Shaw66

Those are good points. Of course, Palmer is Allen's coach and he isn't going to be directly negative about Allen's abilities. No one should expect to hear direct criticism from him, but that doesn't mean that he's insincere about the positive things he says. He can be honest about the positive things he says without saying some of the negative things he may think. And as you say, simply by talking about the work they've been doing in the off season, Palmer is revealing the areas where he and Allen believe Allen needs work.

Well, maybe you would take the diva WR, but the NFL generally seems to have a different opinion. Teams haven't exactly been standing in line to sign Dez Bryant.

Yeah, I agree. Allen is better athletically, but not by a lot. All you ever hear about Allen is how intense a competitor he is, how his almost desperate to correct his mistakes and play better. We never heard that about EJ. EJ would say he wanted to get better, but I never saw that desire burning in him.

Absolutely. It's the drive that McBeane identified and made them so high on Allen. EJ was a nice guy, but his approach seemed so passive. He seemed to think "I'll do my best and take what I get." Allen is much like "I will get better until I get what I want."

Thanks. I agree with these comments. Deep balls particularly. Russell Wilson amazes me with the accuracy of his deep balls, and he is the king of loft. It seems almost comical sometimes, how high he throws it, but it comes down in a great spot for the receiver, time and again. As for the C1 and C0, I think that's right. It's part of the ongoing evolution, offense vs. defense. Allen fell short in 2019 reading and reacting to the cover zero, which isn't surprising in a young quarterback. That's where is determination and competitiveness will come in. He will be taught to respond to those defenses; in 2019 sometimes those higher pressure defensive tactics flustered him. I expect he will be better in 2020. And that's where the discussion of Daboll begins, because it's Daboll's job to have play designs that are effective against those defenses and to teach Allen how to get into the right plays. Maybe he had those play designs in 2019 and Allen just wasn't good enough yet to manage that level of complexity. If Allen doesn't improve in this area in 2020, either Allen or Daboll will be hitting a ceiling that he's supposed to be able to get beyond.

It's complicated. One thing the commentators on TV are good at, and I generally don't think they're good at much, is the point they make about defenders in man turn their backs to the offensive backfield and defenders in zone are looking into the backfield. In 2018, Allen really hurt people running out of the pocket against man-to-man - he had some enormous wide-open spaces to run to, so it isn't surprising that in 2019 he saw more zone and his running effectiveness declined some. Essentially, Allen's running ability forces teams into more zone than they might want to play against him.

I think people very much overstate this notion of throwing the receiver open and YAC, but it may be that I just misunderstood the concept. This explanation is excellent. In a way, football the way McDermott teaches it is all about being able to acquire and process information to guide your choices. That's what McDermott encourages all the time, even in the locker room. It's always about "what do I know and how does that help me do my job?" When they come to the line of scrimmage, both the QB and the receiver are reading the pre-snap coverage and getting clear in their heads what their job is. Allen may change the play at the line based on what he sees. The receiver will readjust his thinking if Allen has changed the play. Then, post-snap, they're both still reading the information as they see the defense react and they understand what their job actually is. And that's where your point, I guess Palmer's point, kicks in. The very last bit of information that comes available is where the opening is on the field, where the relatively safe space is, where the place is where the probability of a completion is highest. Sometimes the receiver can see it, but more often it's the QB who can see it. By making the throw to that space, the QB transmits the last piece of information to the receiver - the receiver looks back, sees where the ball is going (usually his defender doesn't see it as early in the play), and the receiver adjusts his route. That's why experience and repetitions between QB and receivers are so important. The receiver has to learn to be open to that last bit of information, has to trust it, and has to understand that although he have thought he knew what his route was supposed to be, he's being told by the quarterback how the play is changing as the positioning of the defense unfolds. I think a lot receivers tendency is to go where THEY think the play is, and they have to learn to have a different habit. Allen should be better at that in 2020, and Brown and Beasley will be better at it too. Thanks for the post.

I think the first point is the most important point to know about Beane, McDermott and Allen. McBeane have been saying since they arrived here that competitiveness, desire to learn, desire to improve, team attitude are what they're looking for in players. Without that, they're not interested. They also told us that when Allen had his second interview, they saw all of that in him, and that's when the love affair began. Allen believes in those things and wanted, whether he was completely aware of it or not, to be in an environment that supported, encouraged and drove that kind of attitude. Allen has what McBeane were looking for, and McBeane have what Allen was looking for. Allen is going to get better and better. He has the brains, the drive, the work ethic, as well as the athleticism. He came out of a tiny high school program and hadn't grown into his full size, so he was overlooked by the colleges. He could have quit but didn't. He pulled himself up so that at least Wyoming recognized his potential, and then the pros saw it. He was clearly the best QB coming out of college in pure physical terms - biggest, fastest, best arm, but the Jets and Browns didn't value his intangibles the way the Bills did. McBeane talked about the intangibles from day one. He flashed great talent in year one, and he made obvious and significant progress in year two. What Palmer said isn't a surprised, but it reaffirms what we've been seeing and hearing about Allen for two years. He will get better because (1) he has all the physical skills to better, (2) he has the brains to be better, (3) he is personally dedicated to get better and (4) he's playing for a coach whose entire system is premised on helping everyone get better. I think the point that Hapless raised, about how the little injuries pile up over the season, is interesting. I think for young players like Allen, the pressure piles up, too. I do think that Allen choked at times down the stretch, that he was quite ready to handle the big moments. Not every game, not every play. For example, one of my clearest memories of the Houston game was the look on Allen's face on the sideline in the fourth quarter. He red=faced and a bit hyper. He looked like he wasn't quite keeping his emotions under control, notwithstanding that he'd had two years of coaches telling him to take it one play at a time, stay in the moment, etc. That's easier to do in September and October than December and January, simply because the pressure has built up, the body is a little fatigued from the long season, the brain is fatigued, the speed of the game has inched up. The thing about McDermott's system is that it's designed to identify every problem, including a problem like being able to maintain and even improve the quality of play as the season wears on, to get each person to focus on that issue and develop the ability to deliver high quality play when it's needed most. I would be amazed if McDermott hasn't already identified that issue for Daboll and Allen, and McDermott's system requires Daboll and Allen to fix it. I think the sky is the limit for Allen. I think around year five people are going to realize they are watching the emergence of one of the greats. And I think that Allen is smart enough to see it. He sees and appreciates how supportive Buffalo is of the team. He sees how McDermott's system will help him achieve everything he could dream of as a pro athlete. He sees how McBeans's approach will surround him with players who have the same attitude and commitment. And, as I've said before, I believe he sees that he's going to be a very rich man, and I believe he recognizes that the environment he's found in Buffalo is so important and so good that he doesn't need to get every last dollar out of the Bills when contract time comes. He sees that leaving $3-$5 million a year on the table will make effectively no difference to his long-term financial well-being, while giving the Bills an extra $3-$5 million to add another piece to the puzzle. Whether we will see or know that he actually gave a discount, I don't know. But given the nature of the situation, given that the Bills clearly know what they have and Allen knows what he has, they are not going to have trouble getting together on a contract. Allen and the Bills are not going to be Dak Prescott and the Cowboys. Allen will be better than Prescott, the Bills have a settled coaching situation, and the Bills have a rational GM in Beane instead of Jerry Jones. Dak understandably may want top dollar, because it isn't clear where his football future is going. Josh can see his football future in Buffalo very clearly, and that's worth a lot to him.

I gotta say that, having just read your arguments in the past several posts, I think you're pretty much on the money. I would guess that there were a variety of things going on that you don't understand that caused the coaches to call the games the way they did, but you're right about the bottom line: they didn't need to pass as much as they did in important losses, and they had plenty of time to continue to push the run game. I think your breakdowns on that point make it pretty clear. I would be amazed if McDermott isn't talking to Daboll about the pass run imbalance and working with him to be sure the Bills don't get one dimensional.

All fair comments. I think Allen is a better thrower from having watched them both. Allen hasn't been a better quarterback, but better thrower is clear in my mind. Newton has a strong arm, but he isn't as good a thrower mechanically as Allen. He misses a lot of throws because of poor mechanics. I think Allen misses throws because of poor or late judgments. Allen didn't improve to a level "well below" Newton's early years. He improved "to" Newton's level - they both had mid-80's passer ratings. And that's how I can say he is on an upward trajectory - his improvement from year one to year two was substantial. Newton, not so much. His first four years all are more or less indistinguishable from one another. But those are all just quibbles. Somebody said this board undervalues Newton, and I'm one who's certainly in this camp. I think Newton's ego has gotten in the way of his learning to be a field general - he continues to make lousy on-field decisions, and he continues to rely on himself to make plays with his legs, because he seems to think that he's always the best option. I think Allen already makes better on-field decisions than Newton - it wasn't true in 2018 but I believe it was true in 2019. And I, for one, am not at all surprised that there's a whole lot of ambivalence in Carolina about the quarterback situation. Carolina apparently has decided to keep him for 2020, but the reality is that Carolina's front office has had no ringing endorsements for the guy. Why should they? He was the 17th rated passer in the league for 2018, and that's been his rating every year except one since he entered the league. In other words, by year two, Newton was already on a level trajectory, going nowhere. I have no trouble saying that, based on his progress from year one to year two, and based on his attitude, Allen is on a better trajectory.

Thanks. I really wasn't saying that he preferred to scramble, just that he had the mentality of a runner. Cam has been consistently ranked in the 14-20 range in passer rating. One season he got to around 10th in the league. Other than that season, he has not been an effective. I didn't now that he threw fro 4000 yards, but he still wasn't an effective passer, over-all. My only point is that at least so far, it looks like Allen is an upward trajectory as a QB, and Cam's career never advanced in a significant, consistent way. And I think that part of the reason is that Cam's game relied on winning with his legs, and Allen's doesn't. Allen's working hard at winning with his head and his arm, and we saw progress last season.

I agree with this. In terms of guys playing now, I agree that Roethlisberger is the closest to what Josh should become. Big guy who generally stays in the pocket, slips tackles, completes the ball downfield. Allen can make the throws Ben historically has. Allen will run out of necessity, with only an occasional designed run thrown in. He'll be better than Ben at running out of necessity, because he's a better runner, but running won't be a regular part of his game. In that way I think he's different from Wilson. He isn't now and isn't going to become the wild scrambler that Wilson is. Allen has had some wild scrambles, but he doesn't have the quickness of change of direction that Wilson does. To compare across generations, I'd say Wilson is as close to Fran Tarkenton as I've ever seen. Like Tarkenton, Wilson almost plays with the rushers. Both could extend time in the pocket seemingly endlessly if they wanted. Allen is about as much like Elway as I've seen. They both had size and speed, but not true quickness or escapability. Both were willing to take punishment to gain yards when need. But both had big arms and wanted to be throwers first. And both were relatively slow out of the box. I was surprised to see that Elway was in the bottom half of NFL QBs for his first NINE seasons, and several of those seasons he was in the bottom quarter. He was feared and respected during that period, but he wasn't killing people throwing it. Then Wade Phillips showed up as his coach, followed by Mike Shanahan, Elway matured, and he climbed into the top quarter of QBs for his last several years. Allen's had better coaching, but it's clear he's still learning how to play the game the NFL demands. Maybe a different way to look at Newton and Allen is that when Newton came into the league, everyone understood that his running was going to make him successful while he learned to play quarterback. What's happened to Newton is he never improved very much at the complex quarterbacking skills - pre- and post-snap reads and adjustments. He needed those skills to develop, because we all knew his running abilities would decline. The skill didn't develop. and he's on his way to becoming a broken-down runner. Allen is in some ways in the same position Newton was after a couple of seasons. The other difference is that Carolina, similar to the Ravens, ran an offense that was designed around Cam, designed to get Cam throws that he could recognize and complete. The Bills gave Allen the whole offense. Cam succeeded early, but as teams developed defenses to stop his go-to plays, Cam needed to move on, to learn new ways to beat the defense. He's never really stepped up to that. Whether Allen will learn all he needs is an open question, but his progress from season 1 to season 2 at least suggests that he's on the road.

I think the comparisons to Newton are wrong-headed. They are similar builds, to be sure, and they both have run a lot, but I think the similarity ends there. Newton has the mentality of a ball carrier, Allen will do what's asked of him, and he'll scramble, but Allen has the mentality of a QB - he WANTS to throw it. And he's a better thrower. Newton is more like the guy who was the biggest fast guy on the team and the coach figured out to give him the ball out of the shotgun and let him dominate everyplay. That's not Allen. Comparing 16-game adjusted stats, Allen ran fewer times for less yards in 2019. It was an obvious effort to get him away from running. If the Bills had had a competent #2 back for the second half of the season (neither Gore not Yeldon could get the job done), Allen would have carried it even less. His future is as a traditional pocket passing QB who has the size and mobility to hurt you if you let him out of the pocket with open field. I expect that in 2020 his number of carries and his total yardage will be down again, his completion percentage will go up again, and his passer rating will go up. In other words, I think he's continuing to progress into a quality quarterback, and as he does, he'll use his legs less.

This is really good. It isn't responsive to the point, because I was talking about roster deficiencies, not coaching. I think it's a fair question about Daboll, and if he just doesn't get it, then McD is at fault. The fact that Daboll is on board and moving forward means McDermott believes that Daboll will deliver over time. All I can do is hope McD knows what he is doing.

They are obvious deficiencies, I agree. But they weren't unanticipated deficiencies. And the deficiencies aren't the result of mistakes. They've had about 10 picks in the first three rounds of the draft since McD arrived, six or seven since Beane. They got White Allen Edmunds Phillips Ford Oliver Singletary, maybe someone I'm missing. They intentionally don't go after big ticket free agents, because when you do that you can't build through the draft. So, yes, there are holes, but not because McD are screwing up. It's because when you build through the draft it takes time.

No I don't think the hires they made were problematic at all. They've done exactly what they said they were going to - build through the draft and plug holes in free agency. Other than Poyer and Hyde in the first season, they've build the defense through the draft. Milano, Edmunds, White, Oliver, Phillips. They've built the offense through the draft, also. Allen, Singletary, Ford. Morse is the only exception. All the other free agents are gap fillers. McDermott has replaced the coaches he hired at first that he didn't like. Nothing wrong with that. They are building the team in exactly the way they said they would build team. You might want it to have happened faster, but that just means that you don't like their approach. If you're thinking, you understand the approach they are taking, and if you understand the approach, you don't expect the results to have been different than they were. They're building a team and they aren't done yet, by their own design.

I hope it makes you feel good to say all this stuff. EVERY head coach is learning on the job the first time he's a head coach, and it's a multiple year learning process. They all will tell you that. So go ahead and rant and make demands, but I prefer reality. The reality is that McDermott is NOT three years in. In the first year, he intentionally left the offense as it was and worked on the defense. It was obvious to everyone, except you, I guess. They did nothing at QB, on the oline, at receiver. The second season, they got their QB and intended not to play him. So the second year was clearly setting the table. The third year they went to work on the oline and the receivers and they were in what they had planned as Allen's first year on the field. Under those circumstances, to say that McDermott is three years into building the is simply stupid. Anyone who was paying attention understood two years ago that 2020 was the first season that they expected the team to be solidly good. Turns out they were a year ahead of schedule. Being unhappy with where this team is is ridiculous.

This is exactly the kind of statement that people make when they don't understand the process. McDermott was a defensive coach for 16 years before becoming a head coach. Beginning three years ago, he had to begin doing the job of head coach, which includes managing the offense. He had been a defensive coach for the previous 15 years, so he was starting from the basics on the offense. He's learning too. He's 45 years old and has another 20 years of coaching ahead of him. His approach is to learn and get better, all the time, and that's what he's likely to do, including on the offense. So the fact that he hasn't shown "the same ability to staff and the roster the Offense" is more or less irrelevant. He's learning how to do that. He didn't know how "to staff and roster" a defense after three years of coaching defense, either. His program is designed to improve, year after year. His team has been doing exactly that. When the offense is clearly improving, it doesn't make sense to say "he hasn't shown the ability" as though to suggest he won't be able to do it in the future. McDermott expects his young players to improve, and he expects his inexperienced coaches, including himself, to improve. That's the process.

I'm a huge believer in McDermott. He is 100% sold on his process, and his process is continuous improvement. Daboll is still with team because McDermott believes that Daboll will continue to improve in his job; if there were a seriously better candidate out there to do what McDermott wants, McDermott would hire him. Or if McDermott believed that Daboll had maxed out, couldn't get better at his job, McDermott would have replaced him. McDermott isn't doing this on the buddy system. So, because I trust McDermott, I'm not worried about Daboll. And from a different perspective, I don't think any of us is in a position to understand whether Daboll is getting the job done or not. I think criticizing individual play calls is a losing proposition. I get it when people criticize play calling for a half or a game, as in asking why the Bills abandoned the run against Houston, but even in a case like that we don't know what the thinking was behind that. Daboll may have been sticking to their plan, a plan McDermott agreed with, and it just didn't work. Maybe it didn't work because they should have been calling something different. Maybe it didn't work because Allen's reads were bad. Maybe it didn't work because Houston's defense was better than the Bills' offense. McDermott expects every aspect of his team to be better next season, Allen and Daboll among them. If he succeeds, we will see a more successful team, and we'll be talking about how Allen improved, Daboll improved, Morse improved, etc. The point really will be that the TEAM improved, and because everyone was playing on a better team, pretty much all of the players will look like they improved. It's much more of a team game than we like to think, and McDermott takes much more of a team approach than the media would suggest. Now that I understand that, I'm actually less interested in free agency and the draft. McBeane are looking for guys to fit into the team much more than they are looking for players. The same is true for coaches, and that's why I'm not surprised Daboll still has a job.

I had a similar reaction. There's nothing much to argue with in the article, and I like the fact that he isn't telling us Allen is much better or much worse than his passer rating and his QBR. I don't need all the detail - if he's ranking 25th or so in those stats, he's not getting the job done. I like Old Time's comment, and Logic's. I think Allen doesn't have flaws so much as he has things he's still learning. And he has the attitude that gives me a high level of confidence that he will continue to improve. I continue to believe that by year 5 he will be one of the top QBs in the league, because he has all the physical skills necessary and he has the brains and attitude to get there. It just takes time. 2019 was better than 2018, and 2020 will be better still. And while Allen is improving, so too will the offensive line improve and (I hope) the receivers. Allen could be approaching the point where his receivers are limiting his ability to succeed (up until now, you couldn't really blame his mediocre performance on the receivers, but as he gets better, the receivers need to get better too).

There was a lot of unhappiness among fans when Byrd left. I forget who his agent was, but he was one of the guys known as making big demands and being difficult. The Bills GM at the time, whoever it was, said he had no problem with the agent, in fact he liked him. The reason was that the agent did his homework, came up with his estimate of what the player's market value was and told the Bills what he wanted. What the GM liked about it was that he knew right from the get go what the player was looking for, and the GM also knew if that number was at least close to what the Bills were willing to pay. If the numbers were far apart, there wasn't much sense in talking. I got the clear sense that that's what happened with Phillips. Agent said Phillips wants top dollar, his estimate of top dollar is X, and Beane knows he won't pay close to X. Maybe Phillips will find out he isn't worth X and there'll be room to talk later, but for now both sides understand there isn't much reason to waste time pretending they're negotiating. Seems like a pretty practical way to do business.

Yolo and House - I see it a little differently, although I agree with Yolo that White and Allen are in a different category than Phillips. Yolo is correct in part that Phillips will cost more than he's worth to the Bills, but there's another point, too. McBeane want guys from the beginning of their pro careers, plain and simple. That's why they always say they build through the draft and they plug holes in free agency. McDermott's approach builds value in the team by players accumulating knowledge year over year. A free agent, a good one, almost always is at best coming off his rookie contract, which means that, depending on his position, he may have only two or three more years in his prime, and then he begins to deteriorate physically. McDermott wants to take two or three years to teach players the system and THEN have them hit their prime, so he can have three to five years of a guy at the top of the game with a thorough understanding of the system. The result is that McBeane aren't interested in investing big bucks in free agents. Morse was an exception because he plays a position when he could have six or eight good years left - offensive linemen don't decline physically as fast as most other players. I agree with Yolo - unless White has something go haywire in this career, the Bills will do what it takes to keep him, and unless Allen sriously plateaus right where he is now and shows no signs of improving, they'll pay what it takes to keep him, too. Each of them will have three or four years of quality experience in McD's system when they hit their second contract, so they are incredibly valuable to McDermott.

Uh, "hometown discount" doesn't refer just to where the person grew up, and it doesn't have anything to do with the player's parents. Bleacher Report defines "hometown discount" this way: "a hometown discount is when a player takes a bit of a pay cut to play in the city that they grew up in, has family in, or is where they started their career." Brady is from California, but he gave the Patriots a hometown discount.

It's funny to listen to the fans talk about an issue like this. Does anyone think it's even remotely possible that Beane somehow doesn't know about compensatory picks? Like, he's an NFL GM and somehow he has a blind spot and doesn't understand the concept. In fact, Beane addressed this issue in a press conference after the season ended. He said, in so many words, that he expects to be a comp pick beneficiary in 2021, which is the first year when the roster will be good enough to create in other teams enough interest in the Bills' free agents. I thought his comment was interesting because it sounded like he thought it was a softball question. His answer essentially said "of course I have the comp pick situation under control, next question."

Right. Which is why it will stay the way it is. I said a few weeks ago, and I still believe it will happen, that Allen will give a hometown discount when he gets extended. I think McBeane will be selling and Allen will buy the concept that if he takes $3-4-5 million less per year, the team will be better. I know it sounds stupid to give up that kind of money but really, what's the difference between $25 million guaranteed for six years and $29 million? Either way after taxes, he's got something like $50 million in the bank for his future, and the opportunity for one more contract. In that dollar range, being on a winner is much more important than an extra few million in the bank. I think Allen will buy that idea, just like Brady did.