Like most truly great Halloween costumes, the intended character wasn’t immediately clear.
There was Josh Allen, the Buffalo Bills’ superstar quarterback, strolling into the locker room at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y. He walked with his usual swagger, wearing his usual headphones and his usual smile. He was, all 6-foot-5 and 237 pounds, both familiar and foreign. An eminent jock wearing a goofy smile.
None of it was particularly a surprise. This season, it’s become a focus of Allen’s to find his inner-zen during his pregame routine. He listens to quiet music during his on-field warmup. Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley — “Love Me Tender,” if you can believe it — headline his gameday playlist.
But there was something different about this version of Josh Allen. Maybe it was his shoes. They were, after all, bright white with tiny flashes of red — the kind of shoes you’d find at an elegant wedding or a high-rolling law firm. Or perhaps it was his visor, which, while brimmed and glimmering white, wore neither the Bills logo nor that of any of his sponsors, but an emblem of a tiny tree sprouted with orange leaves. No, it had to be his attire, which was neither Allen’s traditional suit-and-tie nor his second-skin: sweats and a t-shirt. Instead, the frontrunner to win the NFL’s most valuable player award (per most Vegas oddsmakers) wore a light blue polo tucked into khaki shorts.
Through darkly tinted sunglasses, he grinned gleefully, flexing his calves for the small group witnessing his entrance. Suddenly it became clear: Allen was dressed in costume. And who was he dressed as? Phil Mickelson.
Quickly, the social media account for Allen’s employer, the Buffalo Bills, blasted the video out to the universe. Not long after, the 25-year-old’s Halloween costume had become an Internet sensation. Mickelson quickly jumped into the fray himself.
“I find this version of Josh Allen so seductive and yet I can’t quite put my finger on what it is,” he tweeted. “GoBills.”
What the world knew then was that Allen, an avid golfer, had dressed as the sport’s oldest major champion for Halloween. What it didn’t was how the pair’s relationship extended far beyond the holiday. According to Allen, the arrangement began shortly after Phil’s victory at Kiawah Island, when Mickelson was invited to share some advice with the Bills’ roster.
“It was right after he won the PGA and he was right there with his trophy and the golf cart,” Allen said in the press conference following his 26-11 win over the Miami Dolphins on Sunday. “He was on the golf course, and he took about 30 minutes to talk to the team and it was really cool.”
In his chat with the team, Mickelson discussed how he stayed focused even as the pressure of contending for a historic sixth major settled in. His talk resonated with Allen, whose meteoric rise adjacent to Chiefs star quarterback Patrick Mahomes isn’t unlike the one faced by Phil in the late 1990s.
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“I think it’s just self-knowledge, understanding who you are,” Allen said. “I know I don’t play well when I’m frustrated, and again, hearing that from a Hall of Fame golfer, one of the best of all time, to say that type of thing, that resonated well with me, because that’s exactly kind of how I feel, too. It helped me today and hopefully it’ll help me in the future, too.”
The two have since developed their own relationship, often sharing comments and words of support on the other’s social media postings. That trend continued on Sunday, when Allen’s postgame words trickled back to Mickelson on social media.
“What really nice words,” Phil responded. “I’m so happy for his success.”
Yes, imitation is still the sincerest form of flattery. On Halloween, that lesson just so happened to come after Josh Allen’s costume came off.