New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick compares Josh Allen’s third-year rise to Tom Brady’s during the 2003 season

While Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen is often the subject of criticism across the NFL, he is very respected by New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. The respect is earned as Allen has beaten Belichick and the Patriots in six of their past eight matchups, including during the playoffs of the 2021-2022 season.

As Belichick prepares to face Allen and the Bills again this week, he explained the similarity he’s seen from the sixth-year quarterback and Tom Brady.

“He’s kind of like Brady,” Belichick said. “Once Brady got to a certain point in ’03, that’s pretty much the way it was the rest of his career. Wasn’t really like that in ’02, ’01, certainly wasn’t like that in 2000, but once he got to a certain point midseason of the ’03 season … from then on his level of performance, play and consistency was at the very top of the league. Different style of play. Once those quarterbacks, usually when they get to that point, they’re able to sustain it,” via Nick Coit of ABC6.

Like Brady, Allen became consistent during his third year as a starting quarterback. In 2020, Allen set career highs in completion percentage, passing yards, touchdowns and passer rating as he completed 69.2% of his passes for 4,544 yards with 37 touchdowns, 10 interceptions and a 107.2 rating. This was a stark increase from the year before when he completed just 58.8% of his passes for 3,089 yards with just 20 touchdowns and nine picks.

Brady didn’t have quite the same statistical differences between his 2002 and 2003 seasons, but he did get hot over the final stretch of 2003. He threw 2+ touchdowns in five of the final six regular season games before leading the Patriots to their second Super Bowl win, where he picked up his second NFL MVP award.

Of course the difference between Allen and Brady in this regard was the Brady was already a Super Bowl champion and MVP by the time he became consistent in 2003, while Allen was generally seen as inaccurate prior to his 2020 campaign.