thebandit27

We can beat completion percentage to death, and before I go any further, let me make it clear that I believe that he needs to become more consistent with his short and mid-range throws. That said, I continue to ask this question, same as I've been asking it since March: have you seen a critical play on which Allen needed to put the ball somewhere and couldn't do it? The impression that I continue to get is that he can make the ball go where it needs to go when it needs to go there. The vast majority of his problems come when he tries to do too much , and the next largest percentage of his mistakes come when he rushes short or mid-range boundary throws. My hope for him is that he can learn to make better decisions (which, like I've said, I know rookies-gonna-rookie and all that) and continue to refine his lower-body mechanics.

Show me an example; I see bad decisions, not accuracy-derived turnovers. The Howard INT initially looked like an inaccurate throw, but on my 2nd look it was a result of Kelvin Benjamin quitting on the route...which lead to his release. Interestingly enough, it was at least the 2nd time this season that Benjamin quit on a route and directly caused an INT...the first was the Jaire Alexander play in GB when Benjamin stopped and short-armed the ball instead of using his significant size advantage to out-muscle the rookie DB. Definitely true; not saying that his accuracy doesn't need to improve if he's going to become more consistent in the short-mid range game. I'm only saying that his TO's have all resulted from decision-making issues.

Inaccuracy has not lead to any of his turnovers, nor has it prevented the team from creating offense, despite the serious dearth of offensive talent surrounding him. His TO's have almost universally been from bad decision-making...which, as I've been saying for months: rookies gonna rookie

The disturbing part, to me, is that he had to be restrained by his crew from attacking a woman. It begs the question of what would've happened had they not restrained him?

I know we're on opposite ends of that play, but I still say that 100 NFL pass-catchers out of 100 will say that they expect to catch that ball with the game on the line, while maybe 5 NFL QBs (including Allen) will say that they would be able to avoid the pressure and make that throw. For the record: I don't expect to change your mind (nor do I presume that it needs to be changed)

Oh I believe that they can as well; I'm saying that if they felt that they didn't want to go overboard and could only commit to certain improvements, then I'm fine "neglecting" pass rusher and other defensive polishing if it means addressing gaping holes in the offensive talent.

Agreed on all accounts. As much as I'd like to see the team take the next step on defense by adding a premium pass rusher, CB2, and depth at LB, I'd be just fine if they spent the vast majority of their cap room and their premium draft picks on offense.

Of course that's true I stand exactly where I did the day I finished my work-up on Allen: under the impression that he has a legitimate shot to become a franchise quarterback if he develops

Josh Allen literally was the team's offense against the Jets. He accounted for 307 of the team's 368 yards of offense, and accounted for 16 of the team's 19 first downs that didn't come from penalties. If that's not carrying the offense then I don't know what is And yes, he absolutely does do the things you claim you've never seen; save the hyperbole.

Sure, but the bone I picked was that you used their DVOA ranking in overall offense to buttress your stance on the OL: I was simply trying to point out the duality of citing DVOA as evidence of a league-worst OL when the very same site that calculates DVOA ranks them well above Buffalo in every OL category...which you seemed to agree with when you called rankings/ratings of such nature subjective. Guess I don't really have much to add beyond that.

And so you see my issue with citing DVOA as evidence to support your OL assertion when you otherwise marginalize OL statistics from the very same entity? Because, remember, that was my original reply to you on this particular discussion point.

Well I posted the FO metrics once, and I also posted the pressure percentage allowed. I'll post it again for posterity, but I'm not sure how much more you want to see.

Wow, relax man. I actually did look one of them up and posted it in the very post you replied to...I can't find a source for RB yards before contact. Rest assured that I'd post it if I did...closest I found was FO's adjusted line yards, which is pretty darn clear about which OLs are moving the LOS better than others.

We can cherry pick offensive stats to support a certain stance, but what I'd really like to see is which QB has been pressured the highest percentage of snaps (at one point it was Allen), as well as average RB yards before contact. I mean, here's just one example of a statistic that would indicate that Allen's protection has been worse, but requires more context: Found it:

They explain it pretty thoroughly on the page: https://www.footballoutsiders.com/info/methods#aly

I don't 'have a dog in this fight, but isn't it kind of disingenuous to cite FO's DVOA ratings for offense in support of a poor OL when the very same website has their OL as performing much better than Buffalo's in literally every category? https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ol It's also worth noting that both of Arizona's top 2 WRs--Fitz and Kirk--have higher DVOA ratings than any Buffalo WR with 50 targets, but Robert Foster does have the highest DVOA rating of any of them

Let's see if we can ship Philly a pick for our old pal Jason Peters. Philly needs the cap space and already won a Super Bowl with Vaitai starting opposite Lane Johnson. Kick Dawkins over to LG and you have a stud combo on the left side.

FWIW, according to Football Outsiders, here's how the rookie QB's respective OLs rank: https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ol Mayfield (Cle) - 21st in adjusted line yards, 19th in adjusted sack rate Darnold (NJJ) - 30th in adjusted line yards, 13th in adjusted sack rate Allen (Buf) - 29th in adjusted line yards, 27th in adjusted sack rate Rosen (Ari) - 20th in adjusted line yards, 20th in adjusted sack rate Jackson (Bal) - 11th in adjusted line yards, 5th in adjusted sack rate By their numbers, Allen is working with the worst OL, and Jackson is working with the best.

I said from the beginning that I think all 5 will have a real shot to become franchise QBs, and I see no reason to deviate from that opinion now.

Fair point--used to happen to Favre pretty regularly until WRs learned that they needed to up their concentration when it came to catching his fastballs.

I've said from day 1 that Allen's biggest problem is that he tries to do too much; and it's true. However, he's literally the entire offense right now (save for the occasional flash play from McKenzie on some type of jet-action sweep). You can't ask the guy to ditch hero ball when he's been his team's entire offense for 3 consecutive years. Figuring out how to take what the defense gives you is the career arc of nearly every QB that's ever entered the NFL. So yeah, that's going to be important for him.

The Bills rank 2nd in the NFL in percentage of passes dropped...or at least they did as recently as October: https://247sports.com/nfl/cleveland-browns/Article/Cleveland-Browns-most-dropped-passes--123157562/

Can't argue with any of that

Um, who said it was glorious? It was a great catch on a 50/50 ball. Should WRs make great catches routinely? Yeah, probably. If your characterization of that catch is "DB isn't paying attention", well, you need to watch it again. He simply plays the ball better than Claiborne, who had indeed turned on the ball. Honestly I have no idea why anyone would feel the need to marginalize that play.

I mean, good grief--the team had 368 yards of offense, and Josh Allen's rushing and passing accounted for 303 of that. The team had 24 first downs, 5 of which came via penalty. Of the other 19, 16 were by runs or passes from Allen.