Beck Water

Shaw, I appreciate your points and you're not wrong - in theory. What I saw in the game from Kyle Allen seems to go beyond unfamiliarity with the offense. I saw lack of pocket awareness - throwing too early from an acceptable pocket, turning and running back into pressure. I saw locking on a receiver, seeming to only read half the field, throwing to a covered receiver where the DB has a better play on the ball than the receiver does, throwing up a jump ball whilst being pressured instead of dirting it or throwing OOB - lots of stuff. OK, we all have a first performance and it isn't always great. What bothered me most about Kyle Allen was the dissonance between the above, and his own evaluation of his performance as "smooth" and "overall I was pretty happy with it". He seemed very upbeat, and while you need a guy to believe in himself you also need him to be self-aware in order to be susceptible to improvement.

The struggles I see from Allen go way beyond not knowing the offense. Pocket awareness, judgement, seems like he's only reading half the field at times? locking onto a receiver. The Bills had better NOT have a "deep ball passing offense". They better have a varied passing offense with a variety of short and intermediate options.

Bridgewater would IMO be a better option. But he signed with Detroit the day after you posted this. Carson Wentz is cooked. If his SB-year QB coach Reich couldn't restore him to function, no one can.

This could just be me, but while I agree on the arm strength, I thought that throw to Shakir was dangerous. A good catch by Shakir, but dangerous. I actually wondered at the time if he'd been targeting Quintin Morris, who is behind Shakir and more open/safer throw. Morris seemed to think it was coming to him? Shakir had to climb the ladder and go up a bit for that throw, and if he'd tipped it, it had 2 guys ready to pick it and 2 more converging. It either needed to be lower (if intended for Shakir) or higher (if intended for Morris). In my opinion. Fair is fair, those are very nice throws, and you're right that Barkley doesn't have the arm for them. There's a reason McDermott described the first half QBing as "hot and cold" not uniform "we need to do better". Kyle Allen did make some nice plays, but he also made some stinkers. The 2:26 throw to Ateman was placed where his very first throw to Sherfield should have been placed, but wasn't, for example. I'm not sure it's just mastering the system, it's also his pocket sense, his judgement, and possibly his aim at times. I don't want to pick on the guy, but this play. (2:01 if it doesn't index). Seems he never once looks to the L side of the field, where Harty (I think) stops and turns to get open. Morris appears to be coming open with a step on his guy across the middle (isn't he throwing the mail flag up?), but Allen doesn't see him because he's turned his back and flees - right into pressure from the Colts DE 97. THEN HE THROWS IT UP! to Murray instead of throwing it past him OOB. Awful awful play. You're right of course, that he does have some physical tools. The thing that bothered me most about Kyle Allen wasn't what happened on the field, it was the combination of his play on the field and his responses afterwards in the interview. Describing his performance as "smooth" and saying he was pretty "happy with it". Then when he was asked about playing behind a rotating cast on OL, he made some comment about "I've been in the league 6 years, I'm used to it". Oh? Then why did you lock on Sherfield and almost get your first pass picked off, throwing before anyone else had completed a route on 3rd and 3? The contrast was "Yikes" - it came across as totally lacking self-awareness. And I say this as one that was positive about the signing, I thought Allen had done some good things in Carolina when he got a chance to start, and also in Washington before he broke and dislocated his ankle.

Pro football reference gives him 20 targets and 2 drops. As has been said elsewhere, it's a small sample for statistics to mean much, but for the people who were OMG he's better than McKenzie why won't McDermott just PLAY his rookies? my guess is that the drop sample was larger in practice, just as has been commented on during training camp.

You know it! LOOK at the placement on that ball! He threw past the sticks! So what if he threw it where the DB had a better shot on it than he did! What on earth is that guy looking at, in liking how Kyle Allen played?

One thing that puzzled me about the depth chart the Bills put out was this guy named "Atemon" that was higher on it than a bunch of other guys whose names I'd heard. Now I know why. To be fair, Barkley played all of the 3rd Q after Kyle Allen's pick 6. I don't know the Colts roster well enough to know who was still on the field then, but that means Barkley was playing behind an OL and with many skill players that probably won't be on the team in 3 weeks. So he had the lesser players to work with as well.

I guess that depends upon how you count. We had Dawkins, Brown, Quessenberry, Doyle, and Bobby Hart on the roster last season but that lasted for like, 2 whole games. At Miami, Hart had been suspended and Doyle tore his ACL so I guess, 4 through most of the season? The discussion I've heard was around Ike Boettger who, sadly, does not look good.

Heh. Well. I noticed Kincaid on the throw to Sherfield that was almost picked (think it was Kyle Allen's first pass, and he stared Sherfield down so intensely that if his eyes were lasers, Sherfield would be perforated. That's Kincaid on the buffalo, basically knocking the Colt in coverage flat. Is that legal or is that OPI?

This is actually my best guess at what McDermott has in mind.

Observe the masterful way Kyle Allen stared down Sherfield (16) and threw to him even though he was covered, before anyone else had a chance to complete their route and even Cook, his checkdown, did not have a chance to leak out and get open. Admire the precision of his targeting,which throws where the DB has a better chance on the ball, instead of where Sherfield would have to come back for it and have a chance for a DH or DPI penalty if not a completion.

I think the starters are, in fact, on snap counts. For example, Joe Buscaglia tracks these things methodically and points out that Kincaid got 2 series, 4 snaps total. Poyer and Hyde were given exactly 10 snaps, and pulled in the middle of a series The idea, I believe, is to help them take a step into football shape with minimal risk of injury - and also, to keep them where they were able to practice today. Now I can't tell you for sure if that was the Bills thinking with Bates, or if they in fact do think of Torrance as the starter now. But I can tell you there IS a reason to not start Bates at RG then give him 2nd team C snaps, and that is it.

Oh, interesting. Apparently things changed in 2020 so if it worked before 2020 it might not work now. That seems sketch AF to me if that's allowed, because since only FA who are signed between the start of the league new year, and 1 week after the draft, count - if you can cut a guy you signed at that point and return to "the black" for comp picks what would stop teams from doing that routinely even with players they want - do a handshake agreement to cut and re-sign them?

I think if you look at the Overthecap article that I linked, it is pretty clear. Since the 2020 CBA, the criteria, if not the exact formula, has been pretty well publicized. From the link: That's a very fair point, but that wasn't exactly the trend of what McDermott said this time.

Just a little reminder that in Beasley's 4th season in the league, he contributed 52 catches for 536 yards. A month into Andy Isabella's 4th season, the team that had drafted him in the 2nd round waived him. Isabella is 26 years old, will be 27 years old and going into his 5th season. We usually figure "he is who he is" for most guys at that point in their NFL careers. Now I guess that can be wrong - look at Zay Jones. But he needs to do more than flash against the third stringers to stay on the team. Kyle? Kyle Allen, Is That You?

A note here, was commented upthread that Shorter only played a few snaps with Kyle Allen, who never looked his way. So it's not really realistic to say he was "outplayed by Johnson and Ateman".

Like I said, you seem very confident in your ability to evaluate OL play based on television broadcast. McDermott, in his interview, seemed much more guarded (Ha!) and as though he would want to watch film and evaluate before coming to a conclusion. I'm not convinced (personally) that Torrence in pass pro was All That and a Bag of Chips. McDermott doesn't sound convinced either. I don't know about "pissed", but I'd certainly go with "critical". McDermott made it pretty clear he thought the QB play in the first half was not good. if you listen to McDermott's presser and then Kyle Allen's the contrast is .......Wow, "surreal" is the word that comes to mind. It comes across to me as though they're in alternate universes or something, like "are we even talking about the same QB performance we just witnessed?" As I said elsewhere, I doubt a team with a backup we might want is going to trade him to us right now. They want to get closer to the regular season. But Beane and his pro personnel scouts should definitely be scouring rosters. Not just because it was a poor performance from Kyle Allen - but because Kyle Allen himself said he thought his performance was "smooth" and "overall he was pretty happy with it".

Barkley has been in this offense for years and knows it thoroughly. If Kyle Allen hasn't been able to absorb the offense in the last 5 months to be able to figure out where he should go with the ball in a preseason game where the defense probably isn't scheming for you, has he really absorbed it enough to be able to be helpful with preparation in the QB room and on game day? The other aspect of Kyle Allen is that his fiancee', Summer Juraszek, is 'super tight' with Brittany Williams. From how the latter has posted a bit on Insta/Tiktok indicating a bit of a bone to pick vs. 'just didn't work out, we wanted different things on a different timeline', might be Awkward...

Trading a player has no effect on the comp formula. The comp formula strictly involves FA https://overthecap.com/the-basics-and-methodology-of-projecting-the-nfls-compensatory-draft-picks I don't think Houston will have any interest in trading Keenum. If any QB is available, it might be Davis Mills, but I think Houston will keep 3 QB: CJ Stroud as the promising rookie, Davis Mills as the vet who has shown he can play somewhat, and Case Keenum as the wily veteran mentor. And this isn't for you, but with injuries etc no team is going to be trading us a QB in pre-season. They will wait until they're heading into the season healthy. Maybe. But then he needed to be spending part of his off-season making a project out of that, as Knox did.

Nice write up as always, Gunner. I don't know that I agree here. I think the Bills def. wanted to get a good long look at Bates as backup C. I saw something in an article about wanting to limit the snaps Ryan Bates had to play - which would have been A Lot if he played both G with the 1s and backup C with the 2s. It was unclear if that was the author's take or something a coach said. Also that Kromer wanted to see Torrence with both the 1s and 2s (written as though said by McDermott. So I'm at "uncertain what that means" not at "Competition is over, job is won". I'd go so far as to say Torrence is showing his value as a run blocker, but I'm less clear whether he's ready to rock in pass protection. Jumping around to your "bad": McDermott commented about Torrence "“When you’re talking about interior line play in particular, it’s hard to see with the naked eye out there, but good to see a young player get an opportunity,” McDermott said. “We’re trying to do that with some other young players as well. Now we go back and look at the film." I know you're confident about your ability to evaluate players from TV broadcast, not even film - but canonically, when a QB isn't settled in what appears to be a perfectly good pocket, it can mean that from his viewpoint it isn't a perfectly good pocket. So I provisionally give Kyle Allen a "pass" for some of the jitters - but nothing else. He is not looking good. worse, from the TBN article linked above: If Kyle Allen can describe that performance as "smooth", use the word "execute" with it, and say "just overall I was pretty happy with it" - the problem isn't just that he's not looking smooth and in command, the problem is that he isn't recognizing where he is now vs. where he needs to be, he's got some 'Dunning-Kruger" going on. Our head coach sounded less enthused by Allen's performance, talking about "open competition" and "hot and cold", then kind of describing "Matt getting the ball out, getting into the rhythm" as the "hot" part: I think Kyle Allen needs to listen to McDermott and take a memo, because being Josh's buddy didn't save Jacob Hollister from the cutting room floor, and Beane has made a point about an unknown player after the Texans playoff loss "it doesn't matter if you play golf and eat dinner with the coaches if you don't play well when your number is called" So the Bills have Basham under contract for 2 more years at a moderate price. He has a cap hit of $1.17M this season, with a dead cap of $0.74M if he's cut. Lawson has a 1 year contract, $1.3M, $0.425 if he's cut but that's mostly guaranteed salary so the Bills may be off the hook for it if he signs elsewhere. Capology says if the evaluation is similar, you cut Lawson and keep Basham. Since the Bills have a great big roving question mark in the middle of their defense, you might think they want to go with the guy they can count on to set the edge. I don't see how the Bills justify keeping even 10 DLmen, personally. They *did* keep 10 in 2021, the year they drafted Basham and Rousseau, but the usual number is 9. They would need to fit 10 into the roster at the expense of DB or LB...do they want to do that this year? I had mistakenly thought Van Demark actually was playing as the 3rd C during the Heatstroke Game in Miami. I was incorrect, since he hasn't taken an NFL snap yet. But, I'd rather see Van Demark in preseason to show us what he's got, than Quessenbery. Wonder why he only got one drive with the 2's, though? Unless it was "we want to see both you and Quessenberry with the same guys"? I reluctantly have to agree with you. Minor correction on the "breaking his ankle" - it was a torn Achilles. One study suggests that ~1/3 of players who have torn Achilles do not return to play.and those who do have on average, a 50% reduction in power rating. A 50% reduction in power rating for an OLman is not good, and it may be more. They didn't cite OLmen specifically but: I said before the season, and to some folks who put out early takes on a 53 man roster, don't sleep on Quintin Morris

In 2019, Kyle Allen played well more often than badly for the Panthers. Started 12 games, 5-7 overall - team won 5 out of the first 6 games he started with a lousy defense. He had some really good games, and also like 3 skunks, really bad stinkers. Overall threw too many picks, but that's not uncommon in the 1st year a QB starts. Rivera thought well enough to trade for him and he started a handful of games and looked OK. Then he had a bad injury - dislocated and broken ankle after being leg-whipped - which put him on IR for the rest of the season. He frankly hasn't looked like the same guy in the games he's started, since. I don't know if the ankle still isn't right, or if throwing while rehabbing screwed up his motion, or if being injured like that screwed with his head for the game. Point is, what people saw in Kyle Allen was some real flashes in 2019 along with some sub-par play. He didn't look as good in Washington, but the whole team was bad so who knows. But the last 2 years, not the same. I frankly don't trust either Barkley OR Kyle Allen to mind the store and at least break even.

What position on OL is he playing?

That's....alarming

Elam too?

That happened in practice when Bernard went out, as well. So much for pre-season depth charts