PFF's QB Annual Report on Allen

[DCOrange]

Not sure what the policy is in terms of pasting premium content, so I'm going to hold off on pasting the entire thing, but PFF released their QB Annual Report today with roughly 10 pages of content for each QB. Some of the main takeaways for Allen:

 

1. His improvement this year as a passer showed up in literally every passer rating category that they track. Passer rating when kept clean improved from 79.8 to 95.2. Passer rating with no blitz improved from 70.1 to 89.6. Passer rating under pressure improved from 47.4 to 60.5. Passer rating when blitzed improved from 62.9 to 78.0. Passer rating on 3rd down improved from 49 to 92.8. Passer rating in the red zone improved from 75.8 to 95.8. 
2. Having said that, the improvement did not show up in terms of PFF's Accuracy metrics. Last year, he hit the WR's frame on 53.7% of his passes; that dropped to 53.0% this year. Last year, he threw a catchable ball on 73.5% of his passes; that number didn't move at all this season (though confusingly, they also track "on target %" and they show Allen improving from 64.7% as a rookie to 71.7% this season). There are some improvements to be seen when you break it down by pass distance though. In terms of hitting the WR's frame, Rookie Allen was 3.2% worse than the average QB on passes behind the line of scrimmage, 3.5% worse on 0-9 yard passes, 3.9% worse on 10-19 yard passes, and 8.2% worse on 20+ yard passes. This year's Allen was 2.1% better on passes behind the line of scrimmage, 5.5% worse on 0-9 yard passes, 6.4% better on 10-19 yard passes, and 20.6% worse on 20+ yard passes. So all in all, he was legitimately good on the screens/swings and intermediate passes this year, but was bad on the 0-9 yard passes and ungodly terrible on deep balls. PFF has found that the shorter stuff is generally more stable year over year, whereas the deep ball comes and goes; based on that, they believe Allen's overall gains this year are pretty promising for his future projection.
3. Route distribution was more or less the same as it was a year ago. There wasn't really any movement in terms of which routes Allen threw more of in Year 2 as compared to Year 1.
4. Having said that, the routes seemed to be pulled in shorter this year; 51% of his passes as a rookie were within 9 yards of the line of scrimmage versus 62% this year. That resulted in his average depth of target decreasing from 11.5 yards as a rookie to 9.8 yards this year.
5. In his rookie year, 6.8% of his targeted passes were dropped. This season, that number increased to 7.1%, so that's obviously disappointing. A breakdown of each receiver:
   1. John Brown: 2.8%
   2. Cole Beasley: 6.3%
   3. Dawson Knox: 18.4%
   4. Devin Singletary: 13.2%
   5. Isaiah McKenzie: 2.9%

Edit: Staying away from the PFF Grades that are included since people seem to very much not be fans of their grades lol, but the grades remain mostly very bad, though there was some improvement in areas.

Edited January 28, 2020 by DCOrange

[CorkScrewHill]

I was expecting 10 pages of "Josh Allen Stinks. Josh Allen stinks. Josh Allen stinks" .... Way to go PFF and Chris Collinsworth you are less predictable than I would have expected.

[machine gun kelly]

Thanks DC.

[JoPoy88]

That drop % for Knox is disgusting. 

[ProcessAccepted]

1 hour ago, DCOrange said:

Not sure what the policy is in terms of pasting premium content, so I'm going to hold off on pasting the entire thing, but PFF released their QB Annual Report today with roughly 10 pages of content for each QB. Some of the main takeaways for Allen:

 

 

I wouldn't worry too much about it. I'm not sure that the term Premium is applicable to material created by PFF (especially if the Irish guy was involved).

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, DCOrange said:

Not sure what the policy is in terms of pasting premium content, so I'm going to hold off on pasting the entire thing

 

Thanks! 

 

Generally speaking, we try to follow copyright law - don't paste substantial portions of any copyright content, just summarize and provide limited quotes to illustrate your points.

[yungmack]

1 minute ago, JoPoy88 said:

That drop % for Knox is disgusting. 

So is Singletary's.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

20 minutes ago, JoPoy88 said:

That drop % for Knox is disgusting. 

 

I know, right? 

 

Especially considering it's very consistent (edit: actually, PFR and NFL stats are worse - a full 20% drops!) between different stat sites that score drops a bit differently - and that it just includes drops, not "catches top TE make routinely but I don't" or "route variations where I didn't provide clear enough body language to let Josh know which I was running" or "totally whiffed blocks that got my QB plastered" (I grant him that asking a rook to block an all pro isn't all on him that it didn't work)

 

I like Knox, I really do.  I want to see him be the Beast that he shows the potential to become.  But I also want to see the Bills not "bet" the TE situation "rent" on Knox, Sweeney, Kroft, or Croom because maybe one or more of them will step up and improve next year - or maybe they won't.

[Lurker]

26 minutes ago, JoPoy88 said:

That drop % for Knox is disgusting. 

 

Yeah, it's a stinker.    

 

Pro Football Reference shows Singletary catching 70.7% of his 41 targets.    Meanwhile, Knox caught only 56.0% of his 50 targets .    Of the 37 TEs that had at least 40 targets last year, Knox ranked 36th (ahead of only T.J. Hokenson at 54.2%).   The average for the 37 was 68.8%!     The median was 69.1%.

 

Knox may turn into Tarzan some day but the Bills need to address TE in free agency, IMO.    They can't afford the risk that he plays like Cheata next year.

 

BTW, Austin Hooper ranked 6th (77.3%) and Hunter Henry 12th (72.4%)...

 

 

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by Lurker

[Hapless Bills Fan]

13 minutes ago, yungmack said:

So is Singletary's.

 

Singletary's varies more - PFF says 13.2%, NFL Advanced Stats/Pro Football Reference say 9.8%.  Still not what we'd like to see, of course.

[John from Riverside]

Knox has GOT to start catching the ball.....he is way too good a player to be doing this

[Hapless Bills Fan]

8 minutes ago, Lurker said:

Yeah, it's a stinker.    

Pro Football Reference shows Singletary catching 70.7% of his 41 targets.    Meanwhile, Knox caught only 56.0% of his 50 targets ...

 

To be fair to both, Singletary had more "gimme" checkdowns aimed his way, while Knox was used more as a deep receiver and also as a sideline target where throw-aways were hurled over his head in his general direction.  But still.....

[MJS]

So if he showed so many improvements, why did they grade him so poorly?

[Hapless Bills Fan]

23 minutes ago, ProcessAccepted said:

I wouldn't worry too much about it. I'm not sure that the term Premium is applicable to material created by PFF (especially if the Irish guy was involved).

 

Howsabout you leave the modding to the mods and not tell folks to not worry too much about TOS violations?

[teef]

I could be wrong, but I don’t remember many of singletary’s drops being blatant. I felt a lot were slightly misplaced, difficult to catch type passes. I’m not bashing Josh, I’m just not sure how much of a problem of it is with singletary’s hands. 

[The Jokeman]

2 minutes ago, teef said:

I could be wrong, but I don’t remember many of singletary’s drops being blatant. I felt a lot were slightly misplaced, difficult to catch type passes. I’m not bashing Josh, I’m just not sure how much of a problem of it is with singletary’s hands. 

Singletary rarely got passed to in college, he probably has to learn how to do it. I say give him a year or two to improve or consider it a major problem. 

[Lurker]

9 minutes ago, teef said:

I could be wrong, but I don’t remember many of singletary’s drops being blatant. I felt a lot were slightly misplaced, difficult to catch type passes. I’m not bashing Josh, I’m just not sure how much of a problem of it is with singletary’s hands. 

 

+1   

 

I remember a lot of throws that were in his feet.   May be due to how he was running his patterns, as much as anything...

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, CorkScrewHill said:

I was expecting 10 pages of "Josh Allen Stinks. Josh Allen stinks. Josh Allen stinks" .... Way to go PFF and Chris Collinsworth you are less predictable than I would have expected.

 

Oh, I think they're still plenty predictable....it's just that these numbers are more closely related to direct measurables rather than involving their "special secret sauce".

I bet their grades on him are still horrid.

 

It's analogous to the difference between passer rating, which is calculated by a published formula from passing attempts, completions, yards, TDs, INTs....vs ESPN's total QBR.  Amazingly, while Allen's passer rating improved by 17.4% - his total QBR (calculated by a proprietary methodology involving 10,000 lines of code) went down.  Go Figgur.

 

3 minutes ago, Lurker said:

+1   

I remember a lot of throws that were in his feet.   May be due to how he was running his patterns, as much as anything...

 

If the throw was at his feet, it would not have been scored as a drop. 

[DCOrange]

11 minutes ago, MJS said:

So if he showed so many improvements, why did they grade him so poorly?

 

He still graded as 25th worst in terms of turnover-worthy plays, 28th in terms of on-target %, and 33rd in terms of big time throw % (essentially, deep passes and or tightly contested passes), and despite those improvements in every category of passer rating, he was still below average in all of them outside of 3rd downs and red zone where he was slightly above average. He was also 28th in adjusted completion percentage. His accuracy % of deep balls was roughly 17% and aside from Mason Rudolph, nobody is within 10% of him there.

 

They also have a chart with 4 quadrants where the bottom left = bad accuracy % and bad uncatchable pass %. There are some other QBs in that quadrant, but Allen is the biggest outlier by a wide margin; he's basically in the bottom left corner while the others are pretty close to the center but slightly still in the quadrant.

 

So he basically improved from being arguably the worst passer in a lot of these categories to being below average.

[RoyBatty is alive]

Maybe the reason Knox never caught a TD in college was because thy didnt trust him, not just because they had great WRs.

 

Can we mark it up to being a rookie?  Maybe nervous about taking NFL hits?  Hope so.

 

Hard to believe our drop % was actually higher this tyear with ostebnsibly better WRs and TEs.  How much $ and draft capital did we spend on TEs last season, a lot.

 

21 minutes ago, DCOrange said:

 

He still graded as 25th worst in terms of turnover-worthy plays, 28th in terms of on-target %, and 33rd in terms of big time throw % (essentially, deep passes and or tightly contested passes), and despite those improvements in every category of passer rating, he was still below average in all of them outside of 3rd downs and red zone where he was slightly above average. He was also 28th in adjusted completion percentage. His accuracy % of deep balls was roughly 17% and aside from Mason Rudolph, nobody is within 10% of him there.

 

They also have a chart with 4 quadrants where the bottom left = bad accuracy % and bad uncatchable pass %. There are some other QBs in that quadrant, but Allen is the biggest outlier by a wide margin; he's basically in the bottom left corner while the others are pretty close to the center but slightly still in the quadrant.

 

So he basically improved from being arguably the worst passer in a lot of these categories to being below average.

 

His fumbling was borderline comical last year.  In the playoff game he very easily could have had three fumbles.  One he did lose (which arguably changed the outcome of the game, changed the momentum), one knocked out of bounds by Knox and one that was luckily overturned.

Edited January 28, 2020 by RoyBatty is alive

[Lurker]

9 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

If the throw was at his feet, it would not have been scored as a drop. 

 

Even if it was catchable?   I'm talking about down around the calves, not bounced off the turf...

[DCOrange]

Also for those interested in the game-by-game PFF grades:

 

2018: 

• Above Average: 4
• Average: 3
• Below Average: 4

2019: 

• Above Average: 5
• Average: 5
• Below Average: 6

[finn]

This is as a good an opportunity as any to ask a question that I've always wanted to ask: Why is this board down on PFF? I'm not defending them, just curious. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

25 minutes ago, DCOrange said:

 

He still graded as 25th worst in terms of turnover-worthy plays, 28th in terms of on-target %, and 33rd in terms of big time throw % (essentially, deep passes and or tightly contested passes), and despite those improvements in every category of passer rating, he was still below average in all of them outside of 3rd downs and red zone where he was slightly above average. He was also 28th in adjusted completion percentage. His accuracy % of deep balls was roughly 17% and aside from Mason Rudolph, nobody is within 10% of him there.

 

They also have a chart with 4 quadrants where the bottom left = bad accuracy % and bad uncatchable pass %. There are some other QBs in that quadrant, but Allen is the biggest outlier by a wide margin; he's basically in the bottom left corner while the others are pretty close to the center but slightly still in the quadrant.

 

So he basically improved from being arguably the worst passer in a lot of these categories to being below average.

 

The caveat here, of course, is that when we move onto this stuff, PFF is making an educated guess about where the receiver is supposed to be and where Allen was trying to throw.

 

If the receiver is where he should be (per play design and read of the defense) and Allen didn't throw it there, it's bad accuracy % and a bad uncatchable pass.

If the receiver isn't where he should be (per play design and read of the defense) and Allen threw it where the receiver was supposed to be, PFF may still score it as bad accuracy % and a bad uncatchable pass, because that may be their educated guess. 

 

The coaches know.  Allen knows.  The receiver knows.  But PFF guesses.

 

For an example of what I mean, see "The Wakeup Call Part II" with Kirk Cousins and Allen pre-draft. At about 3:30 in, they start assessing an INT Allen threw.  It starts out looking like a bad pass, and Allen says boilerplate me bad stuff "I threw it where I shouldn't have thrown it".  Cousins drills into it more: "So he felt man, and you felt it might be zone?" and they go into more how to practice - it's pretty interesting (to me anyway), and it's pretty clear that Cousins isn't putting all the responsibility for the miscue on Allen.

 

Anyway, it's the same kind of distinction that has OLmen and DLmen rolling their eyes at PFF grades, because PFF grades the guy based on their educated guess of what the assignment was - but that may or may not match with reality.

[RoyBatty is alive]

2 minutes ago, finn said:

This is as a good an opportunity as any to ask a question that I've always wanted to ask: Why is this board down on PFF? I'm not defending them, just curious. 

Because everyone here thinks they are smarter and have better data than professionals who do it for a lving.

 

Also the fact that Bills aren't always rated far above average if not near the top is another reason.

Edited January 28, 2020 by RoyBatty is alive

[DCOrange]

1 minute ago, finn said:

This is as a good an opportunity as any to ask a question that I've always wanted to ask: Why is this board down on PFF? I'm not defending them, just curious. 

My personal opinion is that their stats are undeniably helpful and interesting. Their grades are much, much more debatable. And in general, Bills fans seem to think higher of their players than PFF does.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

10 minutes ago, Lurker said:

Even if it was catchable?   I'm talking about down around the calves, not bounced off the turf...

 

That's my understanding, although it would depend maybe on just where it is - closer to the knees might be a drop I guess? 

 

They score a drop as something that should be catchable with "ordinary effort" not by leaping, dropping to the turf, or laying out.  I was just looking to see if I could find the criteria quickly and I didn't, but it's something like it it hits (or could hit) both hands in a rectangle roughly between just over the receiver's head to his thighs or knees, and a bit wider than his body. 

 

If the receiver jumps two feet in the air and it hits both fully extended hands, it's a catchable ball, but it's not a drop.

[Blank Stare]

19 minutes ago, RoyBatty is alive said:

His fumbling was borderline comical last year. 

This. I’m a big Josh Allen fan regardless of what PFF says about him, but he’s got to get this cleaned up. Some fumbles will happen. I get that.  But he’s got to learn to take the ball with him to the ground. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

6 minutes ago, DCOrange said:

My personal opinion is that their stats are undeniably helpful and interesting. Their grades are much, much more debatable. And in general, Bills fans seem to think higher of their players than PFF does.

 

Pretty much!  I'll add that the closer their stats are to something that can be directly measured, the more helpful they are.

[Lurker]

7 minutes ago, RoyBatty is alive said:

Because everyone here thinks they are smarter and have better data than professionals who do it for a lving.

 

Thanks for the good laugh.    A bunch of 20-somethings watching All-22 video are professionals?     That's essentially what PFF is.    It's not rocket surgery or quantum physics.

 

smh...

[Hapless Bills Fan]

10 minutes ago, RoyBatty is alive said:

Because everyone here thinks they are smarter and have better data than professionals who do it for a lving.

 

Yeah, right, that must be the reason. 

 

When Eric Wood gives an interview and talks about PFF grades and how they don't jibe with reality and rot players socks out for that reason, same goes for him.

[Lurker]

5 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

it's something like it it hits (or could hit) both hands in a rectangle roughly between just over the receiver's head to his thighs or knees, and a bit wider than his body. 

 

If the receiver jumps two feet in the air and it hits both fully extended hands, it's a catchable ball, but it's not a drop.

 

[ProcessAccepted]

52 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Howsabout you leave the modding to the mods and not tell folks to not worry too much about TOS violations?

It was a joke. I thought that would have been obvious. 

[LABILLBACKER]

52 minutes ago, The Jokeman said:

Singletary rarely got passed to in college, he probably has to learn how to do it. I say give him a year or two to improve or consider it a major problem. 

That catch late in the Texan game was sick. Devin will improve. 

[bigK14094]

1 hour ago, JoPoy88 said:

That drop % for Knox is disgusting. 

Yes, unless that is fixed he is not the tight end of the future.  He gets another season to show he can do it....then adious.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

45 minutes ago, RoyBatty is alive said:

His fumbling was borderline comical last year.  In the playoff game he very easily could have had three fumbles.  One he did lose (which arguably changed the outcome of the game, changed the momentum), one knocked out of bounds by Knox and one that was luckily overturned.

 

You're batting 1000 today. 

 

The one "fumble" was an attempted lateral, and yes that was bad, but it wasn't a comical fumble, it was a bad decision trying to make a play.  Different cause, different cure.

 

The ball that Allen lost was comical, but not on Allen - that was a textbook QB ball stripping move.  Hit the ball hard on the opposite side and opposite end from the QB's hand when he's holding it in a throwing grip and it comes out.  The comical aspect is that Allen wasn't expecting it because he had 3 (3) of his guys including his LT, between Mercilus and him.  Three offensive blockers, one defender, he should not be sniffing our QB much less hitting him.

 

The overturned "down by contact" fumble is an area where Allen undeniably still needs to improve - when he is extending the ball trying for a 1st down it is vulnerable (on any player).  I've heard that Belicheck coaches NE players to NOT extend the ball for this reason, because it is only a matter of time before there isn't enough evidence to overturn and we lose those.

[Gugny]

1 hour ago, JoPoy88 said:

That drop % for Knox is disgusting. 

 

People only remember the circus catches and the stiff arms.

 

He was NOT GOOD this year.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

8 minutes ago, LABILLBACKER said:

That catch late in the Texan game was sick. Devin will improve. 

 

That's the status with both Knox and Singletary - they both made some sick, clutch catches and then missed on some easy ones.

[The Jokeman]

11 minutes ago, LABILLBACKER said:

That catch late in the Texan game was sick. Devin will improve. 

Yeah that was the last play we made on offense in OT that went for positive yards, I wish Daboll went to Singletary more after that. The kid has amazing stop/start abilities. 

[CincyBillsFan]

2 hours ago, DCOrange said:

Not sure what the policy is in terms of pasting premium content, so I'm going to hold off on pasting the entire thing, but PFF released their QB Annual Report today with roughly 10 pages of content for each QB. Some of the main takeaways for Allen:

 

1. His improvement this year as a passer showed up in literally every passer rating category that they track. Passer rating when kept clean improved from 79.8 to 95.2. Passer rating with no blitz improved from 70.1 to 89.6. Passer rating under pressure improved from 47.4 to 60.5. Passer rating when blitzed improved from 62.9 to 78.0. Passer rating on 3rd down improved from 49 to 92.8. Passer rating in the red zone improved from 75.8 to 95.8. 
2. Having said that, the improvement did not show up in terms of PFF's Accuracy metrics. Last year, he hit the WR's frame on 53.7% of his passes; that dropped to 53.0% this year. Last year, he threw a catchable ball on 73.5% of his passes; that number didn't move at all this season (though confusingly, they also track "on target %" and they show Allen improving from 64.7% as a rookie to 71.7% this season). There are some improvements to be seen when you break it down by pass distance though. In terms of hitting the WR's frame, Rookie Allen was 3.2% worse than the average QB on passes behind the line of scrimmage, 3.5% worse on 0-9 yard passes, 3.9% worse on 10-19 yard passes, and 8.2% worse on 20+ yard passes. This year's Allen was 2.1% better on passes behind the line of scrimmage, 5.5% worse on 0-9 yard passes, 6.4% better on 10-19 yard passes, and 20.6% worse on 20+ yard passes. So all in all, he was legitimately good on the screens/swings and intermediate passes this year, but was bad on the 0-9 yard passes and ungodly terrible on deep balls. PFF has found that the shorter stuff is generally more stable year over year, whereas the deep ball comes and goes; based on that, they believe Allen's overall gains this year are pretty promising for his future projection.
3. Route distribution was more or less the same as it was a year ago. There wasn't really any movement in terms of which routes Allen threw more of in Year 2 as compared to Year 1.
4. Having said that, the routes seemed to be pulled in shorter this year; 51% of his passes as a rookie were within 9 yards of the line of scrimmage versus 62% this year. That resulted in his average depth of target decreasing from 11.5 yards as a rookie to 9.8 yards this year.
5. In his rookie year, 6.8% of his targeted passes were dropped. This season, that number increased to 7.1%, so that's obviously disappointing. A breakdown of each receiver:
   1. John Brown: 2.8%
   2. Cole Beasley: 6.3%
   3. Dawson Knox: 18.4%
   4. Devin Singletary: 13.2%
   5. Isaiah McKenzie: 2.9%

Edit: Staying away from the PFF Grades that are included since people seem to very much not be fans of their grades lol, but the grades remain mostly very bad, though there was some improvement in areas.

 

I may be misreading this but doesn't it prove that PFF's metrics are a total crock of bat feces?

 

While I'm not a big fan of the conventional passer rating it's better then nothing. So you have Allen improving significantly by double digit numbers in almost every passer rating category with some huge improvements like his red zone rating going up by 44 points!  That Allen dropped in some of the subjective PFF ratings tells me their ratings suck.