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