Josh Allen is only thing hiding Bills' many organizational issues

On the surface, the Buffalo Bills would seem to be an organization that has a lot going for them. They are a yearly playoff team, a legitimate Super Bowl contender and seem to be knocking on the door of a championship. But as the past couple of days have shown us in the wake of their AFC divisional playoff loss to the Denver Broncos, there is a rather dysfunctional organization lurking below the surface. 

The only thing saving it is the presence of a franchise quarterback in Josh Allen. 

Bills have problems that go beyond the head coach

This is not meant to absolve Allen of blame for Buffalo's playoff loss. 

He did not play a good game and made too many mistakes for the Bills to overcome. It was a bad game — and a poorly timed one. But Allen is also the biggest reason the Bills were even playing at that point in the season, and the only reason the organization is still seen as one of the top ones in the NFL right now. 

There is no more important position in the NFL than the quarterback.

Having a top-tier quarterback masks a lot of flaws and should give a team a chance to win.

Not having one pretty much eliminates any hope of a Super Bowl and significantly lowers the ceiling of the team no matter what else is happening on the roster. 

With Allen, the Bills have one of the best in the league and seem to be leaning on that as a crutch. The sloppy manner in which the Bills have handled the firing of head coach Sean McDermott, as well as the fact they promoted general manager Brandon Beane, is a pretty good indication of how messed up things are in Buffalo.

A lot of that can be traced back to owner Terry Pegula.

Pegula is an infamous figure in Buffalo sports as he has been the longtime owner of both professional sports franchises in the city. His ownership of the NHL's Buffalo Sabres has been a gigantic flop, as the team has never made the playoffs in a full season under his watch and is currently mired in the longest postseason drought in NHL history.

For the first four years of the Pegula ownership of the Bills, it was a run of mediocrity right up until the moment Allen arrived. Once he reached his peak, the Bills became a constant contender but have been unable to get over the hump and reach a Super Bowl.

The biggest issue for the Bills over the past two years has been the flawed nature of the roster that Beane has constructed. They have whiffed on some big defensive additions, almost completely ignored the wide receiver room and not really fixed the flaws that have been obvious to everybody watching from outside of Buffalo.

These issues must fall on the general manager. 

When McDermott reportedly brought these concerns up to the front office and ownership, it was not well received. 

Then not even 48 hours after their playoff exit, he was out of a job and Beane was getting a promotion. 

Even worse, the press release announcing his firing had a major typo in the first sentence, barely acknowledged the work he had done, while the Bills showed almost no appreciation for the job he had done on social media until late in the day on Tuesday. The entire thing was sloppy, and quite honestly, disrespectful to the job McDermott had done. 

It almost seemed personal. Not business. 

It is going to be awfully difficult for the Bills to find an upgrade at head coach this hiring cycle.

Even if they do, there is no guarantee that the man who built the flawed team is going to do a good enough job to make it matter. 

Dysfunctional teams make bad decisions, and eventually produce bad results. Everything about the Bills' inner-workings and roster construction the past couple of years seems dysfunctional. They are just lucky they have an elite quarterback to hide it. Eventually, even that will not be enough.