Josh Allen is known for many things. Developing into one of the NFL’s star quarterbacks, including earning the 2024 MVP award. Leading the Buffalo Bills to the postseason for the past seven consecutive seasons. Becoming a husband and a father by age 30.
Another thing Allen is known for? Being a jokester.
Many of the stories and wisecracks are considered unshareable. The content isn’t fit for all audiences.
When asking Bills teammates, coaches and friends what their favorite funny Allen moment is, long pauses linger as they recall, they smile, and their minds decipher which ones can be spoken out loud.
While no player has more weight on his shoulders than the Bills franchise quarterback leading a team that hasn’t been to the Super Bowl since 1993, Allen puts a priority on arriving to work with a smile every day. The 30-year-old’s love of jokes, banter and pranks play a role in building a culture that has permeated through Buffalo’s ranks.
However, the nine-year veteran tends to keep his playful side behind the scenes. But to those within the Bills organization, that jovial part of Allen is an important component to what makes him an effective leader.
“He’s MVP, Josh Allen, best quarterback in the world. You don’t expect him to just be a down-to-earth guy’s guy that loves jokes and pranks and [has an] incredible sense of humor,” Bills coach Joe Brady said in an interview with ESPN. “He’s literally just one of the guys. If you didn’t know who he was and you met him in public, you’d be like, ‘This guy’s awesome. I’m sure he’s just a normal guy with a normal family,’ and nothing about him or his personality would say superstar or any type of pride.”
We asked the people who have been on the other side of an Allen joke or prank. Here are their stories ahead of the Bills’ final 2026 preseason game hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers (7 p.m. ET, NFL Network).
Want an Allen rookie card? Just ask Knox
In Allen’s second season in the league in 2019, he wasn’t above pulling a bit of a prank on a player who was only slightly less seasoned.
Tight end Dawson Knox, who was a 2019 third-round pick by the Bills, arrived in the locker room one day to a disgruntling revelation. About 100 of Allen’s rookie trading cards were hidden in every crevice of Knox’s locker. Everything from his wallet to the bottom of his cleats had an Allen trading card sticking out and staring him in the face.
“It was funny. I was just so confused,” Knox said. “And he’s just looking around the corner and waiting for me to realize what’s going on, just laughing his butt off.”
The location of one of the QB’s 2018 rookie cards inside his cleats, however, was found a bit too late.
“One of them I didn’t even realize till I was out at practice, and I had to take my shoe off, take it out,” Knox recalled.
The card that was taped to the back plate of Knox’s shoulder pads remains to this day. Someone called out the card to Knox in recent years, inquiring what the value of the card is now.
The tight end has about four left in his locker.
“I’m gonna have to have him sign one for me personally,” Knox said.
From flying footballs to packing peanuts: ‘Got you!’
Making an impression on rookies is a specialty of Allen’s.
In 2024, during running back Ray Davis’ rookie season, the Bills quarterback pulled one of his “classic” moves. Allen made it seem like a ball was coming toward Davis and Allen during a practice, yelling, “Ooooo” to get out of the way. So, Davis moved.
“I jump out the way and [Allen] goes, ‘Got you!’” Davis said. There was no ball headed their way.
Getting to see Allen’s goofy personality catches some rookies off guard.
“I got here and I thought he was going to be stern,” Davis said. “And then, I was like, ‘Yo, he’s just a big ‘ole kid.’ So, that’s a good thing.”
A personal favorite of offensive lineman Alec Anderson is when cornerback Kaiir Elam, the Bills’ 2022 first-round pick, received a surprise in his car one day.
Packing peanuts. Everywhere.
During one Bills practice, Allen had the custodial staff put what Anderson estimated as “100,000 packing peanuts,” in Elam’s truck. When Elam opened the truck, they all came pouring out.
‘Wait, are you serious right now?’
While countless plays have documented Allen’s abilities over his pro career, every now and then, there’s time for a joking moment during a game.
“If we’re on the sideline, there’s times where he’ll be able to keep it light,” Knox said. “‘Mr. Brightside’ [a song played during Bills home games for the past couple years] comes on, he’s dancing around with us, and it kind of depends on the game, too.”
Sometimes, it’s the little things in practice.
Second-year cornerback Maxwell Hairston noticed in organized team activities (OTAs) that if Allen completes a pass with Hairston defending, Allen makes a gun out of his hand and acts like he is pulling a trigger to indicate a spot-on play.
So, now if Hairston gets a stop in practice, he does the move right back.
For opponents, Allen’s playful moves can be subtle.
Pass rusher Bradley Chubb, who was drafted the same year as Allen in 2018 and signed a three-year deal with Buffalo in March, said that when he would play against Allen, the QB would wink or do something else small toward defenders.
So how will Allen react with Chubb not lining up against him as an opponent?’
“Him joking? Every day. Nonstop,” Chubb said. “It’s one of those things, like, sometimes you’re like, ‘Wait, are you serious right now?’ And then he just start busting out laughing. So, yeah, it’s dope to see somebody with that much talent, that much weight on his shoulders, just kind of be lighthearted and taking every day day-by-day.”
Knowing when to joke and when to be serious
Brady has prioritized trying to think what is best for players when designing the team’s schedule and planning practices. He noted that he encourages player feedback and tries to explain the “why” behind his choices in team meetings.
But no one, he says, has a better pulse and understanding of a locker room than Allen. And a significant part of that is his ability to adapt his personality.
“Sometimes people think he’s a jokester,” Brady said. “He jokes when he feels like guys are uptight. He jokes to keep a guy loose. But when he knows, ‘Hey, we’re too loose,’ he’s the guy that can be serious. And it’s so unique.”
When Brady, as Buffalo’s quarterbacks coach, first met Allen in 2022, the veteran made quite the impression on his coach. A few minutes into the meeting, Brady recalls Allen “got me on an unprofessional joke.”
Looking back, Brady appreciates what Allen was trying to do.
“He knew that, ‘Hey bro, just because I’m Josh Allen, loosen up,’ and it was good for me,” Brady said. “And so, I sometimes can tell his demeanor and based off his demeanor, how he actually perceives the locker room.”
Now in their fifth season together, Brady knows not to respond right away if Allen asks him a question out of the blue -- that has become a common indicator that the quarterback is trying to lull people into a joke.
Flight delay?
Brady changed a Bills practice schedule during OTAs this past spring.
Just ahead of Memorial Day weekend, practice was pushed back.
Brady, however, knew that Allen had weekend travel plans that the quarterback had been looking forward to.
Of course, OTAs are voluntary, so Allen deciding to leave early to stick to his original travel plans was a possibility. But the quarterback stayed and didn’t comment on the timing.
Allen left soon after practice, so Brady shot him a text.
“‘’Hey, everything good, just making sure you got on the flight and everything,’” Brady said, recalling his text.
Allen’s response as Brady remembers:
“‘No, obviously, we didn’t make it, so I think we’ll probably just go up to Toronto for the weekend or something like that.’’’
Brady described himself as “pissed” and “feeling some type of way.” Enough so, that he stepped out of a meeting to call Allen, who didn’t pick up.
“I’m like, ‘F--- man, did I screw...’ And it’s like, one, screw him, we were practicing, but two, I’m like, ‘Maybe, is this real or is this not real?’” Brady said.
Then, a FaceTime call came in. Allen laughed at his coach while up in the air, already on his way.
“I’ve been with him long enough to know when he’s serious, but for whatever reason, the way he responded was just like, ‘Nah, I mean it’s cool,’” Brady said. “And it’s like, why would he just go up to Toronto? ... And I was just like, ‘Damn, he’s been talking about this weekend.’ And then I’m so pissed at myself that I fell for it and how happy it makes him when he can get me, because I take so much pride in that now.”
Nagging quarterback issues
The current quarterbacks in the room with Allen are well-versed in practices. Kyle Allen is a longtime friend, while Shane Buechele knew Allen even before he signed with the Bills practice squad in 2023.
“Once you’re around him a little bit, you just either know not to answer his questions or to look or go a little slow around the corner,” Buechele said.
Kyle Allen enjoys getting in on the fun and helps to mess with other people as well. They end up making a bit of a game out of it.
“I just like the really stupid ones, the day-to-day that we think are really funny, but no one else thinks are funny. Those are my favorite ones,” Kyle Allen said.
A recent example includes trying to get people to repeat the same thing over and over.
“Getting people to say something,” Kyle Allen said. “Our new one is we repeat the same thing over and over to someone asking them, and try and get them to keep answering the question until they realize that we’re messing with them. That’s our goal.”
One of those people on the wrong side of the joke just so happens to be Josh Allen himself.
“I got [Josh] on it a couple months ago and it ruined his life,” Kyle Allen said.
Another victim of the repeating a question joke? The head coach.
“He’ll ask a question, I’ll respond, he’ll ask a question again and he’ll ask it multiple times,” Brady said. “I catch myself like, ‘Why the hell?’ And then he’s like, “Are you just gonna keep going?’ He still, again, kind of feels the pulse of it all, but he still gets me, but he’s able to do it in a manner like you think he’s serious and it pisses me off.”
On-camera laughs
Sometimes, the goofy side of Allen comes out on camera.
There are the many humor-toned commercials he has done over the years, both nationally and locally, or videos done with the Bills’ social media team that are beloved online.
Clips of Allen pulling jokes on national podcast hosts are so well-known that fellow teammates mention them as part of the quarterback’s lore and those who play against him have witnessed his personality through the videos.
It’s a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes that Knox described in 2022 as “every day is a new deez nuts joke.”
A glimpse of Allen’s jokes have also been caught on camera, including one of the team’s Mic’d Up videos in 2023 during the team’s “Return of the Blue & Red” training camp stadium practice.
Allen turned to guard O’Cyrus Torrence, who was just a rookie at the time and asked, “How’s your rash doing?”
The offensive lineman didn’t realize Allen was mic’d up. Torrence responded, “Chill bro, I don’t have no rash.”
Allen laughed, and said, “Don’t lie, Cybo.”
The reality, however, was that Torrence really did have a rash. Torrence has eczema, and it typically flairs early in the season while wearing the new equipment.
“I deal with it early in the season with the jerseys, I get a rash,” Torrence said. “I was like, ‘How do you know that?’ He’s like, ‘I’m just playing.’ I’m like, ‘Oh s---.’”
It took until Torrence saw the Bills post the video online three days later to realize what happened. “I’m like, Wow, he’s f---ing [with me]... so that’s probably the best one when he asked me that,” Torrence said.
“Most quarterbacks you be around, they kind of be serious and locked in,” Torrence said. “It’s just how they are. But he’s just like, he wants to be one of the guys. He wants to be the funny, goofy guy. I like it. Let me know that I can be myself because I’m goofy and stuff like that. So, seeing the main guy like that makes me feel better about being like that.”
