VW82

Broncos run defense is no joke. You don't go into Minnesota and erase Dalvin Cook from the game without a good run defense. We're going to need another good game from Josh and the defense to win this one.

I wouldn't go so far as to say his rookie season has been a write off but it's definitely been underwhelming by any measure. Hopefully he can continue figuring things out on the fly this year. He has a lot of work ahead of him this off season. There needs to be some major improvements in his game in order for this draft pick to be justified IMO.

Our receiver group is much maligned but this man deserves some praise. He gets open. He has reliable hands. He'd be an excellent deep threat if his QB could get him the ball. I like Beasley too even though he's allergic to YAC. Knox is coming on. We have the makings of a decent group of pass catchers already on the roster. No need to pine after the next great college WR bust. We're better off finding replacements on the lines anyways or opposite Tre.

You're the one who made the comparison, not me. The point is, who is the recent example of a guy like Allen who was a little behind the eight ball coming out of college and then took longer than a year or two to show signs of being a franchise guy before becoming just that?

This was an underrated loss. We can probably overcome it with more max protect looks and running formations but at some point Ford and Dawkins are going to have to survive on an island against a good pass rush. I trusted Nsekhe. Next man up.

Elway meets the criteria though. He went 12-2 as a starter his second year and the consensus at the time was that he was an obvious candidate to be a franchise guy. Bills have won most of these games because our defense is good and because we've played a very soft schedule. I never said Allen wouldn't get better. I said all the franchise guys in the more recent QB eras showed glimpses of being great very early in their careers. So far I'd argue Allen hasn't shown that yet.

Yes that's exactly what I said, to talk to ten people who don't have a clue what they're talking about. Nice try.

I agree with PFF he's really struggled at times. Milano, Edmunds, and Oliver have all been bad vs. the run this year. Thankfully we didn't have to worry about that vs. Miami but it's going to get tougher pretty soon vs. teams like Dallas and Baltimore. Hopefully those guys can step up.

You disagree with the science behind a poll? That's a new one. It'd obviously be better to sample 1000+ informed people without bias but 10 will give you a pretty good idea most of the time as long as you're not picking idiots.

Ok. Here's a better attempt: go talk to 10 of your friends, co-workers, etc., (can't be Bills fans) who follow the NFL closely and ask them for their unvarnished opinion of whether they think Allen either is or is very likely to be a top 10-12 QB for a few years at some point (i.e. franchise guy). See how many say yes. If it's more than half then you have a likely consensus among smart NFL fans that he's going to be good. In my circle of people I'm getting something like 2-10. Most say it's too early to tell or he doesn't look like he's going to make it. You can get a pretty good idea of the value of any QB doing that.

The bolded is actually a really good point. It does feel like Allen is better than most at generating 4th quarter drives. His big runs are momentum changing plays too. Think I've said this before but I cheer for the Raptors and have been posting on their board for over a decade. Some people are small and can't admit when they're wrong. What I've learned is mostly we're all fans and want to win, we just disagree on how to get there. It's all so beautiful and worth it when you're watching your team hold the trophy though. Try not to get too down on other people's fandom. That part isn't worth it. If Bills win big in large part because Allen is leading us there, I'll be shoving people out of the way to make room on the bandwagon and so will the rest of the doubters. At that point, you can say I told you so, and we'll be happy to admit the mistake and just enjoy the moment.

How about we do it the other way. I can't find a single guy in the last few generations of QBs, basically since Drew Brees, who eventually became a franchise QB who wasn't good or hadn't shown flashes of being really good by end of his second year of playing full time ( and some people would argue Brees did show those flashes). I think you could define good/flashes as public opinion among smart NFL fans with different rooting interests generally agreeing the guy is probably going to be good or has done something worthy of note. If you're looking for a metric to compare across eras that's tough. The game has changed too much so consensus among smart people that don't all have the same interest is the best we've got. Does Josh qualify based on that? Not among the people who I talk to, or the stuff I'm reading from people covering the league for a living who'd know better than you or me. I don't know SoTier, but I can understand giving a guy a break for messing up a stat. If there's some a history there of a hidden agenda to manipulate stats in favour of Wentz and against Allen or something then my apologies for saying anything. Just thought he made a good point, and I still think it's a good point.

I'll give you Russell Wilson who's improved a lot throughout his career but he showed big play ability with his arm rookie year. Almost all of the franchise guys showed star potential right away. To clarify, I'm not saying that Josh will be all done improving after year two. I'm saying that if we don't get some flash of greatness from him this year, it's very unlikely he'll ever become a franchise guy unless he's an extreme outlier.

Can we at least discuss SoTier's overriding point that most of the franchise guys over the last 20 years have shown flashes of being star players for extended periods by their second year. I think that's noteworthy. As I tried to show in those graphs Allen has clearly improved in his career though much less so over the 2019 season. We haven't really seen star level play from him yet, at least not consistently as a passer. If we don't get a glimpse of that by end of this year then it might be time to re-evaluate his long-term potential. I really do think this next stretch of games is going to say a lot about who Allen eventually becomes as a passer. Hopefully he balls out.

In case anyone want to see what his progression looks like since returning from injury last year. Tells a pretty similar story to the 2019 numbers I posted a couple of pages back. He seems to be on the upward trend as far as efficiency though not necessarily in terms of raw passing production where he's kind of stuck in that 150-250 yard passing range. Almost all of the jump in production happened pre vs. post injury last year. Edit: the graphs below say week 7 but should say game 7-22 which is actually week 11 last year through week 10 this year.

I did career numbers and 2019 numbers. Is there some other range you'd like me to show? I haven't done the calcs but I suspect Josh's variance on passing yards is smaller than most QBs this year, so perhaps the range isn't all that wide compared to others. Watson, for example, has a range of 150-420 with a 270 mean. With Josh's average being about 217 we get a pretty good idea of his weekly production in passing yards. The other thing you notice from the graph is many weeks this year in which his passing yards increased his passer rating decreased. Not every time, mind you. Not today. Not vs. New England. Lots of weeks though. It would be perhaps more meaningful to look at attempts vs. passer rating but I wonder if this might be further evidence that he's in the correct production range for his current ability. As we ask more of him, he becomes less efficient and vice versa. That might seem obvious but the more times he's able to maintain efficiency with an increase in production, that should be evidence of an ability to take on more than what he's currently doing (i.e. predicting future growth). Food for thought anyways.

Trending up if you count 2018 which I did say. His passing yards are pretty flat or arguably trending down a little in 2019 though. He's been in the 150-260 range every week this year. Think it's fair to say his production has at least temporarily plateaued so far this season. We don't know what the rest of the year will bring. He's doing a better job of playing mistake free. One INT in the last six weeks helps a lot.

Thank you for pointing this out. Hold my beer while I go hammer the under.

If the question is "has Josh improved since week one 2018?" then the answer is definitely yes. If the question is "has Josh improved since week one 2019?" then it gets a little murkier. Disclaimer: I would caution against putting too much emphasis in the regression lines as there's a lot of error built into them. I do think it's still useful to provide a best fit visual representation to give some idea of what direction he's moving in. I think the numbers tell us fairly plainly that Josh is probably going to give you anywhere between 150-250 yards every week (ignoring runs) with a passer rating between 70-110. His production has plateaued but he's becoming more efficient by eliminating mistakes. For this team that's good enough to win games because we have a good defense, but Josh is going to have to find a way to continue improving his production for us to get to the next level. 225 passing yards isn't going to get it done in the playoffs, and most years it isn't good enough to get you there in the first place.

Thought he had a great drive today in the second quarter which led to the TD. Three great throws in a row to finish it off. Other than that I thought he struggled. Titans have a pretty good defense though and it was a tough situation coming back so soon from the concussion.

You're crediting Josh, I suppose? I thought he had a predictably rough day against a tough Tenn defense. It really helped his stat line that the McKenzie run was considered a passing play. Daboll, Gore, and the Oline get an unreasonable amount of hate around here. I thought they were the difference today (along with our always good D and the Titans kicker).

Daboll and the run game FTW. Defense only gives up 252 total yards. And of course, a big time thank you to Carlo Santos (and Mike Vrabel for sticking with him). Couldn't have done it without you guys. 4-1 baby!!

This is getting overturned for a TD

Refs gifting us some make up calls

Dopey haven't you been reading? That one was entirely on Yeldon, and and the line, and the wind and rain, and...