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QB Grades Through Week 6 Per PFF


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5 minutes ago, mykidsdad said:

I can't believe the blatant contempt PFF has for Buffalo putting a 4-1 team at 20. The Titans are 19 on their list, and they have Denver 17. Does their whole organization exist to troll Buffalo? I think the ax they have to grind about Josh is really a thing. Wow.

 

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-week-7-power-rankings

back in week 6 they had a 1 win steeler team 4 slots in front of them. now they are up to 13!!! LOL... its freaking absurd.

 

its very very hard to take them seriously after that. PFF needs to be treated like a very SMALL piece of the puzzle. for better or for worse.

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29 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:

Yep. Guy has a very long way to go to prove he will be a starting QB in this league for the long haul..... I think Darnold is already there.

Yikes.  The benefit of doubt you give this the Jets organization is shocking. 

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Allen is an acceptable QB- thus far.

 

And the Bills have a sked full of stiffs, where he doesn’t have to be excellent. In fact, the Bills can easily go to the Playoffs that way. Of course, that’s when there’s no longer ANY stiffs to play and your QB abilities are critical for success.

 

He needs to work on his deficiencies- Deep Balls and generic accuracy being critical.

How about ONE freaking 300 yard game? Let’s see improvement to compliment this Monstah D!

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1 minute ago, Billsatlastin2018 said:

Allen is an acceptable QB- thus far.

 

And the Bills have a sked full of stiffs, where he doesn’t have to be excellent. In fact, the Bills can easily go to the Playoffs that way. Of course, that’s when there’s no longer ANY stiffs to play and your QB abilities are critical for success.

 

He needs to work on his deficiencies- Deep Balls and generic accuracy being critical.

How about ONE freaking 300 yard game? Let’s see improvement to compliment this Monstah D!

I have credited Allen with 300 yards of offense in each game I've graded of his.  Those yards include - Air Yards, Rushing Yards, Yards avoiding sacks minus the sacks he has contributed to.  The yards I give him include the yards taken away by penalty and drops.

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15 hours ago, BillsFanForReal said:

 

 

 

Direct quote:

 

"72% completion percentage ... he's completing a lot of passes ... but he's still not accurate, Bills fans."

 

This pretty much sums up all you need to know about PFF.

 

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1 hour ago, Mango said:

 

I am just here to stop the fake news. That isn't their QB ranking for the QB's. No only was Sam Darnold not their #12 QB....he was their #2 prospect in the entire draft, regardless of position. 

 

https://www.pff.com/news/draft-pff-big-board-top-250-players-for-the-2018-nfl-draft

 

I know it blasphemy on this board. But while Allen has improved, I am still not impressed or convinced he is the answer at QB yet. He could be, but he still looks a ways off to my eye. Allen hasn't played well enough for us to be 2-3 if we had say, the SEA or HOU defense. That doesn't mean I hate the guy, or root for him to fail. Just an honest interpretation thus far. 

That said, he might be the most exciting player in the league at the position....that doesn't make him good at it. 

 

And their #3 best ranked player was drafted in the 5th round (Maurice Hurst).

Meanwhile, Saquon Barkley was ranked #11.

 

We don't need to continue talking about PFF. It's a good website for a quick check, but they're wrong pretty darn frequently and don't know anything about scheme or system... they're basically evaluating players blind.

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53 minutes ago, ScottLaw said:

Yep. Guy has a very long way to go to prove he will be a starting QB in this league for the long haul..... I think Darnold is already there.

Wow, you do live up to your trolliness.

 

Go Bills!!!

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I think the biggest problem is that most Bills fans on this website consider QBR to be a good indicator of how good the QB is. It's a terrible metric in general. That's the problem with ideas. The bad ones stick around, like QBR and Fascism.

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1 hour ago, wiley16350 said:

I think the main problem with PFF is that they don't credit QB's enough with the simple passes.  For that reason, guys like Mariota and Tyrod Taylor get a little over rated and a guy like Allen gets under rated. 

 

Mariota and Taylor don't often try the difficult passes though.

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2 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Mariota and Taylor don't often try the difficult passes though.

That is true but they get big plays when guys are wide open and when they run the ball.  They also limit turnovers which is probably the biggest reason they rank so high.  What goes unseen by PFF apparently is all of the drive ending plays they have by taking sacks or running for pointless yards (on 3rd down) when a better play is available to them.  I find that even when Mariota has a statistically good game, he is never really that good.  His good games are pumped up by YAC yards and wide open receivers that still need to make great catches.  Mariota, Tyrod and Kaepernick are all the same.  They limit turnovers or get lucky with them.  They look fine with what you see on the TV but the all 22 exposes their flaws.  They basically make their team look worse than they really are.  When the first read is open they can be really effective but other than that they struggle to find the open receiver and they do a lot to hurt their team in ways that just doesn't show up in the passing or running stats.

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48 minutes ago, BillsFanForReal said:

I think the biggest problem is that most Bills fans on this website consider QBR to be a good indicator of how good the QB is. It's a terrible metric in general. That's the problem with ideas. The bad ones stick around, like QBR and Fascism.

 

Anyone who thinks QBR doesn't suck themselves in fact sucks. 

1 minute ago, wiley16350 said:

That is true but they get big plays when guys are wide open and when they run the ball.  They also limit turnovers which is probably the biggest reason they rank so high.  What goes unseen by PFF apparently is all of the drive ending plays they have by taking sacks or running for pointless yards (on 3rd down) when a better play is available to them.  I find that even when Mariota has a statistically good game, he is never really that good.  His good games are pumped up by YAC yards and wide open receivers that still need to make great catches.  Mariota, Tyrod and Kaepernick are all the same.  They limit turnovers or get lucky with them.  They look fine with what you see on the TV but the all 22 exposes their flaws.  They basically make their team look worse than they really are.  When the first read is open they can be really effective but other than that they struggle to find the open receiver and they do a lot to hurt their team in ways that just doesn't show up in the passing or running stats.

 

Yea PFF is not good at valuing the plays they never try to make that are there to be made. I used to say that a LOT when Tyrod was our QB. 

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2 hours ago, Mango said:

 

I am just here to stop the fake news. That isn't their QB ranking for the QB's. No only was Sam Darnold not their #12 QB....he was their #2 prospect in the entire draft, regardless of position. 

 

https://www.pff.com/news/draft-pff-big-board-top-250-players-for-the-2018-nfl-draft

 

I know it blasphemy on this board. But while Allen has improved, I am still not impressed or convinced he is the answer at QB yet. He could be, but he still looks a ways off to my eye. Allen hasn't played well enough for us to be 2-3 if we had say, the SEA or HOU defense. That doesn't mean I hate the guy, or root for him to fail. Just an honest interpretation thus far. 

That said, he might be the most exciting player in the league at the position....that doesn't make him good at it. 

 

Not fake news, but a fair critique given the context so I will take my lumps and give you props for a good call. Flag on the play and all that.

 

However that WAS a QB ranking assessment done by PFF analysts, just earlier in the season prior to all the bowl games and mocks being released. If the time stamp for The "Big Board" you link to is accurate that was done on April 24th after a lot of mocks and draft projections had already been released - the draft was on the 26th.

 

Was not intentional on my part as I just missed the date stamp of the assessment I referenced, but I still think their evals of players are off and the subjective aspects swayed like everyone else by the herd mentality of collected player mock assessments. That is ok to admit it is not all a scientific method because I believe where a player goes in the draft can be influenced by pre-draft hype - at least for some NFL clubs.

 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, oldmanfan said:

I reviewed some articles on line about this PFF group.  Teams seem to buy their information not for the scores they come up with, but for the amount of film they generate so that teams can use the film for their own analysis.  There was one article with Belichick, where he comments on the PFF approach. Simply put, his criticism (and it pretty much matches that of other critics) is that without knowing the play call, and the specific assignment for an individual player on that play call, it's pointless totry and grade a player on a specific play.

 

Since this is about QBs' it becomes even more complex.  Take the whole accuracy thing.  Apparently Allen is getting criticized for only having perfect accuracy (which is really precision, but I won't go into that again) by these pff guys.  here's the deal on that:  the only way you can truly judge whether a throw is put exactly where a QB wants it, is to be in the QB's head when he throws so you know what the exact target is that he wants to hit.  A QB may make a throw to the exact spot he wants, but the WR doesn't get to the spot in time, or the QB didn't read the pattern correctly.  And so on.

 

So to me teams can and do buy their product, but I really doubt they buy it because they feel these ratings per play mean anything. 

 

Good post.  Exactly correct take - teams buy the film cutups and the situational breakdowns PFF produces because why duplicate effort when it lets their scouts dig into other things?

 

The various ratings - QB, OL, DL etc - are produced for fantasy football and fans and are not products that pro teams purchase.
 

There was an interview with Eric Wood before he retired where he specifically commented on some examples of the difference between internal grading (where the coaches know what the assignment was) and these fan-sided ratings, where the observer does not.

 

In addition, there is the Mark Twain quote aspect of the situation ("Let a man get a reputation for early rising and he can sleep 'til noon").  Last night Pat Mahomes threw a pass off-target in a manner similar to several Allen threw early in the Patriots game.  Now this is not to claim that Allen has Mahomes accuracy, but to point out how subjectivity does play into these kind of assessments.  The announcers immediately speculated that the pass had been tipped, and went through a bunch of film angles until they found one where they could just see the glove of the DLman deflect as the ball passed it.  They wrapped up saying "Mahomes just doesn't make a throw that far off target so it had to be tipped".   With the similar throws Allen made, it was just "Allen is so inaccurate" "Allen is way off today".  On a couple of those, when I slowed down the game film and coach's film, I'm pretty sure they were also tipped, but Allen does not have that "reputation as an early riser" to help him out with these assessments.  That's just how it is, and it's quite possible that the scorers who look at every play let the same subjectivity creep in - they're human, how can they not?

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When you draft JA .. you expect that he will be outperformed his first few years. He is not one of the best QBs in the league, however, he has made surprisingly fast strides .. 52% completion percentage last year ... into the 60s this year; taken over leadership of the team; respected by his teammates. That is what you should have been hoping for. If he can continue analyzing his own game and making strides he will come closer to his very high ceiling which was the highest in that draft class. That ceiling won't be hit this year though, and that is perfectly fine .. just part of the process. 

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1 minute ago, CorkScrewHill said:

When you draft JA .. you expect that he will be outperformed his first few years. He is not one of the best QBs in the league, however, he has made surprisingly fast strides .. 52% completion percentage last year ... into the 60s this year; taken over leadership of the team; respected by his teammates. That is what you should have been hoping for. If he can continue analyzing his own game and making strides he will come closer to his very high ceiling which was the highest in that draft class. That ceiling won't be hit this year though, and that is perfectly fine .. just part of the process. 

I like how you think. The key to me is how high is ceiling is. I see guys like Mariota, Mayfield and Darnold as guys with much lower ceilings. If I were to state an analogy it would they are the 13-14 yr old middle school star athlete, and Allen is the kid who matures later on in HS.

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2 hours ago, Mango said:

 

I am just here to stop the fake news. That isn't their QB ranking for the QB's. No only was Sam Darnold not their #12 QB....he was their #2 prospect in the entire draft, regardless of position. 

 

https://www.pff.com/news/draft-pff-big-board-top-250-players-for-the-2018-nfl-draft

 

I know it blasphemy on this board. But while Allen has improved, I am still not impressed or convinced he is the answer at QB yet. He could be, but he still looks a ways off to my eye. Allen hasn't played well enough for us to be 2-3 if we had say, the SEA or HOU defense. That doesn't mean I hate the guy, or root for him to fail. Just an honest interpretation thus far. 

That said, he might be the most exciting player in the league at the position....that doesn't make him good at it. 

 

Why do you "know" it's blasphemy on this board?  I think the majority here acknowledge that Allen shows promise in that he seems to have taken steps in his 2nd season, but there are some aspects of his game that are simply not acceptable and he needs to improve.  The turnovers are Exhibit A (for Allen).  Going for the Big Shot instead of moving the chains is Exhibit B.

 

Now he thinks he can fix 'the INT thing, but I remember to the day Ryan Fitzpatrick giving an end-of-season interview in 2011 where he answered a question about his trajectory as QB, acknowledging the 23 INTs he threw that year and said something to the effect of "that's something I believe I can fix, and I will".  He did throw fewer the following year, but not enough fewer - 16 - and the team moved on. 

 

There is more hope for Allen to fix it, after all he is in the midst of his 2nd season and has started 16 games, whereas at that point Fitzpatrick was finishing his 7th season and had close to 40 games.  A bunch of eventually good or great QB threw too many picks in their first seasons and improved. 

 

But until Allen does demonstrate consistently that he's improved, it's right to be unconvinced.

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1 hour ago, Rigotz said:

 

 

Direct quote:

 

"72% completion percentage ... he's completing a lot of passes ... but he's still not accurate, Bills fans."

 

This pretty much sums up all you need to know about PFF.

 

these guys cant afford to be wrong on Allen. he would need to consistently be a top 5 qb for many years for them to even eventually admit they may have been mistaken.

 

I saw a quote from them earlier saying allen was top 5 in the nfl in adjusted comp %. a stat they made up and use frequently in discussion.... but they then decide to throw the credibility of their own stat under the bus saying it doesnt much matter because he still hadn't been accurate and his "perfect throw" % was still super low. its a special group.

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2 hours ago, Billsatlastin2018 said:

Allen is an acceptable QB- thus far.

 

And the Bills have a sked full of stiffs, where he doesn’t have to be excellent. In fact, the Bills can easily go to the Playoffs that way. Of course, that’s when there’s no longer ANY stiffs to play and your QB abilities are critical for success.

 

He needs to work on his deficiencies- Deep Balls and generic accuracy being critical.

How about ONE freaking 300 yard game? Let’s see improvement to compliment this Monstah D!

 

I'm genuinely curious.  What is the source of this perennial fixation on 300 yard games and deep balls? 

 

You are not alone in it, but you can take the leadership role and explain.

 

Passing yardage is NOT correlated to wins in the NFL.  300+ yd games if anything have a slight negative correlation meaning they're loosely correlated to losing (but it's very weak).  That is likely because teams trying to come from behind sling it, while teams that are winning rush.

 

The WCO spread across the league because it correctly recognized that a successful deep pass is a relatively low-probability play while short, high-percentage passes that spread the D across the field and allow YAC can both succeed in scoring and control the game by keeping the ball away from the opponent.

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17 hours ago, CorkScrewHill said:

JA has a lot of room for improvement, but this list just shows you how meaningless a lot of these statistics are. Winston and Mariota 6 & 7 ... one is benched and one may be soon. These are the same people who dropped the Bills one spot from 19 to 20th (behind the Titans) in their Power rankings.  Really almost comical... https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-week-7-power-rankings.

 

 

WTF- Bills beat Tennessee in TN  and are behind them in this ranking? This is just silly

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13 minutes ago, BuffaloHokie13 said:

?‍♂️ I disagree with everything after Russ Wilson lol.

 

As far as Allen and the sophomores, I've got them at:

7. Lamar Jackson 

13. Sam Darnold (sample size is much smaller than the others)

25. Josh Allen 

31. Baker Mayfield 

32. Josh Rosen 

 

Hokie, can you say a few words about your QB rating system, what it includes, how you weight and why?  I know a little bit about it but I think it has elements that are very worth discussing.

 

3 minutes ago, SF Bills Fan said:

WTF- Bills beat Tennessee in TN  and are behind them in this ranking? This is just silly

 

Yes, that's the point many of us make.  It's not that we go all indignant at any criticism of JA (well, probably some of us do just as some roll in the opposite direction).

 

It's that this PFF stuff often makes no rational sense when compared to 1) actual game results 2) what we see

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29 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I'm genuinely curious.  What is the source of this perennial fixation on 300 yard games and deep balls? 

 

You are not alone in it, but you can take the leadership role and explain.

 

Passing yardage is NOT correlated to wins in the NFL.  300+ yd games if anything have a slight negative correlation meaning they're loosely correlated to losing (but it's very weak).  That is likely because teams trying to come from behind sling it, while teams that are winning rush.

 

The WCO spread across the league because it correctly recognized that a successful deep pass is a relatively low-probability play while short, high-percentage passes that spread the D across the field and allow YAC can both succeed in scoring and control the game by keeping the ball away from the opponent.

Simple.  Some don’t think Allen will make it.  They focused on completion percentage as his negative.  Since he’s brought that up, they have to invent something new to criticize. Now it’s the lack of 300 yard games.  When he does that they’ll Invent something else.

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1 minute ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

Hokie, can you say a few words about your QB rating system, what it includes, how you weight and why?

The biggest thing to realize is that my system is a comparative system. So it won't churn out a number for a single player. It compares a QBs efficiency of production against their peers (this makes qualification criteria vitally important for adequate results). The score is out of 100. 90 of that 100 is based on production, which equates to yards per touch, total td%, and turnover% in my opinion. Within those 3 stats, I give the most credit for TD%, then yards, and finally turnovers. This breaks everything down to a per attempt basis, which allows for fair comparisons between QBs regardless of total attempts. The final 10 is a weight based on the QBs attempts per game, which is my way of capturing how much the QB is asked to do for their team. This way, a QB that is asked to do more will always get the nod over a comparable QB who does less.

 

The system can be volatile early in the year, but tends to hit a groove around the midpoint of a season. I'll be doing a couple in depth posts once week 9 is in the books with some observations and commentary.

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1 minute ago, BuffaloHokie13 said:

The biggest thing to realize is that my system is a comparative system. So it won't churn out a number for a single player. It compares a QBs efficiency of production against their peers (this makes qualification criteria vitally important for adequate results). The score is out of 100. 90 of that 100 is based on production, which equates to yards per touch, total td%, and turnover% in my opinion. Within those 3 stats, I give the most credit for TD%, then yards, and finally turnovers. This breaks everything down to a per attempt basis, which allows for fair comparisons between QBs regardless of total attempts. The final 10 is a weight based on the QBs attempts per game, which is my way of capturing how much the QB is asked to do for their team. This way, a QB that is asked to do more will always get the nod over a comparable QB who does less.

 

The system can be volatile early in the year, but tends to hit a groove around the midpoint of a season. I'll be doing a couple in depth posts once week 9 is in the books with some observations and commentary.

 

I have always thought it is as good as many of the comparative systems that we see out there from the mainstream.

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5 hours ago, DCOrange said:

Just to be clear, you realize that PFF says those three are bad as well, right?

 

So you consider being rated #14 (Mayfield) out of 35 QB's to be a "bad" rating? 

 

In most lists like this the top 5 - 10 would be considered Excellent;  the middle 15 - 20 would be considered average and the bottom 5 - 10 would be considered "poor".  So depending on how they group their list Mayfield is NOT considered bad and neither would Mariota and perhaps even Winston.

 

The problem with PFF and analytics in general is the over reliance on numerical ratings to try to judge the effectiveness of a QB.  The game of football, unlike baseball, does not lend itself to these types of evaluations.

 

 

 

 

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57 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

I'm genuinely curious.  What is the source of this perennial fixation on 300 yard games and deep balls? 

 

You are not alone in it, but you can take the leadership role and explain.

 

Passing yardage is NOT correlated to wins in the NFL.  300+ yd games if anything have a slight negative correlation meaning they're loosely correlated to losing (but it's very weak).  That is likely because teams trying to come from behind sling it, while teams that are winning rush.

 

The WCO spread across the league because it correctly recognized that a successful deep pass is a relatively low-probability play while short, high-percentage passes that spread the D across the field and allow YAC can both succeed in scoring and control the game by keeping the ball away from the opponent.


Normally, what it means is that you have a varied, unpredictable Offense, with the ability to throw passes ALL over the field with accuracy, mixed with a running game. Without looking it up, I doubt has there ever been ONE QB make the SB, let alone win it- ever, who hasn’t thrown for 300 yards. Again, normally a successful QB does not have 20 completions for 15 yards. It is a mix.

 

That’s why it’s important for Allen to do so. He doesn’t have to be Rodgers or Brady great, dropping balls over shoulders from 40 yards. But damn, he needs to hit 2 a game.

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18 hours ago, BillsFanForReal said:

I'm pretty sure it's just their general rankings. Here's their thoughts on the Tennessee game.

 

 

The fact that he acknowledges that Josh Allen is clutch, then immediately discounts it in the same breath, speaks volumes.  

 

Being clutch is one of the most coveted assets of any position in any sport.  Period.  

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12 minutes ago, Ethan in Portland said:

So when Oliver is rated high we believe them but when Allen is rated low we trash them....

Follow the stats you believe - TD/INT ratio, YPA, win/loss, 3rd down defense and make your own judgments

I don't listen to anything those guys say they are laughable. They are not verified or credible.

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4 minutes ago, Ethan in Portland said:

So when Oliver is rated high we believe them but when Allen is rated low we trash them....

Follow the stats you believe - TD/INT ratio, YPA, win/loss, 3rd down defense and make your own judgments

It is possible for their system to be better suited to gauge certain positions than other ones.  I don't think the system is good enough for QB's or Receivers.  The closer to the line of scrimmage, the better I think it is.  I don't think it's good enough for QB's because the weight they put on simpler plays is not enough because there are QB's that play poorly even when the team around them play well and their assumption is that all QB's will make the simple play.  There are many times where a QB completely misses an open receiver on 3rd down with an easy throw.  That play isn't weighed the same as an interception but it is in fact is the same play and has the same result unless the int gives the opponent good field position or a score.  QB's that do complete those passes more regularly keep their offenses on track and tend to have longer drives that lead to points, even if it is only a field goal.  Tom Brady makes a living with simple plays and he is the most consistent at doing it, making him what most consider to be the greatest QB of all-time.  I don't think the system is good enough for receivers because plays that don't involve the receiver being targeted hold no value.  That can be a problem when the receiver plays with a QB that doesn't target him.  Robert Woods has become a much better receiver with the Rams than he was with the Bills and that isn't because Woods actually became a better receiver.  It is because he is targeted more, making him more productive and giving him more opportunities to show off his skills.  At the line of scrimmage it is different because they have a job that is graded on every play so there is a better representation of how good they are.

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Many Bills fans just aren't very realistic about Josh Allen. What were you expecting? He turned the ball over 4 times in just 1 half (1 less than Peterman vs Chargers). He threw 3 picks vs the Pats and has been consistently missing on the deep ball by a mile. 5 fumbles and 7 picks in just 5 games too! Yet somehow he's a superstar? He's improved a bit in some areas and could eventually be very good, but he has a really long way to go and there are no guarantees that he will get any better than he is now.

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