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Allen is NOT inaccurate unless Baker, Lamar, Darnold, Rosen, 2017 Watson & 2016 Wentz are, too


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Damn man, kudos to you for putting in all that effort. I think it's going to take awhile to change the narrative of the national media because the book on him coming out was his accuracy and that is what the "Experts" are going to hitch their wagon to. As long as his numbers at the end of the day show 60% or below you will continue to hear them bang the drum about his accuracy issues. Until he can either start winning lots of games or significantly up his % you will still hear this argument. I personally would love to see his % tick up a few numbers but the narrative that he is an inaccurate passer to me is flawed. Again, great work, I appreciate the time you put into this. Go Bills!

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Anyone who actually watches the kid can see he has the potential to be a good QB.

 

The question we all ask ourselves is whether or not he will realize that potential.

 

But I do not have a problem with his accuracy. I saw him make many wow throws and very accurate throws throughout the year. I know he has the ability to be very accurate. As he progresses in fundamentals, experience, etc. I have no doubt the narrative of his accuracy issues will go away.

Edited by MJS
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Kiper said that Josh Allen's potential will come out when surrounded with NFL talent as he lacked a supporting cast in college.  Hopefully we can find him some this offseason.

Edited by Doc Brown
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Good work transplant. I have watched every throw of all 5 rookies too but did it week by week rather than in one batch and I haven't charted throws. My only gut reaction to where what I saw doesn't chime with your numbers is Lamar Jackson. I think those numbers present him better than my eye test would. I think he was considerably less accurate than all four of the others.

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30 minutes ago, MJS said:

Anyone who actually watches the kid can see he has the potential to be a good QB.

 

The question we all ask ourselves is whether or not he will realize that potential.

 

But I do not have a problem with his accuracy. I saw him make many wow throws and very accurate throws throughout the year. I know he has the ability to be very accurate. As he progresses in fundamentals, experience, etc. I have no doubt the narrative of his accuracy issues will go away.

I don't think it'll ever go away.  Hopefully, he does improve in that area though.   think we're going to have to accept that he'll throw four or five balls per game that are woefully inaccurate (similar to Cam Newton), but he makes up for it with arm strength and his mobility.

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Ouch!  That five minute gag reel was painful!  LOL

But seriously, just looking at those 35 throws my gut feeling is about half of those misses are 100% on the receiver. The other half do have at least a small percentage up to 50/50 QB error in the mix, because of less than excellent ball placement.  So at worst, gut feeling is those misses are 25% on Allen.  I agree they were all catchable. I do think he makes average receivers look worse... Most throws in the NFL involve at least a little bit of receiver adjustment to the ball while it is in the air. Josh throws the ball so hard that an average receiver doesn't have time to take more than one step to adjust their route. Zay Jones has quicker feet and pretty good instincts, which helps him a bit. They need to continue to add receivers with uncanny instincts and twitchy/smooth quickness and good hands with just enough size to not be Isaiah McKenzie. That's pretty much a description of Antonio Brown, so I'm hoping all the issues in Pittsburgh are traced back to Big Ben, not AB and his character doesn't keep him out of Buffalo...

Edited by wakingfane
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2 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:

I don't think it'll ever go away.  Hopefully, he does improve in that area though.   think we're going to have to accept that he'll throw four or five balls per game that are woefully inaccurate (similar to Cam Newton), but he makes up for it with arm strength and his mobility.

 

I think this is right. He isn't and I don't think ever will be, a natural accurate precision passer. But I think he throws enough good balls to succeed.

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You aren't debunking. You're disagreeing.

 

I do appreciate the effort. Impressive.

 

As you say, though, it's subjective. And your conclusions disagree with everyone else's. And we all know how you feel about Josh Allen (and Tyrod and another one or two before that). You are a huge fan, to the point of apparent wackiness at times, of whichever Bills QB is your fave.

 

As for your methodology, you again have the problem that you have showed over and over in your QB studies through the years. You give only your total conclusion, not breaking things down at all. I've pointed this out to you before, and you've simply ignored it each and every time, telling me it's not necessary to break things down. In fact, it's extremely necessary, because it means the only way to check your work is to exactly duplicate it and look at every play of the season. Effectively unrepeatable. 

 

Except of course by the experts and people who put in the effort because they're paid to do so. Those folks have already already done the same work, and as you yourself point out, they disagree with your conclusions.

 

If you'd broken it down, giving totals for each game for instance, it would've been easy for someone on these boards to check a game or two and see if your per game totals were on target. But as is your method, you don't provide details - no gross numbers, no game by game breakdowns, no nothing except your percentage conclusions - making checks all but impossible.

 

Thanks for the effort. If you'd given a reasonable chance to check, I'd have done so. But you never do, though I've asked before and it wouldn't have required much extra effort. It's not surprising you're not now.

 

Which leaves no choice but to point out that as you yourself point out, you're a huge Josh Allen fan and you're disagreeing with everyone else who did the work. Their work is just more believable, as they don't much care how the tallies come out.

 

I do admire - seriously - your willingness to put in this huge amount of work. As I said, very impressive.

Edited by Thurman#1
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Interesting analysis.  And the appropriate way to analyze.  The only way to measure accuracy is to actually look at throws and determine how close they are to a target.  And that's exactly what you have done.  I have talked about the dart board analogy in terms of what is accuracy vs. precision, and your study is a good determination of accuracy.

 

Too many folks, including columnists and sites that claim to use advanced stats to measure performance, mistake accuracy and precision, and use measures such as completion percentage incorrectly.  What I would say is that Allen needs to improve his precision.  Let's take a crossing route as an example.  You can be accurate based on your analysis, hit the WR where he can make the catch.  But if you throw it a bit behind where he slows down to make the catch then you lose YAC.  A precise throw, and also accurate, would put the ball just out in front of the WR so he catches in stride and continues running.The best QBs are highly accurate and highly precise.  

 

Thanks for doing your study - it casts much needed light on Allen's performance.

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The only thing that will make this narrative go away are repeated playoff showings.  He looks to me like the best we have since Kelly.  Sure he has a lot to learn, but I choose to be optimistic.  I’m sick of hearing from Coach Weiss how inaccurate and such a high risk picks.  I swear the man takes notes from Schoop and the Bulldog as he can be so rude to some callers.  I don’t understand why some radio hosts don’t know or want to be cordial or agree to disagree with their customers.

 

Sorry, I know a tangent.  Yes, I know the answer is don’t listen to him, and I normally don’t as I’ve made up my mind.  I stopped listening to WGR in the afternoon over a year ago.

I echo the other poster who thanked you for the homework put into this post by the OP.

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4 hours ago, Jeetz1231 said:

Damn man, kudos to you for putting in all that effort. I think it's going to take awhile to change the narrative of the national media because the book on him coming out was his accuracy and that is what the "Experts" are going to hitch their wagon to. As long as his numbers at the end of the day show 60% or below you will continue to hear them bang the drum about his accuracy issues. Until he can either start winning lots of games or significantly up his % you will still hear this argument. I personally would love to see his % tick up a few numbers but the narrative that he is an inaccurate passer to me is flawed. Again, great work, I appreciate the time you put into this. Go Bills!

**** the Media

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5 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:

First off, about accuracy: why do we talk about it like it's an Olympic medal? As though if you aren't in the top 3 or top 10 or whatever, you're no good. That doesn't seem the way to think about accuracy at all. There's a threshold of success. If you're accurate above that threshold, you're good. If below, you're not.

 

Regardless, I figured examining Allen's accuracy in comparison to his peers would help determine whether he truly somehow has the severe accuracy problems portrayed by the national media. I only did the 4 other rookies with Allen, not the 31 other starters. Would anyone expect Josh Allen or Sam Darnold or any of the 5 rookies to be as accurate as Drew Brees or Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers?

They're rookies. That's why the 5 rookies are my ultimate points of comparison. And part of the point was also anecdotal. Just looking at Darnold and Allen, you see Darnold just throw some real head-scratchers that wind up being tipped or batted. These types of throws I so very rarely saw with Allen that I just didn't consider them negative throws. Darnold showed that those throws should largely be weighed negatively, so I adjusted. Methodology for all QBs were the same.
 

Rookies in the NFL are peers who have the same short offseason to work and, in the case of all 5 rookies, spent the entire offseason as presumed backups, taking 2nd and 3rd string snaps. Allen was talked about and is still talked about consistently as the rookie QB who has a serious accuracy problem, not the other guys. I wanted to test that narrative with my own eyes, so before this post reaches the TLDR category for the impatient, here were the final %s I came up with after watching every single pass of all 5 rookie QBs, arranged from best to worst.

 

Catchable balls excluding Throwaways


1) Darnold - 79.5%
2) Allen -78.1%
3) Mayfield -76.6%
4) Jackson -72.7%
5) Rosen - 71.6%

 

Throwaway/Spike %

1) Allen - 7.1%
2) Jackson -6%
3) Rosen - 5.8%
4) Darnold - 5.5%
5) Mayfield -3.2%

 

Interceptable pass % excluding Throwaways and Spikes


1) Mayfield - 7.6%
2) Jackson - 8.5%
3) Allen - 8.7%
4) Rosen - 9.1%
5) Darnold - 11.2%

 

Catchable pass % Excluding BOTH Throwaways AND batted-tipped passes

1) Darnold - 84.5%
2) Mayfield - 82.2%
3) Jackson - 79.5%
4) Allen - 78.6%
5) Rosen - 75.5%

 

Part of the reason I decided to go through this endeavor was because I saw this tweet 

And then seeing this:

https://buffalonews.com/2018/12/27/buffalo-bills-pro-football-focus-josh-allen-accuracy/

 

Kinda makes me think this is the reality

 

First off, let me explain my "methodology," so to speak...  I rewatched each "condensed" version of all of every rookie's games and made a judgment call on whether their incompletions were catchable or uncatchable.

 

That's it.  

 

No, I didn't do Coach's film, but I realize that would have been better, but also much more time consuming.  When there was a real question on a throw, gamepass has a slow motion option. This process took a few weeks to get through all 5 rookies.

 

I'm not judging ball placement, just whether the WR/TE/RB could reasonably have made a catch or not... even a great catch.  If he had a chance, I labelled it as "catchable."  If not, I labelled it as "uncatchable." 

 

Ball hits palm (or would with reasonable adjustment) = Catchable

 

Ball hits fingertips of outstretched arms or beyond = Uncatchable

 

That Clay non-catch in the EZ at the end of the Miami game is absolutely catchable because it's a catch you see NFL WRs and TEs across the league make frequently. It may not be Charles Clay catchable, but it's catchable.

 

I'm not making judgement calls on miscommunication or anything because I think that type of thing will largely even out in the end. So when I looked at the wide open Zay Jones miss in the back of the end zone in the Miami game--which we now know from post game interviews was a miscommunication where Allen assumed Jones was going to "sit" when he threw it--I labelled it as uncatchable. I saw one of those plays in Darnold's 2nd game that appears to also be a miscommunication.

So, my process is something you're obviously free to criticize, but I'm using the same process for all the rookies.

 

I tried to be as absolutely unbiased as I could be, but there's inherent subjectivity to this exercise. But do you agree that all (roughly) 35 of these passes are catchable?

 

 

 

And that's missing a good number, believe me. Remember Allen's interception in the Titans game that went right between Andre Holmes hands? Yeah... catchable... not Interceptable.

 

Now, on top of that, I also counted "throwaways" and "tipped/batted balls."


I also kept track of interceptable passes.  Each interceptable pass was also either a catchable pass, uncatchable pass, or tipped/batted ball for obvious reasons.  


I think it's important to discard throwaways when considering a QB's accuracy... and yes yes yes, I know that "ball placement is part of this equation, but that's highly highly highly subjective... much moreso than just whether a pass is catchable or not.

 

This is anecdotal, but I can tell you this, a huge number of Allen's catchable incompletions were targeting the liabilities of Kelvin Benjamin, Andre Holmes, and Charles Clay.

 

Oddly,  Allen's catchable vs. uncatchable passes were virtually identical between his pre-injury-absence and when he came back against the Jags.  I went back and double checked.  I think his decision making just got much better after his injury. I also actually triple checked about his very low tipped/batted pass numbers compared to the other guys. Also, I didn't track uncatchable vs catchable in terms of yards, (though maybe I should have for skeptics), from rewatching every single Allen pass on the year, the vast majority of his uncatchable passes were 10+ yards down the field. He missed some short passes that a lot of folks will cherry pick, but on the whole, his short passes were catchable. I think Allen's about as inaccurate as the typical rookie, but a lot more willing to push the ball down the field, for better or worse.

 

 

I think it's worth pointing out that passes where QB throws it to a WR and a DB steps in front to intercept it, but can't hang on, I'm counting in the category of "tipped/batted balls" along with obviously "Interceptable." Holy CRAP does Darnold throw a lot of those! These are the types of bad throws where maybe a QB just doesn't see a guy closing in that don't get intercepted, they just end up being passes defensed. This very rarely happened with Allen, but happened really frequently with Darnold.

 

The narrative seems to be that Allen succumbs to "Hero Ball" too much and takes too many risks with the football. I think there might be an argument to be made there up until he throws the football, but once Allen throws it, he appears to be the most conscientious of defenders in the realm of his intended target.

To me this idea that Allen is like Brett Favre--in terms of being a gunslinger--just doesn't hold water. Yes, he's consistently throwing farther than the other rookie QBs... actually farther than any other QB in the NFL. But he's not making a lot of risky throws. That's Darnold and Mayfield.

And while a lot of people look at those risky throws as indicative of better QB play, I'll give you these Next Gen stats of Aggressiveness %. Here's how it's defined:

Aggressiveness (AGG%)
Aggressiveness tracks the amount of passing attempts a quarterback makes that are into tight coverage, where there is a defender within 1 yard or less of the receiver at the time of completion or incompletion. AGG is shown as a % of attempts into tight windows over all passing attempts.

https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/passing#aggressiveness

Looks to me like being aggressive with the football is something Josh Allen is not, and that may not be a bad thing based on the QBs accompanying him on the list.

 

The work so many stress Allen needs to do in the offseason regarding mechanics and just improving as a pocket passer is Jackson ×100. Baltimore does some brilliant stuff on offense in order to get WRs consistently pretty wide open and/or providing Jackson with just a single read passing wiseIf anyone reminds me of Tebow this year, it's Jackson, and it's not even close.

 

Mayfield, like you might expect--I did--was the best passer of the bunch. His 2nd half of the year was much stronger than the 1st. Damn does he get a lot of balls batted at the line, though.

 

Rosen was pretty bad. He honestly might get the David Carr effect long term and never reach his potential largely because of the talent around him, honestly.

 

 

 

 

I'll be happy to answer any questions about my numbers, but I would encourage you to try this exercise yourself if you have those serious doubts. But if I were to ask you if you'd be happy with a QB who threw catchable footballs 78.1% of the time, would you be happy?

After watching that,  i would replace all WR'S on this team other than Foster.  The Bills need to focus on getting OL and WR'S,  they most likely need to get one playmaking LB and they should be good on defensive side of ball.

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37 minutes ago, dneveu said:

That cian whatever guy is a cocky insufferable human, the worst kind of person you find on Twitter.  He is literally wrong all the time and cherry picks plays to fit his narrative.

 

And his voice makes him punchable. Well, that and the fact that Mikey schopp loves him.

Edited by Joe in Winslow
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This is blasphemy. Repent OP! Repent!  ---- Rev, Peter J. Blinders, Church of the Sacred Completion Percentage

 

Today's Sermon: Does a good QB have a high completion percentage or does a high completion percentage make a QB good?

 

 

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