Turner spoke to reporters in Minneapolis as the Vikings prepared to host the Bills in a matchup of 6-1 teams, with Allen the central problem for the league’s top-ranked defence.

“Josh has a lot of physical abilities that a lot of quarterbacks don’t have, from his size to his mental ability to the type of athleticism he has,” Turner said, via Heavy Sports.

Turner’s plan was less about chasing the Bills quarterback and more about hemming him in, keeping Allen in the pocket and denying the scrambles that turn broken plays into first downs.

The 23-year-old edge rusher has been Minnesota’s hottest defender heading into the game, with a sack in each of his last three outings and four sacks, 12 pressures and two forced fumbles across that stretch, according to Sports Illustrated.

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Allen: “not any weaknesses”

Allen was equally direct about what is waiting for him in Minneapolis. The Bills quarterback told reporters the Vikings were as complete a defensive unit as he has seen.

“It’s not even how much they blitz; it’s how productive they are when they do blitz,” Allen said. “They bring it from both sides, they’ll blitz the middle, they’ll drop guys that you think are coming.”

“It’s hard to game plan for a team like this because there’s not any weaknesses.”

The numbers back him up. Minnesota is allowing a league-best 13.3 points per game and blitzes at a 71.0% rate, far ahead of the second-ranked Giants at 40.3%, according to NFL.com. Buffalo arrives averaging a league-high 33.3 points per game off a 36-10 win over Baltimore.

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Flores sets the tone

Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores, who faced Allen twice a year as Miami’s head coach from 2019 to 2021, framed the task without flinching. He called Allen “one of the most dynamic players in our league” and pointed to the “extended plays” that make the Bills quarterback so hard to script against, per Heavy Sports.

Minnesota is coming off its first loss of the season, a Week 8 defeat in Detroit, and will try to reset against the AFC’s best offence on prime time. Buffalo has won three in a row.

The Bills are 3.5-point favourites at U.S. Bank Stadium, per CBS Sports, with the league’s top-scoring defence facing the league’s top-scoring offence in a game both sidelines are treating as a measuring stick for January.

Kickoff in Minneapolis is at 7:15pm local time on ESPN and ABC.

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