Nearly 360 passing yards still couldn’t make London any easier for Josh Allen. The Bills QB knows firsthand how the trip can take as much adjustment as the game itself. Now, Josh Allen is opening up about what playing in London was really like.
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“You could hear the traveling; the travel is crazy. You get thrown off on different, like, in we went, I believe Thursday, so we didn’t have much time to adjust to the time clock,” said Josh Allen on The Player’s Box Podcast.
“We got there (London, England), and we were told to stay up. It was kind of a nightmare. Um, and we lost. So that when I think about it, it makes me even more mad. So, anything that keeps us here and we can jet to the game the day before is what I’m all about.”
Speaking on The Player’s Box Podcast, the Buffalo Bills quarterback explained why he would prefer the NFL to keep games closer to home and avoid forcing teams into rapid overseas turnarounds. The main issue is the toll that international travel can take on players, particularly when teams have limited time to adapt.
Allen referred to the game when Buffalo flew to London ahead of its Week 5 matchup with the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2023, with the game kicking off at 9:30 am ET, which created an unusual schedule for a team habituated to playing at home or within the United States.
The result only made the experience more difficult to forget. The Jaguars defeated the Buffalo Bills 25-20 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, handing the Bills a loss. Allen threw for 359 yards and two touchdowns on 27-of-40 passing. The team also committed 11 penalties for 109 yards in the game.
Interestingly, this was not the Bills’ first loss to the Jags in London. Back in 2015, they lost 34-31 at Wembley Stadium before their more recent loss in 2023.
The defeat was notable because Buffalo entered the matchup at 3-1 and had been coming off an emphatic 48-20 victory over the Miami Dolphins. Allen himself had thrown for 320 yards and five touchdowns in that win, making a sharp change in circumstances from Buffalo to London even more pronounced.
But the international travel was not the only reason for the loss.
“I don’t think so,” Allen said when asked about whether his London travel impacted the result. “You’ve got to be ready to play on Sundays, and it doesn’t matter if we traveled on Saturday, on Friday, on Thursday, on Monday, or on Sunday. It doesn’t matter. We didn’t put up our best stuff, and they did, and that’s how they beat us.”
Still, Allen’s latest comments shed light on the ongoing challenge for the NFL as it expands its international footprint. This push is even visible in the fact that there were five international games in 2024, then seven last year, and this year, there will be nine.
While the league is going global, Allen would prefer teams to remain in familiar surroundings for as long as possible before making the trip. His London experience may have ended years ago, but clearly, the frustration of that journey has not faded.