Brand J

Stroud is catching up to Allen pretty quickly. I’d say he’s already a better pure passer than our guy.

Shades of EVERYONE on this board wanting Haloti Ngata and the GM picks Whiffner. Remember Ngata saying years later he thought for sure he’d be a Buffalo Bill? That one still stings.

It hasn’t been for lack of trying to throw one! But yes, a large percentage of INTs seemed to come when he targeted Davis. And I remember Gabe dropping plenty of passes, but maybe no TDs that were as bad as this one here. Still remember when he dove in the back of the EZ to bring one in against the Dolphins. 100x more of a difficult catch than this pass.

Not that it matters now, but I just saw a live action slow mo replay of the Cook catch from the angle of this picture. Looks good, folks.

You don’t understand that it’s how the defender is covering Coleman that matters here. When defenders peel off their primary (short) responsibility to take away a pass thrown down the field, they give themselves the room they’ll need to turn and run with that player. Here, the defender on Coleman is in his hip pocket, he’s plastered all over him. All his attention is on taking away that pass. He cannot then turn and run with a player sprinting past him as the ball is in the air. No human can. If his intention was to take away Cook, the coverage would’ve been looser and Josh could’ve hit Coleman. You can decide what you want to take away, but you can’t aggressively take away both.

You can do all the math you want, but I’m telling you Coleman’s defender cannot take away both the long and the short pass. He has to commit to one or the other. If it was to take away Cook, his hips would’ve remained parallel to the LoS and he would’ve been ready to sprint with him just as Coleman reached his stopping point. If it was to take away Coleman… well, we already see that evidence here. He stays glued to him, there’s no thought of bailing that responsibility to take away the throw downfield that would fall into Cook’s hands. It takes less than a second for Josh to wind up and throw the ball. Human reaction time would’ve had the defender taking off from Coleman while the ball was in the air, not when Josh pulled it back to throw. At that point it’s already too late for him because he committed to taking away Coleman.

If Josh threw the ball to Cook what you would’ve seen is Coleman’s defender peel off and start chasing after Cook. What you wouldn’t see is him level or ahead of Cook. He wouldn’t factor into knocking the ball down or an INT unless the pass was under thrown. You keep saying the guy has a head start… they’re not running the same race. One is sprinting upfield, the other is flat footed looking at the QB. This isn’t the same scenario where you see other defenders peel off to factor into the play because this man is too tight on Coleman. He’s not in a position to hang with the player sprinting past him. He’d only be chasing the play down.

Einstein, he doesn’t have a head start because he’s defending Coleman. He’s not physically capable of defending Cook down the field here unless he bailed from his primary responsibility to do so. He’s flat footed, looking at the QB, right on Coleman, while Cook is on the outside speeding by. It’s not as simple as “this guy only has to run here, this guy has to run 7 more yards here,” it happens in the blink of an eye, less than a second. The only way he can cover Cook down the field is to leave Coleman, but his hips clearly aren’t turned to run. He’s a non factor in the play. This is getting bizarre, guys.

That’s right, Coleman’s defender is on him tight, facing Allen. His eyes are in the backfield. The ball can’t go to Coleman or it’ll be a break up at best. Where it can go is OVER that defender’s head, down the field. If you’ve played the sport you’d know that man would have no chance to turn around and run with Cook who already has a full head of steam. The fastest sprinters in the world wouldn’t factor into the play. He can’t peel off of Coleman to guard Cook unless that was his intention from the snap. In that scenario you would’ve seen him bail on his primary responsibility to pick up Cook while he’s streaking down the field. It can’t be after. Ideally would’ve liked to see Coleman carry his route to that safety playing middle field to occupy him too. As it is, if Josh throws a perfect ball there Cook will still have to make that safety miss in order to score.

Tell me you haven’t been on a field without telling me you haven’t been on a field. Coleman’s defender can’t guard two players at the same time. He never bails from his responsibility, he wouldn’t have factored into a pass thrown over his head. Some of you posters in here are wild 😂

The only chance, the ONLY chance, Coleman’s defender had to take Cook out of the play is if he and the LB communicated before the snap to switch off (which would’ve been highly unlikely given the player each is guarding). In that instance we all would’ve saw the DB bail on Coleman once he settles and start sprinting back to defend Cook on the long ball. Here he stays tight on his responsibility and remains in Coleman’s hip pocket, so he has zero chance of playing any upfield pass that goes to Cook. Not even Usain Bolt or Christian Coleman could’ve got to Cook flat footed like that. Wouldn’t even happen in a video game with speed levels at 99.

I took your post to mean that Allen wasn’t one of the 5 contributing reasons to why we lost the Texans game. I also remember a similar post about his performance in the Jets game and thought that was you again, so my apologies there. You understand that we fans live week to week. Posts that spring up on the board aren’t about the totality of whatever that player brings to the team, it’s about his performance in that given week. Why on earth would anyone harp about what Allen has done in the last 5 years when the Texans loss is what we’re discussing? That doesn’t make sense to me. Allen is the singular reason for why the Bills are relevant again… he’s also one of the contributing reasons for why the offense struggles to move the ball in losses. Both can be true. And he’s allowed to be criticized like any other player. To do so is not an obsession.

And it’s up to the players to execute. As they say, at the end of the day it’s less about the Xs and Os and more about the Jimmy’s and Joe’s. Offense was a collective failure Sunday.

I’m actually the opposite - l’m not glad there’s a thread criticizing his play because that means he’s not playing well. When multiple Bills players come forward to say “we believe in 17” it tells you they also know he’s playing poorly and want to show their support by publicly backing him. Yet throughout all this, we still have posters who say “Allen wasn’t bad, he was made to look bad thanks to his teammates.” It’s a weird form of idolization. We are fortunate that we have a top 3, top 5, or whatever you want to label Allen as a QB, but feeling fortunate doesn’t mean he is absolved from any and all blame when he plays poorly. I wish threads like these never existed because that would mean that Allen would never be the chief reason for a loss.

Wasn’t it you who also said that Allen’s off game against the Jets in the opener last year wasn’t one of the five biggest issues in determining the outcome?