Buffalo Bills superstar quarterback Josh Allen celebrated his status as the Madden NFL 24 cover athlete with 200 Bills super-fans on Thursday night, and kept his eye on another big prize in the process.

After EA Sports revealed Allen as the face of Madden 24 on Wednesday, the two-time Pro Bowler interacted with members of Bills Mafia at a huge bash inside Vice Restaurant at 500 Pearl in downtown Buffalo.

Allen hosted a trivia contest and handed out autographed Bills hats and codes for the upcoming Madden NFL 24 video games to the winners.

The third-place finisher in the 2022 NFL MVP Award voting thanked the fans for their support and described the Madden 24 Deluxe Edition cover as "so dope" since it is the first to feature an NFL team's fans alongside a player.

Allen divulged that the fans on the cover with him were from Bills Backers bars in Los Angeles who were unaware that the shoot they were involved in was for the Madden cover.

No. 17 lauded Bills fans and explained why being on the cover of Madden is made even more significant by sharing it with them:

"So special. It's not just me that gets to celebrate this, it's all of Bills Mafia. For them to be represented I think can be shown as validation about how good of a fanbase they are. I think it's pretty special. Bills Mafia loves football just as much as I do. I had such a good time filming that cover and taking those shots with the people at some of the Bills Backer bars down in L.A., and they were pumped up about it. It's really cool."

Among the fans in attendance at Thursday's event was John Lang of Lockport, New York, who is among the most recognizable fans in the NFL.

Known to most as "Bills Elvis," Lang has dressed up like rock 'n' roll legend Elvis Presley at Bills games since 1992, complete with a Bills-themed jumpsuit and guitar.

Lang acknowledged the relevance of Allen being the first Bills player to ever grace the cover of Madden due to the adversity the Bills and the city of Buffalo as a whole have overcome:

"It's really incredibly important. It gives us international exposure of like the greatest guy we've had come around in a long time. It's really an incredible, incredible thing.

"I tell anybody, our city's been through a lot. A lot of lean years and tough economics, tough climate, and to have him do that and get international exposure with the Mafia, it's really an incredible thing."

In addition to the impact Allen is having on his home fans, his inclusion on the Madden 24 cover also cements his status as a league-wide superstar with supporters across the nation and the world.

Allen had the top-selling jersey in the NFL in 2022, and it was revealed during Thursday's event that no player was used more frequently in Madden NFL 23 than Allen, as gamers passed for 19.5 billion yards and scored over 180 million touchdowns with him.

One of Allen's longest-tenured teammates—Pro Bowl left tackle Dion Dawkins—helped him recognize the enormity of being on the cover of one of the most iconic video game franchises of all time, per Allen:

"Some of the longer-standing guys I've played with here, talk about Dion Dawkins and Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer, guys that I've been with for a long time, they were so freaking happy. Dion actually was talking to me and kind of put things in perspective for me because maybe it hasn't hit me yet. I don't know if it's as big of a deal as I think it is or maybe it's a bigger deal.

"But he just goes, 'You know, this is gonna be on every kid's counter, birthdays and Christmas. Every kid wants to throw on their PS5 or Xbox and that picture right there of you is gonna pop up and they're gonna want to play with the Bills or gonna want to play with you.' As a kid I remember being in that position, so I think when he told me that yesterday, it kind of set in a little bit that this is a pretty significant deal and I just gotta enjoy every moment of it."

A veritable who's who of all-time NFL greats have been featured on the cover of Madden over the years including Marshall Faulk, Ray Lewis, Drew Brees, Rob Gronkowski, Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes

One thing all of the aforementioned players have in common is that they have each won at least one Super Bowl, which is an accomplishment that Allen is desperate to add to his résumé.

Allen conceded that being the first Bills player on the cover of Madden is a big step for a franchise that suffered through a 17-year playoff drought from 2000 through 2016, but he also wants to be the first quarterback to lead Buffalo to a Super Bowl triumph:

"When you go somewhere you want to break down those barriers and you want to continue to do things that nobody's ever done. At the end of this, though, the main goal is to win a Super Bowl. That's something that hasn't been done here in Buffalo. They got to experience the Madden reveal and hopefully we can give them the satisfaction of bringing home a Lombardi Trophy. That's the goal every time we step out onto the field each and every year, and that goal doesn't change this year."

The Bills have gone from the NFL's laughingstock to a perennial playoff team, having reached the postseason in five of the past six campaigns and each of the past four.

With Allen under center, the Bills have won three consecutive AFC East titles, marking the first time they have done that since winning four in a row from 1988 through 1991.

Of course, the Bills are best known by football fans for being the only team in NFL history to lose four straight Super Bowls, falling just short every year from 1990 to 1993.

Buffalo has not reached the Super Bowl since then, but Bills fans are ravenous for another bite at the apple, and their quarterback shares that same mindset.

When asked if the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the Madden cover announcement made him think about what Buffalo would be like after a Super Bowl win, Allen admitted that the thought runs through his mind regularly:

"I dream about it. I have vivid dreams about having that parade. It probably still doesn't do it justice of what it would be like, but you can believe I'm gonna do everything in my power and my teammates are gonna do everything in their power to make that dream a reality."

In many ways, Allen is already a dream come true for Bills fans. After Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly retired at the conclusion of the 1996 season, a revolving door of signal-callers rolled through the Queen City for the next two decades.

Allen finally put a stop to it when the Bills made him the No. 7 overall pick in the 2018 NFL draft out of Wyoming, and it wasn't long before it became clear that he was indeed a franchise quarterback.

Bills fans were long starved for a superstar, for relevancy and for Super Bowl contention. Allen has brought all of those things back to Buffalo.

The city of Buffalo has a symbiotic relationship with its star athletes, and never has that been more apparent than through Allen sharing the cover of Madden NFL 24 with Bills Mafia, and the love he received from them Thursday night.