BADOLBILZ

The entire debate is about magnitude.......I don't know anyone who is just disappointed in Josh Allen to this point. If you trust your own evaluation of a player.........as many of us who follow college football and the draft year round do.........you can make your own assessment.....and if you liked Allen a lot at the time you wouldn't be astonished by his progress now. Or if you just trust McBeane's judgement........then all the work to get to #7 overall to take Allen should have created an expectation that he would be a stud. If you are neither of those type of fans then I can certainly understand you being astonished or shocked or whatever the adjectives...........when you come from a position of no expectation and no personal opinion....... it's easy to be swayed by equally uniformed opinions in the media...........and success probably then feels like it came from nowhere. I'm not really that way with any of the sports I follow closely..........I form my own opinions on players or if I can't see them I at least assign an expectation to them based on the relative value of the chips it took to add them. Personally, my comp for Allen the past 3 years has been John Elway..........but he may be morphing into a different type of player than that.........either way, I had a HOF ceiling on the guy so I guess I am just more pleased at year 3 than astonished.

Again....less than half of first rounders at any position play well enough to even get their 5th year option picked up. And all of those that do get their option picked up aren't necessarily playing anywhere near expecation......some of them(like David Njoku for instance) just had their option picked up in the hope that they would play better.........it's only guaranteed for injury. The bottom line is that the majority of 1st rounders at any position fail to make the anticipated impact..........maybe 25%-30% of them pan out as hoped. That's still a good % compared to subsequent rounds........so it's far from random. But if the odds of getting a franchise QB in round 1 is 15% and a stud at another position is only 25%-30%.........it's inexcusable to be passing on QB's........and not that much more surprising when they turn into stars at their position.

He's never finished higher than 11th in receptions or 17th in yardage. Last year was probably his best season and he finished behind both John Brown and Cole Beasley in grabs. The year he put up 100 catches he did it with a meager 10.0 y/r. So this year really is a breakout season for him being up near the top of the league in bulk stats...........he should be no worse than 3rd or 4th in either of them after this weekend.

Healthy scratch = benched btw......those look quite a bit like Shaq's stats in Miami this year.

Impress and astonish are not synonyms..............that's like saying good and great are exactly the same. I expected and still expect Allen to become great......he's getting there..........that was the point of making him the highest selected QB in franchise history. You and some others are astonished......apparently because *some* people whose opinions you chose to give weight to said that Allen wouldn't be good.....and now he is. I think the theoretical difference is that I expect results and some others want results but are often afraid to even hope for them. I understand that a lot of that is due to Bills ownership/management letting you down. But you gotta' have perspective......the NFL is a business centered around a violent, ultra-competitive game........you shouldn't feel like you as a fan are less worthy or likely to benefit from the NFL's intention to create parity.

Should we hand off and get 4 yards this play..........or throw it and get 8? Times have changed since the Roman offense where the Bills were getting almost as much per run play as they were per pass play. What they need is some speed in the backfield to complement Moss and Singletary............kudos to the many people who were on this on draft day. RB's are still a half dozen for a dime or so in personnel chips......but you gotta' have a speed option.......Beane was asleep at the wheel on that. They probably should activate Yeldon and just activate one of Moss and Singletary each week.........they can work on improving their blocking but they need to be able to throw the ball to one of these backs........Singletary is obviously the guy they most trust and he is an awkward pass receiver........Yeldon isn't a great option at RB but he is smooth in the pass game.

I never said I wasn't impressed.........just not filled with astonishment by it. And you are wrong about his accuracy issues being "universally" believed to be uncorrectable. That's hyperbole. When Allen was having accuracy issues in year 1 there were a number of analysts who pointed out that most of them were correctable thru better mechanics and it was often emphasized how inexperienced he was at the position compared to other prospects etc.. He then made huge strides on some throws last year, becoming one of the most accurate short passers in the league. He's taken more strides and the game has clearly slowed for him and he's gotten more help in the receiving corps this year. A switch didn't just come on overnight.........it wasn't a bestowed miracle........this has been a relatively linear advancement..........which isn't always the case with QB play...........but it's not "beyond shocking". He still has to resolve some deep ball/touch issues but at the current rate one would think that he will get there in the near future. We had a thread recently about fan confidence in McBeane..........and it said that a poll of Bills fans said that 89% were very confident in the direction they had the Bills going............and just a couple posts into it someone posted that there was "endless negativity" from Bills fans. Some people just can't contain their need to exaggerate.......

So Bills fans should be amazed for the skeptics? What some of you guys responding to me are talking about aren't the odds that a top of the first round QB would become very good.....those are decent. It's you wanting a bunch of analysts to be astonished. In a league where the guys like Tom Brady and Drew Brees and Russell Wilson have dominated at a HOF level for about 50 combined years without any of them even being 1st round picks...........good luck getting people to fall over dead at Josh Allen playing well for a season. Just enjoy having a good QB........the journey is the reward.

It's a bunch of factors making more young QB's more productive............it really started 10 years ago with Goodell making it very hard to be violent with QB's and WR's.........the fear of being hit while prone was always the biggest limiting factor. Then......after the spike in passing production......... you had the big money going the QB and WR positions. That draws young talent to those positions and it helps the NFL get players that used to go to other sports(see Kyler Murray most recently). And the training these young guys get is very advanced now..........it's easier to access information and the money involved has created a whole QB development industry. Then the implementation of more college style offense.......like RPO's.......have made the reads and throws easier for young QB's. I also think that teams are finding it too expensive to throw tons of money at defense.........and you almost need to be outstanding at every position to be outstanding at defense with the offense having so many advantages........and that is just much harder to sustain than offense is. It's a lot of factors that have favored the expansion of the passing game/QB play.

So you are saying that we shouldn't be surprised that a bunch of fringe analysts of no import might have had it wrong about Josh Allen? Agreed.

I feel like we had a full year to prepare for the QB pick though..........the organization wasn't hiding their intention to draft one.........and by mid-college-season we knew that Josh Allen could be one of them.........so that part didn't catch anyone off guard. I think the feeling that best describes seeing your early draft pick seeming to live up to expectations is "satisfying" or "gratifying"...........when you pick a QB early you expect big things.........if you are actually astonished when he does well then you probably were very skeptical.

To put that season in perspective.......in the prior two weeks......they had beaten Brett Favre at home on a dramatic late game interception as the Pack were near the goal line ready to score....... and had somehow just lost by 1 point to Peyton Manning in Indy holding that score down to 17-16.......very edge of your seat finishes....and Bills fans were loving the direction of Jauron ball.......they reached 7-7.......a 9-7 Chiefs team made the playoffs that year.......but a heartbreaking 30-29 loss at home to Tennessee(***** Robert Royal) put them at 7-8 and basically put an end to the Jaurondimonium that was building. It wasn't a Super Bowl team but it was VERY similar in style to the 2017 Bills that you were probably amazed by.

Needs change fast in the NFL.........and offense is much more likely to be sustainable long term and therefore the better use of early round picks. Defensive success is fleeting.......the McD Bills are proof of that.......but even the great Seattle defense could only be kept together for a few years and when they won the SB they were actually the youngest team in the entire NFL. When you are built on defense your foundation is built on sand.

I did not see THAT.........but there were some pundits who had high regard for his talent and some who did not. Some fans focus on the analysts with negative takes and miss all the positives. For example.......Mel Kiper isn't amazed. Allen was often mocked #1 overall in the year prior to his draft......he was a big time prospect. I've said it before but in more drafts than not from 1990-2017 Josh Allen probably goes #1 overall..........tall, athletic, big armed passers with excellent intangibles don't usually fall too far.

1) The OP. The literal definition of "amazing" is "to be filled with astonishment". 2) I've said that if you aren't using it on a QB.........a first round pick is the most overrated personnel chip. Fans always EXPECT a first round pick to become a star...........but less than half play well enough to even get their 5th year option picked up. QB's are a bit more of a risk.........I think @Kirby Jackson had a data set once that said you could expect about 15% of first round QB's to become franchise QB's........but the reward is so much higher than that of drafting any other position so what was amazing was how few shots the Bills had taken at QB's in round 1 in the prior 58 drafts.

Losman to Peerless for the game winning TD in Houston in 2006 was far more clutch..........that sh*t was crazy. Down 21-17 Jauron punted the ball with just 2:10 left. And somehow it worked because the Texans went 3 and out and punted and Losman brought them down the field and hurled a great pass to Peerless Price who made a diving TD grab with :09 left for the upset win. That was probably the height of Losman AND Jauron's careers in Buffalo. It's easy to forget that football has been played in Buffalo prior to now but there have been clutch plays and Bills games that ended in spectacular fashion prior to yesterday. It wasn't any big surprise that Josh lead the Bills to a go ahead TD with all that time and TO's left.......had they not gotten a TD on that play it had just been second down with a lot of time and a timeout in hand..........they were still going to get a pretty makable game tying field goal attempt.

It's been fun and it's impressive how much work Allen has put in........ but we shouldn't be astonished by a QB who was picked 7th overall playing at a high level in year 3.

My advice is let go of blaming officiating for ANYTHING. I did that after HR Throwback and it's never bothered me since. Try to remember that it's a violent, unkind, war game and the real objective is to dominate the opponent. Too many times teams coach and play themselves into close games.........mostly by varying their style and effort to the scoreboard. If you really dominate a team the officiating will not matter..........if the score is left close.........you leave your fortune in the hands of fate/chance. The Bills played themselves into a close game...........your contention that they should have dominated the scoreboard if not for the officiating neglects their own myriad of mistakes, IMO.

I know Carson Palmer tried to sell this as simply a footwork and shoulder alignment issue..........but putting touch on a throw is subtle and a lot of it is from the shoulder down. The very good touch passers can deliver it from multiple foot and shoulder positions.

Oh he's improved......... but there are guys who can make all of the throws..........and specifically throw with much better touch..........Mahomes, Rodgers and Russ to name the most prominent. For them, that touch is a gift or something they developed long before the NFL..........for Josh it's something he is still trying to turn into a positive. I think he will get there but when nearly every ball that he throws over 30 yards in the air falls 10 feet or more off target I think it begins to become a self-sustaining problem............getting him someone who can retrieve the errant throw would help with the mental aspect, IMO.

I know fans love seeing the opposing player get surprised and get their bell rung a little..........but not sure why fans are having such a hard time grasping this rule. If your intention is just to block then don't throw your body into it......just extend your arms and move your feet.........if you try to stop them cold with any kind of violent collision it's going to get a penalty. The same people who hate this also probably hated Jarvis Landry plowing over Aaron Williams and finishing off his career...........it's always "just football" until its your player.

Shaq had a history of being somewhat less than focused on reaching his potential...........that's why they didn't trust him enough to pick up his 5th year option after 3 years of flat production. The early returns in Miami aren't good. Johnson and Epenesa are works in progress. Johnson is buying time for himself by being very impactful on special teams. Epenesa shows flashes but his experience in Iowa was similar........he came in as a rare 5 star recruit.........then seemed to struggle to adapt to the college game........until the switch went on and then he was a beast. The hope here is that Epenesa gets stronger and smarter and develops better technique..........but the one thing about him versus Shaq is you probably don't have to worry about seeing him in the Buffalo airport on Sunday evening after a game with bags of popeye's chicken as he goes to play Wooderson on his "off" day at his old college campus. The feeling is that Epenesa is going to work for it...........if he doesn't get there it won't be as obviously why Shaq hasn't.

I am a huge fan of Allen. But he's not the most gifted QB in the NFL. He has the biggest arm and his skillset is unique..........but he has well below average natural touch throwing the football for a starting NFL QB..............he's one of the worst at it, really..............he still LABORS to drop the ball into the bucket on deep passes and can't feather the ball in like you want on plays like screens and those are where things most often go to hell for him. He will have to develop that skill.........it's not innate to him. But I feel like he will because he is going to work on it until he is good at it. I know I bang the DK Metcalf drum around here plenty but that type of skillset........the ability to get deep and then extend and turn into a massive target for innacurate throws.........is probably the greatest gift this organization could give to him at this point.

Singletary has a poor feel for the pass game and possibly some doubt in his own hands. He slowed down, perhaps hoping to focus on catching the ball, then had to lunge for the pass. Allen was leading him where he was supposed to be.......behind his blockers.......he has to move fluidly to the point and catch that ball with his hands out in front of his body to carry him to his blocking. If Allen puts that pass between his numbers there is a defender bearing down inside who has a chance to make the tackle.........a defender who was otherwise blocked out of the play. Something similar happened in the Chiefs game and resulted in an egregious over throw.

Shaq has literally half as many sacks and TFL's as Addison to this point............he hasn't been good at all......think 2016-2018 Shaq....... and they have him on the books for $10.5M guaranteed next year. And if you think he was going to be a difference maker against Murray in the open field you are nuts. Addison has been somewhat disappointing but he's been able to fill in some at the Lorax position as well as DE........he had good plays against Mahomes as a spy and has 3 passes defensed thus far this season too. Much more versatile player. They gotta' get better than Addison and Shaq at DE........hopefully Johnson and Epenesa become those guys..........but Addison is just a rental and not one of their bigger issues on defense.