Josh Allen 2019 Regular Season at 58.8% Completion Percentage

[LSHMEAB]

9 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

To quote a famous poster around here, you’re an idiot. 

 

Again for I think the fifth time now, Allen had a 58.8% completion rate.  The difference between that and 60% given the number of passes he threw?  Four.  Four out over over 400.   I showed you the power analysis; you’d have to have over 35000 throws to make that meaningful.  Those four throws could have been 4 bad throws, 4 dropped balls, 4 throwaways, 4 gusts of wind. Whatever.  It is time to drop this obsession over a 60% completion rate when it is no different than 58.8%.

 

But you either aren’t smart enough to understand that or simply refuse to recognize simple math because it violates your bias against the kid.

I understand your point, but I believe that every single play MATTERS when you're talking about the NFL. Games are generally close and the margin for error is slim. By the same token, 4 FEWER completions would have meant something like 57.5(or close).

 

The Bills have to add talent so Allen can fairly be assessed. That much is true. John Brown's inability to get his feet down at Houston was maddening. That's ONE play that mattered a great deal.

 

As an aside, I'm not nearly as concerned about the completion percentage as I am the YPA. For all his progress, this number went from 6.6 to 6.7. I consider that to be an issue. It's largely reflective of the deep ball accuracy. If he's gonna be a gunslinger, something which he's certainly got the tools for, he's gotta hit the "shots" on a more consistent basis.

[oldmanfan]

Just now, LSHMEAB said:

I understand your point, but I believe that every single play MATTERS when you're talking about the NFL. Games are generally close and the margin for error is slim. By the same token, 4 FEWER completions would have meant something like 57.5(or close).

 

The Bills have to add talent so Allen can fairly be assessed. That much is true. John Brown's inability to get his feet down at Houston was maddening. That's ONE play that mattered a great deal.

 

As an aside, I'm not nearly as concerned about the completion percentage as I am the YPA. For all his progress, this number went from 6.6 to 6.7. I consider that to be an issue. It's largely reflective of the deep ball accuracy. If he's gonna be a gunslinger, something which he's certainly got the tools for, he's gotta hit the "shots" on a more consistent basis.

I agree he had a problem with the deep ball this year.  Something he definitely needs to work on.  And one play can in fact make a difference in a game.  But not in statistical analysis, especially when trying to parse a 1.2% difference.  A single play is a single play and you can’t prove anything statistically with an N=1 sample size.

10 minutes ago, BringBackOrton said:

Was 60% even league average this year? Are we shooting for the lofty goal of 30th in the NFL in completion percentage?

 

I suppose when you rank 32nd even 30th smells sweet.

Tell the people that obsess over a 60% completion rate.

[transplantbillsfan]

8 hours ago, jrober38 said:

 

You're living in a fantasy land.

 

You're literally just saying things you want to be true.

 

Straight from NextGen's Glossary:

 

Average Completed Air Yards (CAY) and Average Intended Air Yards (IAY)

Air Yards is the vertical yards on a pass attempt at the moment the ball is caught in relation to the line of scrimmage. CAY shows the average Air Yards a passer throws on completions, and IAY shows the average Air Yards a passer throws on all attempts. This metric shows how far the ball is being thrown ‘downfield’. Air Yards is recorded as a negative value when the pass is behind the Line of Scrimmage. Additionally Air Yards is calculated into the back of the end zone to better evaluate the true depth of the pass.

Give it up. Please stop making up blatant lies. 

 

 

 

 

How about you do the same.

 

You blatantly lied saying Allen only completed one pass that travelled 30 yards in the air and zero passes over 40 yards.

 

You said that and have been proven not just a little wrong, but really wrong.

 

Own it.

[Billl]

1 hour ago, oldmanfan said:

To quote a famous poster around here, you’re an idiot. 

 

Again for I think the fifth time now, Allen had a 58.8% completion rate.  The difference between that and 60% given the number of passes he threw?  Four.  Four out over over 400.   I showed you the power analysis; you’d have to have over 35000 throws to make that meaningful.  Those four throws could have been 4 bad throws, 4 dropped balls, 4 throwaways, 4 gusts of wind. Whatever.  It is time to drop this obsession over a 60% completion rate when it is no different than 58.8%.

 

But you either aren’t smart enough to understand that or simply refuse to recognize simple math because it violates your bias against the kid.

So if we just goose his numbers slightly, you can pretend that he meets the bare minimum level of competence.  “Hey dad.  Yeah I failed my test, but good news.  If you take just 4 questions that I got wrong and pretend I got them right, I would have earned the lowest possible D minus.”

 

1 hour ago, oldmanfan said:

I agree he had a problem with the deep ball this year.  Something he definitely needs to work on.  And one play can in fact make a difference in a game.  But not in statistical analysis, especially when trying to parse a 1.2% difference.  A single play is a single play and you can’t prove anything statistically with an N=1 sample size.

Tell the people that obsess over a 60% completion rate.

He was dead last in completion percentage in 2018.  He was dead last in 2019.  The good news is that 33 QBs qualified in 2018 while only 32 qualified in 2019, so he moved up from 33rd to 32nd.

[Billl]

2 hours ago, thebandit27 said:

So you’re saying that context matters? Great. I agree. Put everything into context and we’ll analyze it. I’m on my way to Russell’s for dinner.

 

 

I actually don’t believe that a statistic can be flawed. A statistic is a number, an indicator; nothing more or less.

 

A calculated and manipulated rating, on the other hand, can be flawed.

 

Completion percentage is simply a number—how many passes a QB throws that are caught vs not caught. An analysis that conflates it with accuracy may be flawed (but isn’t necessarily if the correct context is applied).

 

More to say about analysis, but steak awaits.

I put my numbers into context, and they coincided perfectly with the MVP voting the past two seasons.  Your turn.  Hit us with the context that shows that “completions per air yards completion” is a more useful stat than QBR when evaluating QB play.

[oldmanfan]

9 minutes ago, Billl said:

So if we just goose his numbers slightly, you can pretend that he meets the bare minimum level of competence.  “Hey dad.  Yeah I failed my test, but good news.  If you take just 4 questions that I got wrong and pretend I got them right, I would have earned the lowest possible D minus.”

 

He was dead last in completion percentage in 2018.  He was dead last in 2019.  The good news is that 33 QBs qualified in 2018 while only 32 qualified in 2019, so he moved up from 33rd to 32nd.

Again I am not the one obsessing over a 60% completion rate.  That’s you and others.

 

I know exactly what you and others would say if he hit those 4 passes and had a 60% rate.  You'd say it needs to be at least 62%.  In fact someone did just that a few weeks ago.  If he threw for 65% you’d say it has to be 70%.  If he threw for 100% you’d pivot to some other stat to whine about.  Or say he needs to be 110%; given the math and stats skills I’ve see in some that would not surprise me in the least.

 

Same with the 300 yard stuff that gets brought up time and time again.  We all know what will happen when he hits that mark.  The whiners will either say it didn’t matter because they lost (even though it had been mentioned time and again that 300 yards doesn’t match wins), or that one game is a fluke or that the D they played was poor and so on.

 

We all saw Allen improve this past season over his rookie year.  Denying that would be ridiculous.  We all know he still has a lot of improvement to make.  Denying that would be ridiculous.  And we all know there are some here that either believe a QB should be a completely finished product day 1, or that make judgments on players predraft and then desperately try to run a player down to justify their opinion.  Denying that would also be ridiculous.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

47 minutes ago, Billl said:

So if we just goose his numbers slightly, you can pretend that he meets the bare minimum level of competence.

 

What “bare minimum level of competence” is it that Josh Allen allegedly didn’t meet, and needs numbers goosed to achieve?

 

He’s a professional NFL QB.  His job is to generate offense to help his team win games.   The team won 10 games and went to the playoffs.  By generating 3599 yds of passing and rushing offense, 29 TD, and 14 TO, he did his job.  

 

Could he have generated more offense, sure.  But to imply he needs “goosing” to meet the “bare minimum level of competence” at his job is cray-cray.

 

 

[jrober38]

2 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

This post tells me a lot about you.

 

You don't watch the Bills much, do you?

 

I got 4 deep passes off the top of my head:

 

John Brown TD against Denver

John Brown deep ball on Game Winning Drive in Pittsburgh

Dawson Knox pass that was originally ruled a TD but moved to the 1 in NE

John Brown TD in NE

 

Well this just isn't right at all.

 

Can you do math?

 

31 drops

 

461 attempts

271 completions

 

I don't know what you mean by "eliminating drops," but I would assume you mean counting those drops as catches since the throws were on target.

 

271 + 31 = 302

 

302 / 461 = 65.5%

 

Don't know where the hell you came up with 62%

 

I did it by team because I've yet to see any data that says who the QB was for every team when a pass was dropped.

 

Matt Barkley threw roughly 10% of the passes we attempted this year. Also we had 26 drops as per stats.com which is the source I used.

 

Our team's completion percentage was still like 4th or 5th worst in the NFL including the drops.

 

I assume most of that had to do with Allen, but I also don't know if any of our receivers dropped passes from Barkley. I assume they did.

 

Anyway you slice it, Allen was near the bottom of the NFL in completion and adjusted completion percentage. Whether he's last, fifth last, or anywhere in the bottom ten, that's not good.

 

When I looked through this, I just plugged in teams at the bottom of the NFL to see who came up with an adjusted number higher than the Bills. I didn't write it down, and I think I came up with 4 teams who were worse than the Bills. I think they were Cinci, Indy, Cleveland and Detroit.

Edited January 24, 2020 by jrober38

[Hapless Bills Fan]

3 minutes ago, jrober38 said:

 

I did it by team because I've yet to see any data that says who the QB was for every team when a pass was dropped.

 

Matt Barkley threw roughly 10% of the passes we attempted this year. Also we had 26 drops as per stats.com which is the source I used.

 

Our team's completion percentage was still like 4th or 5th worst in the NFL including the drops.

 

I assume most of that had to do with Allen, but I also don't know if any of our receivers dropped passes from Barkley. I assume they did.

 

Anyway you slice it, Allen was near the bottom of the NFL in completion and adjusted completion percentage. Whether he's last, fifth last, or anywhere in the bottom ten, that's not good.

 

You can find passer data for drops on pro.football.reference.  Go to current season, passing, advanced passing, and click on the accuracy tab.  Click on the drops heading to sort by drop percentage.  You can find that Allen is scored as having 7.2% drops, which comes to 31.  Drops are scored slightly differently by different organizations, pfr uses the same scoring as NFL advanced stats.

 

The league average drop percent is 4.9%.  (That’s not on the site, I calculated it).

 

Adjusted completion percentage usually takes into account throw-always and spikes as well as drops.

[jrober38]

Just now, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

You can find passer data for drops on pro.football.reference.  Go to current season, passing, advanced passing, and click on the accuracy tab.  Click on the drops heading to sort by drop percentage.  You can find that Allen is scored as having 7.2% drops, which comes to 31.  Drops are scored slightly differently by different organizations, pfr uses the same scoring as NFL advanced stats.

 

The league average drop percent is 4.9%.  (That’s not on the site, I calculated it).

 

Adjusted completion percentage usually takes into account throw-always and spikes as well as drops.

 

Sheesh. The fact that there's no consensus on some stats is beyond frustrating.

 

If it's that high maybe we get past one or two more teams. I don't know, and frankly I don't really care to check anymore.

 

If I'm wrong I'm wrong. I just went with the numbers I found.

 

Also I realize that's a true adjusted completion percentage. I just couldn't find it, and I couldn't find any data regarding the number of passes thrown away. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 minute ago, jrober38 said:

 

Sheesh. The fact that there's no consensus on some stats is beyond frustrating.

 

If it's that high maybe we get past one or two more teams. I don't know, and frankly I don't really care to check anymore.

 

If I'm wrong I'm wrong. I just went with the numbers I found.

 

Also I realize that's a true adjusted completion percentage. I just couldn't find it, and I couldn't find any data regarding the number of passes thrown away. 

 

Since the definition of a drop is a pass which could be caught with “ordinary effort” by a WR, there is bound to be some difference in how that is scored.    It’s not an official NFL stat for that reason.  

 

The data on throw-always is in the same table - 25.  3 spikes.

[jrober38]

1 minute ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Since the definition of a drop is a pass which could be caught with “ordinary effort” by a WR, there is bound to be some difference in how that is scored.    It’s not an official NFL stat for that reason.  

 

The data on throw-always is in the same table - 25.  3 spikes.

 

Is this all their pay for access stuff?

 

I've tried digging around on PFF and always recall running into a bunch of pay walls to see anything interesting. 

[thebandit27]

15 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

You can find passer data for drops on pro.football.reference.  Go to current season, passing, advanced passing, and click on the accuracy tab.  Click on the drops heading to sort by drop percentage.  You can find that Allen is scored as having 7.2% drops, which comes to 31.  Drops are scored slightly differently by different organizations, pfr uses the same scoring as NFL advanced stats.

 

The league average drop percent is 4.9%.  (That’s not on the site, I calculated it).

 

Adjusted completion percentage usually takes into account throw-always and spikes as well as drops.

The most relevant stat to the accuracy discussion that PFR does is “on target throwing percentage”...Allen is 21st.

1 hour ago, Billl said:

I put my numbers into context, and they coincided perfectly with the MVP voting the past two seasons.  Your turn.  Hit us with the context that shows that “completions per air yards completion” is a more useful stat than QBR when evaluating QB play.

 

So in other words you want to throw out any statistics that don’t agree with your position? I feel like there was a poster that got upset that someone else was doing that...think his handle was Billl, or something like that...

 

I didn’t ever say that any one statistic correlated more strongly with great QB play—you did. Funny how every discussion involving someone that doesn’t like Allen always involves them having to straw man (or flat out make things up) at some point.

 

How about this: there are things that Allen is very good at; scoring TDs and delivering in crunch time among them. There are also areas where he clearly needs to improve (as I and just about everyone else on the planet have said over and over and over and over).

 

Is that so hard to acknowledge? 

[leonbus23]

Does Allen pass the eye test?

[Mango]

5 minutes ago, leonbus23 said:

Does Allen pass the eye test?

You mean like, when you look at him in shorts, it moves a little bit? 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

20 minutes ago, leonbus23 said:

Does Allen pass the eye test?

 

I guess that depends upon whose eyes. ?️

[leonbus23]

19 minutes ago, Mango said:

You mean like, when you look at him in shorts, it moves a little bit? 

At least a little bit. The movement correlates with the eye test results. 

[mramefa]

4 hours ago, Billl said:

That’s certainly food for thought.  Why don’t you show me the top two or three in each of those categories for the past two years, and we’ll see if those are more indicative of top tier QB play that QBR, QB rating, YPA, completion percentage, and PPG.  I know that when I’m trying to figure out what’s what, top 8 in “completed air yards per completion” isn’t the first thing I check, but maybe it should be.

Here are the 15 quarterbacks with the most 4th quarter comebacks in NFL history (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/leaders/comebacks_career.htm). Not a bad list

 

1          Peyton Manning         43        1998-2015      2TM     View Comebacks

2          Tom Brady      36        2000-2019      nwe     View Comebacks

3          Drew Brees     35        2001-2019      2TM     View Comebacks

4          Johnny Unitas+           34        1956-1973      2TM     View Comebacks

5          Dan Marino+   33        1983-1999      mia      View Comebacks

6          John Elway+    31        1983-1998      den      View Comebacks

            Ben Roethlisberger     31        2004-2019      pit        View Comebacks

8          Matt Ryan       30        2008-2019      atl        View Comebacks

9          Fran Tarkenton+         29        1961-1978      2TM     View Comebacks

            Vinny Testaverde        29        1987-2007      7TM     View Comebacks

11        Brett Favre+    28        1991-2010      4TM     View Comebacks

            Matthew Stafford       28        2009-2019      det       View Comebacks

13        Eli Manning     27        2004-2019      nyg      View Comebacks

            Philip Rivers    27        2004-2019      sdg      View Comebacks

15        Joe Montana+ 26        1979-1994      2TM     View Co

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, jrober38 said:

 

Is this all their pay for access stuff?

 

I've tried digging around on PFF and always recall running into a bunch of pay walls to see anything interesting. 

 

I referred to Pro.football.reference not PFF

Free

Sorry about not providing a link, my mobile device isn’t being friendly about letting me paste in links

 

[BringBackOrton]

5 hours ago, oldmanfan said:

I agree he had a problem with the deep ball this year.  Something he definitely needs to work on.  And one play can in fact make a difference in a game.  But not in statistical analysis, especially when trying to parse a 1.2% difference.  A single play is a single play and you can’t prove anything statistically with an N=1 sample size.

Tell the people that obsess over a 60% completion rate.

I’ll tell them to up their expectations to competent.