a reason," Dawkins says, "they want him to hold that trophy up." The anything and everything of it expands every year, a tide threatening to breach the banks. The Bills have a new, Allen-friendly head coach in 36-year-old Joe Brady, a sparkling new $2.1 billion stadium and the same unshakeable shadow of history pressed against them. Every year is The Year They Finally Win a Super Bowl, until it isn't. This year, however, feels different, like an inflection point, not now-or-never, but close. Fairly or not, the final judgment will land on one man: Allen. It's the world he has created.

THERE IS DEFINITELY a love-hate thing going on with the Bills and Allen when it comes to his insistence on affirming humanity's reckless potential. Dawkins adopts a low, conspiratorial tone and says, "I got to admit: I love to see it." Whenever Allen gets popped, his linemen sprint to be the first to pick him up, all the while hoping he remains able to be picked up. This is their guy, and if he's going to run over a linebacker rather than step out of bounds, who are they to argue?"It gets me going," guard Alec Anderson says. "I'm like, Yes! He brings the energy and the rest of us have to say, 'Oh, s---, Josh is into it, so I have to step my game up.' Yes, quarterbacks are supposed to be the trophy of the team, but I like the face of my franchise to have a little dirt on it."And so he'll take off, eliciting whatever range of emotions occur within each man, running in that upright, draft-horse way. His speed, even nine years into this, retains its ability to surprise. It's a little like watching a fish swim through refracted water, his 6-foot-5, nearly 240-pound body always just a stride or two ahead of where your eyes think it sho...