CincyBillsFan

I agree and will go one step further and say that on the first TD pass to Jones Allen made an outstanding throw. If Allen had made the so called "good" throw Jones would have taken a savage hit for at best a 4 yard gain. A hit that might have popped the ball into the air for an INT. The throw to the outside in which Jones made a nice adjustment to catch the pass was the reason he scored a TD on that play. When you watch the reply there were 3 Dolphins converging on the inside route. I believe that Allen placed that ball where ONLY Jones could catch it and there was a zero risk a Miami guy could bat it down or INT it.

I think you're on to something here. The NFL has copied the college games spread offensive attack but have left out a key ingredient - the QB who can both pass AND run. That combined with the new targeting rules means that it may now be possible for a QB to be productive on the ground, stay healthy and still be an effective passer. IMO Allen has this potential. It means that the QB of the future may not need to hit 70% of their passes to be elite. He may need to be able to run for 75 - 90 yards in a game while completing 55% of his passes. The new QB metrics that define how good a QB is might be passing TD's, rushing TD's, passing yards, rushing yards and yards per completion and fumbles lost/INT's thrown.

Wow, that Kelly game was the one I thought of to. Living in Cincinnati we had a big MNF party and it was crammed with Bengal's fans. Man that 1st quarter was nuts. Then Kelly & Lofton started to hook up and I got to live the old saying "he who laughs last, laughs best". I wonder how many of the naysayers about Allen understand just how big his 2nd half performance was in light of the pick 6 he threw right before the end of the 1st half? You're right that you can't coach mental toughness and this kid has it by the boat load.

I hope you're being sarcastic here because IMO they both showed us a lot to be optimistic about the future.

Also in games he started and finished he had a won/loss record of 5 - 5. Which is pretty decent. I'm to lazy to look up all the numbers from before & after his injury (I'll do it latter) but didn't he have 2 TDs/5 INTs before the injury and then throw 8 TD's/7 INT's after? That's a big improvement. I bet his sack rate also went way down after the injury.

And while marveling at Rosen's throw in which he got to take a nap in the pocket the same folks will obsess over every bad Allen throw. Like today where even though he had less bad throws then TD's, there are people who are sure that those poor throws mean he's a bust! Hey, ignore at all those TD's - that's a mirage what you need to be paying attention to is that pass that flew over the receivers head. Yea, that's the ticket! Look I get it's way to early to toss Rosen under the bus. Other QB's had struggled as much a he has only to have exceptional NFL careers. And for sure he's playing on a dumpster fire of an offense. But last April if you kept the QB's identity's hidden and laid out how their seasons went very few people would have picked the right QB to match the won/loss and offensive stats that each actually had.

The Bills took their first possession of the 2nd half 80 yards for a TD with Allen making a couple of great throws and a huge run. So what did you see to make you think he was rattled at the start of the 2nd half?

What a magnificent send off for Kyle Williams! We were celebrating big time when William's caught that pass! Class act that will be missed in a Bills uniform. next stop the Ring of Honor! Wasn't it great to see Edmonds rebound from his game against NE. The kid had a huge game out there with a great INT and a spectacular sack where he jumped over the blocker to nail Tannyhill. We still can't run the ball conventionally which puts our rookie QB in a tough situation. This is one area of the Bills offense that must be improved in the off season. I did see a few flashes from Shady indicating that he might still have a little gas left in his tank. I think he can add value next year as a 3rd down RB who can still catch the ball and pass protect. Zay Jones had a good game. I'm cautiously optimistic that Foster & Jones can be 2 of the 3 WR's for next year. If we can sign a vet to go along with a speedster in the draft we may have solved our WR issues. TE still needs work but Crooms has shown flashes in the last 2 games so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we only need to add one guy here. Oh and Allen has a terrific day today. He produced 5 TD's and showed that he could be accurate enough. His running game is lethal if a team doesn't have the defensive talent to stop it. But the best thing about today is related to allen's worse decision of the year. Yep that pick 6 that ruined a whole bunch of half time food breaks. I thought Allen might fold up mentally and the 2nd half look a bit like the Green bay game. But this kid is more Kelly then Peterman. He came out of the locker room pissed off that he had hurt his team with that dumb throw and answered that bad play with an 80 yard TD drive on the Bills 1st possession of the 2nd half! This is how you want (hope) your QB responds to adversity. He then played lights out the rest of the way demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could shrug off a bad mistake. It was worth having him throw that pick 6 and ruin our halftime food spread to see how he would respond. This off season is sure going to be fun.

After reading some of the comments on this thread I have to wonder if these people watched today's game or any NFL games for that matter. * Even the best QB's make bad throws. Allen's INT was a terrible decision but actually a pretty good throw. That is the ball was chest high for his receiver but a Dolphin was in position to step in front of the pass for the Pick 6. That's a mental mistake by Allen not a bad throw. And it's the kind of mistakes even the best QB's make not just rookies. * Over the course of this game Allen had maybe 4 poor throws with the rest being throw away's. Hell one of Allen's throw away passes was the ugliest pass of the season as it was quacking all the way into the stands. But he avoided the sack and the throw away was NEVER in danger of being intercepted. True the poor quality of that pass did make it hard for a fan to catch it cleanly. * Allen completed 65% of his passes today - something that the analytics folks claimed could never happen (you can't improve accuracy). Heck, he even completed 7 in a row! Most of his short passes were perfectly placed strikes. He threw the ball well and made big passing plays from the pocket and while on the move. * His 2nd TD pass was a thing of beauty being one of those perfectly placed short TD throws that folks claim Allen can't make. And from what I understand Allen made the correct pre-read to spot Foster in single coverage and exploit it. And the touch on his last TD pass was also perfect. I don't care how wide open Jones was that was a pretty pass. * And I loved the way Allen ran the ball today. He didn't take any unnecessary risks yet his runs were huge difference makers in the game. I mean it's getting to the point where on 3rd and 1 or less Allen is unstoppable on the QB sneak. The type of running we saw today can be maintained over a long NFL career. * But the biggest thing we saw today wasn't Allen's excellent stats. After the pick 6 how many of you thought that Allen might have been mentally knocked off his game? I did and I figured that the 2nd half would see a disaster of more INT's and sacks as the kid melted down. But instead we saw a guy come out of the locker room for the 2nd half pissed off at the dumb play he made with the pick 6. He then almost single handily took his team 80 yards down the field to score TD and allow the Bills to take back the momentum. It was worth having him throw that awful pick six so we could see how he would respond and IMO he couldn't have responded any better. * He has the intangible's and he has all the physical tools. He needs experience and has to refine his game, both mental & physical. But IMO I'm convinced he is the guy. He finished 5 - 5 in the 10 games he started and finished. His play improved dramatically after he returned from his injury. Only the sky is the limit to this kids future. * So I choose to be positive about the future of this team and this QB.

I don't know about others but I never thought Tyrod was a horrible QB I thought that he had clearly reached his ceiling and that wasn't good enough to lift Buffalo into being a playoff caliber team. The degree to which a fluke play by the Bengal's ended the Buffalo playoff drought last year can not be understated. In fact the very next week at Jacksonville we all saw why the Bills were not a legit playoff team with their horrendous offensive performance against the Jags. It was clear to me and I suspect a lot of other people that Tyrod was not getting any help from his receivers. As a group they were bad last year. My guess is that the Bills realized that they needed to upgrade both the QB and most of the skill positions after their offenses showing in Jacksonville. The first step was upgrading the QB position where they signed McCarron and finagled their way to move up in the draft and draft Allen. It was always their plan to upgrade their skill positions in 2019 with all that CAP money. The only thing that screwed with their plans was the performance of McCarron & Peterman at QB which caused the Bills to have to use Allen way before they wanted to. As it turns out Allen has been entertaining AND the experience he's gained this year will prove invaluable for next year.

To be clear the idea that Peterman was a starting caliber QB for the Bills is the most damning indictment of the current Bill's managements ability to build an offense. At the risk of again beating a dead horse to death it just boggles the mind that the Bill's brain-trust believed this guy was a starting QB. But with that being said, there are way to many balls bouncing off receivers hands into the hands of the defense for me to be comfortable with. And maybe it's just a statistical anomaly but the presence of #13 near so many INT's is funny in and of itself. Getting rid of both Peterman & KB was addition by subtraction for sure.

Ok at the risk of bringing down the wrath of 2BT on my head, did you notice that a lot of those INT's were balls that bounced off the hands of our receivers? And I couldn't help but notice that #13 (KB) was in the vicinity of a lot of those INT's. Look I hope Peterman makes it in the NFL. At the same time he'd worn out his welcome in Buffalo as he was way to careless with the football BUT watching this funny video can't hide the fact that it wasn't just Peterman.

It's bad enough that when I watch NFL games I see great catch after great catch that I NEVER see for the Bills. But now as the college Bowl season is heating up I've seen more spectacular catches by the college kids then I see by Bills skill players. It seems that like the NFL all it takes for these college QB's is to get the ball near their receivers and these play makers do the rest. Anyone who underestimates the impact of NOT having skill players who can make these kinds of catches is fooling themselves.

Well said!

This is the problem with all these "stats": * what constitutes a dropped ball? According to the stats there was only one in the NE game. This begs the question of whether the criteria for dropped balls is to narrow. How about a stat that looks at catchable balls? * But I'll grant you that EVERY QB is the victim of dropped passes - it comes with the game. But if a QB is the victim of 2 dropped passes in a game but benefits from a couple of GREAT catches it tends to balance out. Allen sure experiences the dropped passes but how many truly GREAT catches have his receivers made to cancel those out? A great example of this involves the Jets/GB game. Near the goal line Darnold throws a ball that should have been intercepted but instead is completed for a 15 yard gain because his receiver made a spectacular one handed catch. Watch the clip if you don't believe me. As previously posted on this thread folks who were negative about Allen from day 1 are using these flawed analytics to confirm their bias. I'm using the eye test which shows me that Allen has improved substantially over the course of the season. This is my criteria for whether a young QB will or will not be a bust.

I second this opinion. In fact I'll go a step further and say the analytics these folks are pushing are full of dog poop. The variability that exists for EVERY SINGLE NFL pass renders their attempts to use statistical analysis to define a QB's play a fools errand. Think about ALL the factors that can influence a single pass play: officiating (do they see that hold or not), the snap (high, low or perfect), the QB pre-snap read, the O-line pre-snap read, the signals coming in from the bench, do all the players see the signals coming in from the bench, the routes run by the receivers, the QB fake, the RB fake, QB mobility, pass protection, receiver play on the ball, DB play on the ball, blitz pickup by the back, quality of catch, ..............you get the picture. The only place analytics MIGHT provide useful information in the NFL is when considering veteran QB's who have been on the same team for a prolong period of time. Then and only then would I expect the number crunching to yield insightful info. For rookie QB's in vastly different circumstances - ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!?

I'm doing my duty as a Bill's fan and drinking beers while I scout for possible WR & TE talent in tonight's Iowa State versus Washington State Bowl and I may have found one. It's a big dude on WS (Dezman Palmon) that made a leaping finger tip TD catch. It was impressive and looked to be an even harder catch then the one that Logan Thomas dropped at the goal line against NE.

Bingo. Retired R&D guy here and this is what I'm seeing also. I would also add that the enormous variability inherent in the "measurements" being made by these analytics guys with respect to football almost render conventional statistical analysis mote.

Wow those stats are amazing and Allen is mirroring Young's 1985/1986 stats pretty closely this year. Also note how in 1987 after being traded to SF Young still struggled mightily with "accuracy" and only completed 54% of his passes but his TD/INTO ratio went from 8/13 in 1986 to 10/0 in 1987.

The problem with trying to figure any of this out is that there are to many variables: * When watching the Bills try to execute a screen pass the first thing you notice is that Allen's short passing accuracy is the least of our worries. It seems like the O-line has major problems in first selling the screen then getting out there to make a block. * With Shady banged up since Allen came back from his injury we probably have the worst set of receiving RB's in the NFL. Ditto for our TE's. While it's one thing to want an effective short passing offense it's not so easy to do without decent route running & pass catching RB's & TE's. * The Bills seem to be in a lot of 1st & long and 2nd & long situations due to the false stars and holding penalties. In the NFL defensive coordinators know that 1st & 20 or 2nd & 15 just cry out for a dump off pass and they game plan accordingly. It also means Allen is thinking about getting back big chunks of that yardage and that explains his urgency to push the ball downfield. Patience is one of the last things a rookie gunslinger type QB learns. Which was a point Arians made over & over again. * The ability of the opposition to take our WR's out of the game with minimum effort allows them to better focus against the short passing game. * Outside of Shady the Bills don't have the type of RB talent/experience that can differentiate when they need to pick up the blitz and when they're free to sneak out into the flat. While Allen has to get better at spotting these guys and making the throw I've seen our RBs standing their waiting for a blitzer who didn't come yet NOT getting out of the backfield for the dump off.

For sure we need to upgrade TE but I do like what I'm hearing about Croom's work ethic. And he has made some nice catches. In the fullness of time that fumble against NE at the 5 yard line will fade away. After all he was trying to get extra yardage and it's not like he has a lot of experience running with the ball in the open field. If Croom can be a contributing factor next season it means we only need one more TE from FA and that frees up money to look at other needs - of which there are plenty. So I'm rooting for this guy to make the leap to the next level in the off season.

This is my take as well. Let's face it those of us Bills fans who've been around the block and paying attention to the parade of QB's over the last 20 years have earned a PhD in Advanced Crappy QB play. Allen looks different to us and it's not just wishful thinking on our part.

As other posters have pointed out Allen's improvement over the course of this season has been impressive and indicates that his improvement from year 1 to year 2, given a whole off season to work with AND better offensive weapons, will be substantial.

I'm just as curious as you are about how they rated this pass. And do they use the "official" dropped pass metric which seems a bit lose to me, you know the one where Logan Thomas didn't drop the ball at the goal line? It just seems to me that the amount of subjective as opposed to objective info that flows into this kind of analytic makes it very difficult to quantitate.

Thanks for posting this. My take: * A very fair review of Allen. Schofield was actually pretty positive and seemed both complimentary and surprised at what Allen has shown in his passing game. He seems to be of the opinion that Allen will become a decent QB. I also thought that he articulated a lot of the things we've been seeing that's good about Allen's passing game. Given that both of these guys were hypercritical of Allen around draft time they have come a long way in changing their opinion about his chances. * I think these two also illustrated the huge perception issues that Allen must overcome. I'm not sure I've ever seen a top 10 drafted QB come out of college receiving so much harsh criticism. The fact is that a whole lot of the experts who specialize in diagnosing NFL talent staked out strong positions around their belief that Allen was not an NFL caliber QB. It will take a lot to move these folks off their opinions of Allen. What makes a guy like Schofield impressive to me is that he's willing to say "hey, maybe I was wrong" and is looking into changing how he evaluates QB's based on what he's seen from Allen's PASSING game in the NFL.