It took Josh Allen half a game more than Jim Kelly, but the current Buffalo Bills quarterback tied the Hall of Fame Bills quarterback’s team record for fastest QB to 10,000 yards. Each player passed the milestone in their 45th start.
If you remember, Allen replaced Nathan Peterman in the first game of Allen’s rookie season after Peterman got the start. He passed for 74 yards in that contest, and he has more than 10,074 yards, so he did it in the last 45 games anyway even if it was his 46th career game.
Their stats over the first 45 starts are incredibly similar. At 220.8 yards per game, three years and change for Allen is slightly under Kelly’s 221.7 career average. It barely took Allen more passes to get to 10,000 yards, as well, as Kelly had 1391 passes in his first 45 games while Allen currently has 1437 in 45.5 games.
Kelly never had a season like Allen did in 2020, with his 69.2 percent completion percentage, 4544 passing yards, 572 attempts, 396 completions, and 37 touchdowns all being franchise records as was Allen’s QB rating of 107.2. Kelly has said before that Allen is poised to break all of his passing records, but at least for the time being, Kelly gets to hold onto some of these early ones.
Allen is currently fifth in Bills’ history in terms of passing yards, but should pass Ryan Fitzpatrick later this season, likely in November. He would need to average more than 333 yards per game for the rest of the season to pass Jack Kemp for third on the list, but that should come next year. Kelly, of course, leads the way with 35,467 passing yards followed by Joe Ferguson with 27,590.
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