CincyBillsFan

Allen's production this year is equal to or better then previous years with an uptick in INT's and reduction in lost fumbles. The Bills O remains near the top of the league in offensive stats and the team is playing for an 11 - 6 record and a division title. Similar to previous season results. And they're doing this with a collection of offensive skill players that are not as good as those from previous years. I just don't see the evidence that Allen's off season activities has hurt his game compared to other far more likely explanations of his occasional struggles (coaching changes, injuries, uneven O line play, poor skill player performances, a D that has struggled due to injuries). One big issue that has impacted Allen IMO is the defenses performance as a result of all the injuries. Allen gave the Bills the lead with less then 2 minutes to play in 3 of the games they lost. Had they held the lead in just 2 of those 3 games (playing against very bad Offenses in Denver & NE) the Bills would be 12 - 4.

The KC offense runs through Mahomes & Reid so are we supposed to blame then for the Chiefs offensive troubles when its obvious where the problems are? Same for the Bills IMO.

And if the Miami pass defense from yesterday shows up, where Raven receivers were high school wide open, the Bills will beat the hell out of the Dolphins. It's a week to week league and what happened last week seldom impacts what happens the following week except fr injuries and the Finns seem to have had more then the Bills did.

Allen realizes that he could play better after games like yesterday - he clearly says so. But that is very different from saying Allen has something "wrong" with him. IMO what you're seeing is the normal variability that accompanies the play of even elite level QB's in the NFL. And this variability is exacerbated by the Bills not having a boatload of high end play makers on offense.

Agree 100%. Sure Allen did not play well today but what bugs me is when people take the occasional Allen off game and claim that it's representative of a much bigger problem. And for the record while Allen did not play well he did not come close to "sucking" today. He made the plays in the 2nd half when they were needed and the Bills won to raise their record to 10 - 6. It's like these hyper critics don't watch any other NFL games. If they did they would see that other elite QB's struggled at times this weekend: * Mahomes could only manufacture 1 TD, lost a bad strip sack fumble that led to a Bengal's TD and overthrew a wide open WR on a deep pass. But like Allen Mahomes made the plays needed and got a crucial win. * Last night Goff struggled throwing 2 bad INT's and missing multiple open receivers. But at the end he had the Lions on the cusp of winning the game. * Matt Stafford, QBing the hottest team in the NFC against a bad Giants team threw 2 INT's and only 1 TD. The Rams were lucky to win that game. * Tua threw 2 INT's today and we all saw what that score ended up being. Every week great QB's have rough games. And most of the time these great QB's overcome their poor game to have moments of excellence to steal the win. Allen had one of those today. And if people remember Kelly had a lot of games like that over the Bills SB's run. I'm just amazed how quickly people forget what bad QBing really looks like. During the playoff drought we saw a lot of QB's that truly sucked. Allen has QBed the Bills to 5 straight 10 or more win seasons in a row. And if the Bills can beat Miami it will also be 5 straight playoff appearances and 4 straight division titles.

You forgot almost immediate pressure up the middle on a number of plays. Nothing hamstrings a QB like interior pressure. Allen avoids the sack in ways that only a couple of other QB's can and then tries to make a throw while running for his life or getting clobbered as he releases the ball. Most QB's would have been sacked 3 or 4 more times today then Allen was. Ditto for the last game. Amazingly Allen's accuracy seems quite good when he actually has a pocket to throw from.

I mean think about the Eagles losing to the Cards today at home. One of the worst teams in the NFL goes into Phily beats them and probably costs the Eagles the division.

Lots of drops and very few great catches.

He did not have a clean pocket on that play. Maybe I'm wrong but he was pressured up the middle and had to bail out to his left making a throw to where Shakir was a risky proposition.

I thought the same thing. That guy was more wide open then Diggs was. The simple fact is that hitting those long passes is not easy.

I know I sound like a broken record but the problem with the Bill's O is that for the last few years it has been treated like the proverbial red headed step child. The lions share of FA money and draft capitol has flowed to the D. This past year things started to change with the Bills taking Kincaid (a budding superstar) and Torrenze with the 1st & 2nd picks but in FA the Bills were in serious bargain hunting mode on O and it shows. Look at the Chiefs, as Kelsey, much like Diggs, falls back into average territory and KC's long shot signings haven't panned out Mahomes is looking very ordinary.

With Diggs playing as an average WR are you surprised? Without Diggs in elite mode what are we left with? We don't have blazing speed and our WR's don't make very many great catches. Did people happen to see OBJ's catch today against the Dolphins?

He was also running for his life. Pressure up the middle is the worst kind of pressure for any QB. The interior O line better up its game as today they did not run or pass block well.

Yep. Look at the other games today: * The Eagles lost at home to Arizona. * The Rams, the "hottest" team in the NFL got lucky to edge the Giants 26 - 25. Stafford had 1 TD pass and 2 INT's. * I'm watching the Chiefs crapping the bed against a Bengal's team without Burrow. The win is all that matters. Now the Bills need to play a great game next week to do something most of us thought they had no chance at doing - win the division.

As I recall Allen got immediate pressure up the middle forcing him to slide to his left making a throw back to the right both ill advised and very difficult.

The O line didn't help particularly pressure up the middle which is bad for any QB. The drops didn't help either. The drop by Murry at the end of the half that would have given the Bills a first down was brutal.

So you thought the O line, particularly the interior O line looked good? IMO they were awful and the primary cause of the poor offensive showing today.

Well that's a relief as Diggs clearly didn't dress Allen for the game.

But the 49's game was what has propelled Jackson into the lead with respect to MVP. And for the record you would have to know where the takeaways happened between the two teams to better see which QB benefited the most from the TO.

Agree and that was one of the biggest criticisms of Allen his first two seasons in the NFL. All we heard is how terrible it was that Allen kept dropping back in a futile effort to avoid a sack. A lot of folks on 2BD called that out as an example of Allen playing "hero ball" to the detriment of the team. Jackson does the exact same thing in his 6th year and all people can do is blame the ref. I wonder if the ref was caught by surprise that Jackson would do something as foolish and reckless as falling back 20 yards into his own end zone?

Yep and those short fields against SF brought to the Ravens by their D certainly helped Jackson's TD totals.

That would be true for Hurts who scores a lot of 1 yard tush push TD's but I believe more then half of Allen's rushing TD's were scored from more then 5 yards out.

But there is a hierarchy to how bad an INT is based on were on the field and under what circumstances it occurs. * Pick 6's are the worst kind of INT and Allen doesn't have one this season. * Red zone INT's (both in the opponents and in the Bills red zone) are very bad and Allen doesn't have one of those either. * 3rd down INT's thrown from your side of the 50 that end up on the opponents side of the 50 (arm punt) are not that bad. Also such things as average place on the field the INT occurs can define how bad the INT was. So far Allen's INT's, while more numerous then one would like, haven't been awful in their outcomes.

I had a slightly different take: Skippy kept his mouth shut because he knew Sherman was 100% right. Bayless may come across as a shrill Cowboy homer but he does know football enough to understand that Sherman was making a lot of sense.

Maybe they're not "fans" or maybe they're just overly invested in their negative takes on Allen from back in April 2018.