A 'Squirrel' saved Bills' Josh Allen before win over Browns
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen received a neighborly helping hand ahead of Sunday's 31-23 win over the Cleveland Browns.
The snowstorm that caused the NFL to relocate the Browns-Bills contest from Buffalo to Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions, left a plethora of the white stuff on Allen's driveway and potentially threatened his ability to make the team's flight to Detriot scheduled for Saturday afternoon. Enter Dave Winter, a retired farmer from Orchard Park affectionately known as "Squirrel" who told NBC Sports' Peter King how he saved the day using a John Deere tractor with a massive bucket on its front.
"I said to my neighbor Norm, who was there, 'You need a path blown through?' He said, 'I don’t know, ask that guy.' Well, I don’t know that guy, an older gentleman, but he says he went to school with my cousin, and so I asked if he needs help here and he says, 'Sure!' So I did the driveway, cleared a good path there, and I get up to the garage and the door opens and Josh [Allen] is standing there," Winter explained via a conversation detailed in King's latest "Football Morning in America" piece. "Probably the whole thing took a half hour. Got out, shook his hand. Told him, 'Good luck tomorrow.'
"I introduced myself. 'Dave. Dave Winter. When you think of snow, think of me, Winter.' I says, 'We got that red machinery shop, the farm just down the road.' Looked like he was in a hurry. Didn’t have time to chit-chat. So that was it."
Allen and his teammates were in a hurry, as there were concerns the league would have to delay the kickoff of Sunday's game to the late afternoon or prime-time window if the Bills couldn't get to Detroit by Saturday evening. The Bills ultimately arrived with plenty of time to spare and finished a unique week with a victory that improved them to 7-3 on the season.
Following the win, Allen described how Winter "came with a big old tractor and dug me out" after the winter weather dumped several feet of snow in the Buffalo region. "When I was going down the driveway, the radar in my car was beeping, like I was about to hit something," Allen remarked about the snow.
Allen also said that Winter "should be" famous thanks to this story.
"He’s the man," the signal-caller added about who may be the most popular "Squirrel" ever admired by members of the "Bills Mafia."
As for Allen and the Bills, they will return to Detroit on Wednesday and then face the 4-6 Lions at Ford Field on Thanksgiving Day afternoon.
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