VW82

So much for the running game

Is it on the way to the ground or is Wallace's knee down before he gets there and loses the ball? Sure looked like the latter on first review. Love to see the replay again. Edit: went back and watched it again. I'd give the INT to Wallace. There's more than enough evidence.

Exactly. Call a time out there and get a better look at it. There was enough on the replay before they snapped it to make that call.

Wallace clearly catches it in his chest and has both hands on the ball. Galloday also has one hand in there. Then at some point between the initial catch and them coming up from the ground Galloday manages to steal it. I would have at least called time out to get a better review. It wound up leading to a TD.

I would have challenged that catch. Looked like an INT to me. Wallace caught it then had it taken away when they were on the ground.

Superstar TD. Wow.

Nice throw by Allen. Foster kind of got bailed out there by the defender after adjusting late.

ST takes away like 100 yards and 10 points a game. This is nuts.

Usually when the QB sees the rush too late. Allen saw it right away and had time to get all the way from the middle of the pocket to well outside left before being brought down. It's easy to sit here and arm chair QB and much harder on the field, but I think he could have made a different decision on that play if he'd wanted to.

Hopefully today. We established the run on both our first drives. It's time to come out with play action on first down and take some shots downfield.

It's two quick steps to the side and throw it out of bounds. Most good QBs do this several times a game to avoid sacks. Not everyone can run like Allen.

I guess the question given Allen saw him early enough is: should he have made a better decision taking one-two steps left outside the pocket and throwing away to keep us in FG position rather than trying to make a big play and getting sacked out of FG position? There are times I want Allen to try to make that play, but not on third down when we're in FG position.

I think this is too harsh. I like almost everything that's happened defensively since McD has taken over. The Frazier thing was weird, but McD fixed that. The whole offense needs to be flipped personnel-wise, and so it's too early. ST are inexcusable and that falls on McD. If he can't get that fixed next year too then there will be problems, but it's too early to say he won't.

Yeah that was on Josh. Throw it away and kick the FG.

Allen is trending. Lions suck. I'm expecting a huge day from Josh.

I like Dwayne Haskins better than both. That guy is going to be a really good pro.

I agree with Barnwell re Allen. He's not accurate, every stat backs that up even when you account for drops and throwaways, and these explosive runs can't last if we expect to keep Josh on the field. None of this is to say he can't get better. As an aside, this part was a little unnerving, "His deep balls have been scattershot at best; on throws 16 or more yards downfield, his passer rating is 36.2, which is nearly 20 points worse than any other qualifying passer. His Total QBR on those throws is also last in the league."

I messed this up too. After looking at it again, I agree with Waldman. The pass was a little low forcing Forster to break off his route and slide down for the ball but the throw also traveled 30 yards in the air. It was a pretty impressive throw. We were lucky it wasn't picked though.

It's so obvious he put in time in the film room while he was off. His feel for the rush is night and day. Out of all those throws I detailed vs. Jets there was only one where he took off prematurely. Josh deserves all the credit for that. Remember the Packers game? This is a different player. We can talk about accuracy all we want, but one of the reasons he has the opportunity to throw more now is because of his improved feel and understanding of the rush and wr routes, and making plays when things break down to keep us on the field longer.

Because it's fine alongside other quantitative evidence. It's not like just because I don't always think ESPN QBR matches the eye test that means it's useless. They're the ones actually compiling real data and analyzing it. It's worth something alongside traditional QB rating, raw completion percentage, and the type of analysis I did. None of them are perfect, but all have value. Interesting that all four say he isn't accurate / good at passing for whatever reason. It's only when you consider what he's doing running the ball where he performs well on the whole.

Yeah I'm generally not a fan of all-in-one stats. That said, I think stats like QB rating and ESPN's QBR can be appropriately used to form part of the quantitative side of the argument.

I was going to put the throws into a chart but sadly the post got so long I decided against it, and I thought it was more important to write out the description of each throw so people could go watch the play and have an opportunity to debate what happened.

Allen does rank 19th in Total QBR once you adjust for his rushing. He's dead last if you isolate his passing plays, and that's taking into account drops, throwaways, type of throws, etc. I'm generally not a fan of all-in-one statistics because they're overly ambitious and just not a good way to make an argument in isolation. That's one of the reasons why I went through an entire game's worth of throws to help present better evidence.

I edited my other post to provide a link to ESPN's QBR page if you want to see a passing stat that's more all encompassing than just QB rating (i.e. adjusts for throwaways, drops, types of throws, etc.). Of course I want the guy to improve! Hah. Nothing would make me happier than to have Allen leading us to the playoffs every year. I certainly have nothing against the guy, just that I think he's inaccurate and I want to see the Bills win. Anyone actively cheering against the guy isn't a real Bills fan.

RE the bolded part, I promise you can't quote me on here saying any of that because I never have and don't believe it to be true. I've said repeatedly that Allen is inaccurate. I've never said he can't improve. Clearly he's improved a lot since week one. His pre-snap recognition and feel for the rush is night and day pre vs.post injury (which has helped him keep more plays alive and be more accurate). RE adjusted completion percentages and other variables, sure, just make sure you're applying all these adjustments across the board, and not just for Allen. You're saying prove to me that other QBs have the same rate of drops, throwaways, etc. How about you prove they don't. I don't have that info. What I can say is Allen is starting WAY behind the eight ball in terms of raw completion percentage. Like I said, I'd be surprised if he moved up much from the bottom of the pack if all these accuracy adjustments were applied across the board to every passer, and I'm assuming he does have a higher rate of drops/throwaways/etc. than other QBs. It's just not astronomically higher like many suggest. I agree he's a very unique QB who has exceptional talent. That talent is what gives me hope that he'll figure it out. Edit: I mentioned this in another thread but you should check out Total QBR on ESPN. That stat attempts to adjust for things like drops, throwaways, field, score and time of game, etc. If you isolate it for just the passing side of QB play it provides a pretty all encompassing statistical overview of where Allen stands. Also, notice what happens when you sort it to include runs - he goes from dead last to 19th in the league. http://www.espn.com/nfl/qbr/_/sort/cwepaPassesCondensed