During his first four seasons as the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, Josh Allen enjoyed enviable continuity in the leadership hierarchy as he played for the same head coach and the same offensive coordinator.

But while Sean McDermott continues on as the only head coach Allen has had, the 28-year-old is now experiencing life on the other side in terms of the coaches who are most important to his success - offensive coordinator and QB coach.

Since Brian Daboll left Buffalo to become the head coach of the New York Giants at the start of 2022, Allen has had two OCs in Ken Dorsey and Joe Brady, and he has cycled through three QB coaches in Dorsey, Brady and now newcomer Ronald Curry.

“No year is the same as the year prior, right?” Allen said in the spring. “But especially in this case. To go into it with fresh guys and being able to communicate with them and learn from Joe, learn from (Curry). So kind of being able to re-learn the offense that we’re running here and be able to try to communicate it to the guys … I’m just approaching it as best as I can.”

There’s a lot of responsibility on Allen’s broad shoulders, and it won’t be an easy task living up to the legacy he has already built over his first six seasons in Buffalo.

The offense, whether it was Daboll, Dorsey or Brady for a half-season in 2023, has been outstanding. Even though McDermott felt the need to fire Dorsey at midseason, the attack was still very good and by years end, the Bills ranked sixth in scoring, fourth in total yards, fifth in yards per play, third in first downs, eighth in passing yards and seventh in rushing yards.

That’s an awful lot of success, and it followed right along with what happened in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Of course, ultimate success in the NFL is not based on statistics, it’s based on championships and while the Bills have won four straight AFC East division crowns for just the second time in franchise history, they have also flamed out in the divisional round of the playoffs three years running, the last two losses coming at Highmark Stadium.

If the Bills are going to clear that divisional round obstacle in 2024, Allen will have to adapt to the new teachings of Brady and Curry, all the while implementing the changes made to the scheme while breaking in a mostly-new set of passing game targets.

“Having talks with some of the long-time vets in this game and just understanding that sometimes they may have been on the same team, but they really played with three or four different teams,” Allen said of players who endured coaching upheaval. “I feel like I’m still getting better, I’m still learning a lot. There’s a lot to learn, a lot to grow, and I feel like we’re doing that right now. Just gotta trust what we’re doing.”

Here are five questions regarding the Bills offense.

1. Will Joe Brady succeed in his second crack at being an offensive coordinator?

Everyone remembers how in 2019 at LSU Brady was the wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator for what might be the greatest offense in college football history when quarterback Joe Burrow, running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire, and wide receivers Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase led the Tigers to 726 points and a 15-0 record on the way to a national championship.

That propelled him into the NFL the following year at the age of 30 as the OC of the Panthers under new head coach Matt Rhule, but Brady quickly learned the NFL is not the SEC, and life without all-time greats like Burrow, Jefferson and Chase was eye-opening.

Not that it was all his fault, but Brady was deemed a flop in Carolina and Rhule fired him in December 2021, causing a career reboot which he got with Buffalo when McDermott hired him to be the QB coach in 2022. Now, having taken over for Dorsey last November, Brady heads into his first full season as the Bills’ OC with a chip on his shoulder, hoping to prove once and for all that he has the chops for the NFL.

Allen, for one, is excited about what Brady can bring to an offense that will have a different personnel makeup.

“He’s trying to utilize the strengths of our team to the best of our ability and really putting the power in our hands to go out there and do it,” Allen said, basing that comment on how things went at the end of 2023. “Ultimately, his big philosophy is, ‘If you guys want it, if that’s something you want, you’re going to make it work.’”

2. Which receiver will emerge as Josh Allen’s go-to target?

Of all the changes happening on offense, none is bigger for Allen than losing his No. 1 receiver, Stefon Diggs, with whom he formed one of the most lethal tandems in the NFL. In just four seasons, Diggs caught 445 Allen passes for 5,372 yards and 37 TDs, numbers which rank him fourth in team history in each category behind players like Andre Reed, Eric Moulds and Lee Evans who had much longer tenures in Buffalo.

“It’s definitely hard to part ways with a guy that’s been very instrumental in our success here over the last four years,” Allen said. “You look at the statistics, they don’t lie. Numbers don’t lie.”

No, they don’t, and now Allen has to hope someone among a varied group of newcomers - though it will probably take a consortium - can cover the bulk of that lost production.

It’s easy to say that tight end Dalton Kincaid will now become the No. 1 target, but there aren’t many teams in the NFL who run their offense through the tight end. He’ll be a big part of it, but the Bills have to get impact from Curtis Samuel and Khalil Shakir, in particular. They spent decent money to sign Samuel who has past history with Brady in Carolina when Samuel had his best NFL season with 77 catches plus 41 rushing attempts as a dual-threat weapon in 2020.

Shakir stepped up in the second half of 2023 when teams began limiting Diggs’ effectiveness and caught 39 passes for 611 yards. And then there’s the intriguing additions of second-round pick Keon Coleman and free agents Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Chase Claypool. Coleman will need time to grow in this offense and likely won’t be a key cog, at least early. Valdes-Scantling is the one to watch because he brings a deep speed element the Bills have lacked.

3. Does Dawson Knox bring value to the attack?

The Bills gave a Knox a rich contract extension before 2022, a decision that doesn’t look great after they drafted Kincaid in the first round in 2023 and then turned him into the No. 1 receiving tight end.

Knox’s best season was 2021 when he had 49 catches for 587 yards and nine TDs. He was due to hit free agency after 2022 so the Bills decided to lock him up, but then he suffered through an injury-plagued 2023 resulting in just 186 receiving yards and now it’s hard to envision Knox having much of a role as a pass catcher.

Kincaid will almost surely increase his snap percentage which was 60% last year, and using Knox instead of someone like Shakir, Samuel, Coleman or Valdes-Scantling wouldn’t make too much sense. Knox will find a role perhaps on third downs or in the red zone, but I think his main contribution will be as a blocker.

“We’re going to try to put our best 11 on the football field, and week to week that might change depending on the matchups,” Brady said when asked about using two-tight end sets. “When you have guys like Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox, it opens up a lot of doors because they can play outside, block in line. We’d love to grow that package and just get them comfortable and putting them in different situations.”

4. Can James Cook continue to carry a heavy load?

In the final nine games last year counting the playoffs, Cook’s production took a dip. He had one superb game when he rushed for a career-high 179 yards against the Cowboys, but in the other eight games his average was 66.8 yards and his average per carry was 3.65, more than a yard less than his full season mark of 4.73 yards built through a strong first half of the year.

As a pass receiver, he managed only 14 catches for 80 yards in the last five games, and it was easy to extrapolate from his declining numbers that he was worn out. He had 281 regular-season touches and 44 in the postseason, quite a workload for a 5-foot-11, 190-pounder who had never come close to that type of usage since graduating from high school.

The Bills hope that a full year of Ty Johnson as the backup will take some of the burden off Cook, and if rookie Ray Davis shows promise in training camp and the preseason, you may see him used in certain situations, particularly on third down. Cook’s one weakness is that he’s not a good short yardage runner as his yards after contact numbers show (2.68 which was 21st among RBs with at least 200 carries) so Davis, a squat, low center of gravity 220-pounder, could be useful on third and short or at the goal line.

5. Will the new-look offensive line come together?

Mitch Morse is gone in a pure salary cap move, and that opens the door to some second-guessing. Connor McGovern, who played center at Penn State but very little during his first four years in the NFL, takes over in the pivot and he and Allen will have to develop rapport after he had five seasons with Morse.

“Even though he’s played there to some extent before it’s just more a newness to the position,” McDermott said. “Some mental, but Connor is just wired in such a way that he was probably already going through that in his mind a year ago because last year he was really in a role in where he could have been moved over during the course of a game to backup Mitch, what have you.”

Moving McGovern off left guard means re-signed David Edwards takes over, even though he hasn’t been a full-time starter since 2021 with the Rams.

“We have the best offensive line coach in the league,” Brady said of Aaron Kromer. “When that time comes, I believe we’ll be on the same page.”

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana. To subscribe to Sal's newsletter, Bills Blast, which comes out every other Friday during the offseason, please follow this link: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bills training camp questions: Who will emerge as top wide receiver?