Thurman#1

I wasn't answering you, Bill. I was referring to something entirely different. As to your point, I don't find it worrying that Singletary didn't live up, particularly, to those first two games, during which he managed 17.5 YPC on four attempts in the first game and 9.5 yards on six attempts in the second game. I mean, in those first two games he managed 127 yards on 10 carries. He was absolutely never going to maintain anything close to that level. That was simply a small sample size. Did they figure him out after that? Well, enough to stop him from getting 12.7 YPC, yeah. But as for the rest of last year - leaving out those first four games just for the sake of argument - in the remainder of the season he went over 5.0 per carry in 4 out of 8 games and over 4.5 in 6 out of the 8. I don't find that concerning. Just the opposite. And again, that's leaving out the first four games, which contained his three best. Instead, I find concerning the weakness of the whole run game this year. I'm hoping that when we finally get Winters on the bench and the best five OLs out there things will look up a bit. That's my best guess as well, but we'll have to see.

Um, no, comparing rookie Allen with rookie Brady or Brees is just fine, as is comparing college Allen with college Brady or Brees. More, it appears I never mentioned Brady or Brees. That was you, desperately trying to acquire a point. This is the post you replied to: Could you just quickly point out where I mentioned Brees or Brady? No, right? I said, "He had plenty of times when he made the right read, made the right decision, and airmailed the ball or threw far in front or far behind the reciever. He did this at a much higher rate than pretty much any successful pro QB did." Neither Brees nor Brady were anywhere near as inaccurate as Josh - even in college or early in their careers - and that's the comparison (to "any successful pro QB") I was making. Clearly, I was also comparing him to guys much further down the QB ladder, guys like Dalton or Derek Carr. Very very few QB as inaccurate as Allen was in college and early have done well.

Shaw, it would be reasonable to think that "the problem was not that he had mechanical flaws that had to be corrected," if it weren't for the fact that we have dozens of interviews from Jordan Palmer and from Allen himself talking about the bad mechanical habits he had that they were working on correcting, specifically over-striding, stepping in the wrong direction, not rotating his hips into the throw, etc., and that it would help his accuracy. Was some of the work they've done with Allen that they needed to tame him, calm him down? Absolutely. Without question. But was taming him anything to do with his accuracy? I don't think so at all. The taming part was much more towards getting him to take checkdowns when it made sense, to go with the design of the play rather than hanging on to the ball in hopes something would come open later down the field, and so on. And those changes have definitely made Allen a better QB. He's improved in so many areas it's incredible. Startling and wonderful. But he also had a lot of bad mechanical habits he'd fallen into that they have largely corrected that directly affected his accuracy.

You did state it. Unfortunately, that doesn't affect the fact that you didn't prove anything there but that when you look at film you came up with an opinion that is very very different from nearly everyone else in pretty much the NFL world. You went back and looked at old film from a lot of guys. You then gave us your opinion on what happened. And that's what it was, your opinion. Which is fine. You've proven what your opinion was by going and looking at film. At the time you were doing a ton of these studies. I did a few too, particularly to combat your opinion that Tyrod was "nearly elite." In my studies I went back and looked at every Tyrod pass. And I then posted a brief five or six word summary of each play so that anyone could check my opinions and find out if I was being unreasonable by going back with my work and finding any examples of plays where my opinions were unreasonable. Nobody ever posted a single example of something they found unreasonable. You kept on doing the same studies, and even though I again and again challenged you to do the same, to tell us what you thought of each play so we could find out how reasonable your opinions were by comparing individual plays, you never ever did any of this. That was a year or two before you did this Allen comparison, and you still didn't do a bit of it. So nobody can check you. What you've done there is prove that your opinion is that Allen wasn't more inaccurate than other QBs. And I can't speak for anyone else, but I already knew that was your opinion. I didn't need more proof of that.

That doesn't show he's not a 5.1 YPC back. It shows that he gets yards the same way everyone does, in larger amounts sometimes and smaller amounts in others. Statistics tend to work in the bell curve. You get a few very small values, a few very large, and more towards the middle. That's not Singletary. That's running backs, football statistics and in the end it's just the way the world works. Look at other RBs, you'll find that nearly all of them have a few games where they get higher stats than normal. So unless you're going to go around and cut off the top three games of every RB, don't do it to Singletary either. He is absolutely a 4.1 YPC guy this year and a 5.1 last year. It would make just as much sense (none) to say that Singletary had two games below 3.0, so he's not really a 4.1 YPC guy, he's actually a 4.4 YPC guy. You say he "wasn't getting a consistent 5.1 a carry." I'd bet you won't find a single player in NFL history with more than 10 carries who consistently gets their average carry. It's a virtual statistical impossibility. Should we say that Derrick Henry isn't really a 4.71 YPC guy because he had three games this year where he was over 5.4 and two when he was over 6.2? Sorry, this is the way stats work. You can't pull out the numbers you don't like, look only at the rest, and then think you've proven anything.

Yes, this.

Star is plenty of it, and as you say, his absence causes others around him to have to try to do more than they did last year, which destroys the ability to just "do your job." There's more, though, obviously. New d-line guys, the absence of Milano for much of the year, Edmunds' injury, Oliver's injury and the consistent injuries to CBs all hurt. A lot. What isn't mentioned nearly as often as those is maybe one of the biggest reasons, I think. This defense is one that requires everyone to be on the same page all the time. More so than most, it's varied and multiple. Every year they seem to have times when people are having problems with run fits, since responsibilities change quickly and often depending on the call and the offense's personnel and formation. We've seen a significant uptick in defensive performance the past three or so games. I believe the reason for that is that the lack of a preseason hurt this defense more than most that are more just see-ball get-ball styles. They weren't acting together. They needed time to get on the same page and I don't think they got it, and that all the injuries and personnel shuffling they caused has hurt their ability to cohere.

Exactly. You're precisely on target when you say that "inaccurate doesn't mean a QB cannot throw the ball inaccurately." Allen always had the capability, that was obvious. He just didn't do it as consistently as the others in his draft class or really as consistently as most QBs on a track towards NFL success do late in their college career. Interesting about the flicking. I'll look for it. I wonder if it's really a different thing he does sometimes or whether better mechanics just makes it all look easier. And yeah, he has dramatically improved, and it's wonderful to see. IMO his decision-making hasn't affected his accuracy. But better decision-making is indeed another step he needed to make and yeah, he has stepped up there too, by a lot. Myself, I'm thankful for those accuracy issues. If he'd been consistently accurate in college, he'd be in Cleveland right now throwing to Beckham Jr. Remember this offseason when Jordan Palmer said his accuracy on long balls could be improved and that a lot of it was a mindset of "sticking a pin in the map." In other words, not throwing hard and powerfully, instead putting more of an arc on it and thinking less of the reciever and more of throwing it to a spot where the receiver could go and get it. And early this season he was throwing dimes on the long balls. He's regressed a bit since the first four games in that aspect, IMO, but he's still a ton better than he was last year on his distance accuracy.

There aren't reasonable grounds to say that Allen was accurate coming out of college, or early in Buffalo. He wasn't. He had plenty of times when he made the right read, made the right decision, and airmailed the ball or threw far in front or far behind the reciever. He did this at a much higher rate than pretty much any successful pro QB did. He had to improve his accuracy a lot. And he did. You're correct that completion percentage does not directly and exactly equal accuracy. People who think use completion percentage and only completion percentage as their only argument on accuracy are missing the point. But Josh had problems in terms of inconsistent accuracy in every way. Brilliant throw, brilliant throw, awful throw, brilliant throw, caught but only because the reciever had to stop his route, nice throw, bad throw. That was Josh. Accurate only inconsistently. If you doubt this, go back and find anyone around draft time who called Allen consistently accurate. Anyone. You won't. And it isn't because they were all only using completion percentage. It was because he simply was NOT consistently accurate. He had accuracy problems, nearly all of it due to mechanical issues that pretty much everyone was aware of. That's a lot of the reason he was thought of as a developmental guy. Even the guys who liked Allen a lot (Kiper and Mayock, for instance) knew he had a lot of work to do on his accuracy. Yeah, they said he was inaccurate and yeah they meant far more inaccurate than other QBs, even other rookies. The reason they said this and meant this is simple ... he really was more inaccurate than other rookies. You say "he missed due to mechanics." Um, yes, precisely. And that is called inaccuracy. You say he threw into coverage. Yeah, sometimes he did, as do most rookies. But that is NOT called inaccuracy. It was a problem, but not an accuracy problem.

To respond to your introduction, Josh very clearly was inaccurate early, While like most rookies he had problems in many areas, certainly including decision-making, his early accuracy was consistently inconsistent. He wouldn't argue, nor would his QB coaches. In fact, Josh and his coaches have often said that they addressed his mechanics, which then helped make him more consistently. And that work, and the improvement in his accuracy, continue to this day. They still talk about connecting his lower and upper body, about shortening his stride, about stepping in the right direction and otherwise working on his footwork. The reason they're working on those things is because it improves his accuracy and the consistency of his accuracy. He certainly didn't need to improve his arm strength. And the results have been very easily observable. He really was not accurate as a rookie. Or rather, he was extremely accurate on some passes and then wildly inaccurate on others, and what that amounts to is inaccuracy with the possibility of improvement. I was on record before the draft as saying that I thought he had a good chance to be successful, but that I agreed with the experts that he would take a lot of develoment, but that with work on his mechanics he might be a good pick. (Full disclosure: he sure wasn't my #1, he was my #4 but I did think he was worth a top ten pick, though I thought all four of them were). But he needed a lot of work on mechanics and accuracy. And there were a few guys who had gotten more accurate after college, including Brady and Rodgers, but others also. There were even two guys who had improve their completion percentages by 10% or more after bad college stats. (Favre, for one, and there was one other guy, dang it, but I forget.) And yeah, completion percentage is NOT equivalent to accuracy, but it certainly can be an indicator. It was a huge argument at the time. (I believe you were on the other side, arguing that he was wildly inaccurate and that accuracy couldn't be improved, though I don't remember for sure on that. Please, correct me if I'm wrong.) He's followed right along the path of improvement that he seemed to need, but has done far more than was needed, at every step, improving accuracy, decision-making, knowledge of defenses, touch, and a million other little things, really. Anyway, good article. Thanks for posting it.

No, again, yards per drive is related to field position virtually not at all. On each drive yes, but that's not how the stat is compiled. It combines every drive, so there's virtually no impact from field position. You look at total possible earnable yards for offenses and it will be pretty close for all teams, particularly when looked at on a per drive basis. Every year the teams with the best complimentary units have an average drive start around their own 31 yard line. Every year the teams with the worst complimentary unit have an average drive start around their own 23 yard-line. This is a miniscule difference, especially as the average NFL drive is somewhere around 20 yards. And your defensive turnovers argument is also wrong. If your defense gets a lot of turnovers giving the offense field position and the offense scores a lot, that's a great thing ... for the team, but not particularly for the offense. If they get the ball on the three and score a TD, about 90% of that TD comes courtesy of the defense. If they get the ball on the six, get three straight sacks and score on a 55 yard field goal, scoring-based stats would indicate that the offense did a good job by scoring three points. Yay offense!! Scoring stats are far more team-related than yardage-related stats, which are almost completely unit-focused. Beyond that, if your star CB intercepts a pass and runs it back for a pick six, scoring-based measures say, "Way to go offense. Nice job scoring seven there, offensive unit! Congrats on that, you probably have a good OL and a solid QB, offense!! Oh, and congrats also on that punt runback for a TD that you as an offense are also completely responsible for," says the points-based system. "A pick-six, a fumble run back for a TD, a kickoff runback TD, a punt runback TD and a blocked punt recovered in the end zone????? Wow, what a sensational offense this team has, as the 35 points scored in one game conclusively prove." Yes, all phases of the game go together. No, not all statistical measures reflect that anywhere near as much as others do. Looking at yard-based measures almost completely eliminates the other phases. And looking at pre-drive stats evens out the effects between teams which had far fewer or more drives, which is often effected greatly by how good the other units of each team are.

Fair enough. So could everyone else. Not all at once, of course, but any team could. Unlikely but possible.

Ah, I see. Fair enough.

Agree about the re-litigation but it isn't clear that Flutie was significantly more effective than RJ. If we'd had him before he lost his arm strength he might really have been something. But we didn't. Teams could strangle Flutie-led teams as they didn't have to defend the whole field against him. Neither guy was very good.

I agree. He can throw it. He's damn good. And a year younger than Josh. He's got a lot of developing to do.

Without having seen this video, but having watched a ton of Simms every week, he's really really oversensitive on criticism of Allen. There is very little left. When people mention Josh's inaccuracy these days, they're mostly just putting things in a historical context, like, "he used to have accuracy problems, but now ..." There are one or two guys left, what's that guy's name, Bomani something? He's about it at this point, though I could've missed someone.

Yes, it means a lot. Particularly if you're trying to isolate the offense from the D and the STs. Points is a whole team stat, as it greatly rests on field position on individual drives. Not to mention that defenses and STs can score points which in point-based stats are credited only to the offense. Probably around 65 - 70% offense but there's a lot of input from the other areas. Whereas yards is nearly all on the unit concerned because over the course of many games most teams average out fairly close in terms of average drive start And it's exactly the 19th in yards per game that this throws light on. It means they didn't have as many drives per game as most teams, and that's a major factor in terms of both the likelihood of points and yards per game. I was depressed to see that Outsiders has started charging for their drive stats. They are telling.

This. Pretty sure they're not saying, "Pass guys, you take the 10 days off. I hear Barbados is nice."

Fine job of nonsense there.

Fins may well be 8-7. Or lower. Bills may well be 10-5 or 11-4. We don't really know, and we especially don't really know what Miami is. "May well be," essentially means "could." And there's a wide range of possible outcomes that may well happen. Nice job, very comedic.

This all could certainly happen. Or not. "Highly likely"? Nah, that's considerably over-stating it. More like, "they stand a solid chance to be a playoff team and if balls bounce right, maybe even compete for the division."

Consistency is indeed important. He's a consistently good kicker. Yeah, that was an awful punt, but everyone has them. IMO he's getting better. I think he'll be here for a while, and for good reason.

What it mostly tells is that Murray, who has 10 rushing TDs already, is really really good. Ain't like we're the only team that couldn't hold him down. Nobody has managed it. The D in fact played quite well right up until that last play.

We absolutely should - without the slightest doubt - be astonished by the Josh Allen of year one and year two playing like he has been in year three. Everyone else is beyond shocked, and for very good reason. In fact, we should be astonished at anyone not named Rodgers, Brees, Mahomes, Wilson, Brady, Watson or Roethlisberger playing at this level. Maybe throw in Ryan or the octogenarian Brady, but maybe not.

Yeah, maybe, but we got it at the 23. Does even Josh throw it to the end zone from 6 or 7 yards behind the LOS? Even if they complete it, it's going to be a tackle outside the end zone. Maybe I go with that but those were both far less likely than even the Hopkins Hail and Hopkins is maybe the single best in-the--air ball-winner in the league.