What did so many of the draft experts miss about Allen?

[Albany,n.y.]

2 hours ago, jlgarsh said:

Mel Kiper was pretty much the only guy who believed in Allen. He and McShay got into it a couple times live about it, even after Josh’s rookie year. Mel said Allen would be the best QB in the AFC East in the next 5 years and McShay laughed at him and said it was Darnold. Then Mel went off on him.

Dave Te Thomas, who is my favorite draft guru also had Josh as the best QB prospect in the draft. His full QB scouting report of the top prospects is here:  https://www.bigblueview.com/2018/4/21/17264242/nfl-draft-report-josh-allen-cream-of-quarterback-crop-2018-nfl-draft-sam-darnold-josh-rosen

 

Cream of the Crop -- Josh Allen, Wyoming

While Allen is likely to go high in the draft, this projection is based on his pro football potential. Yes, there are still quite a few rough edges to work out, and those that compare him to Carson Wentz are missing the boat (Wentz is much more advanced), but he does have a Joe Flacco-like arm and the Matt Ryan ability to change a game with his arm. All he needs is patient coaching.

[HappyDays]

2 hours ago, jeremy2020 said:

It's simple what they missed...Allen is a 'gamer' and he wants to be better and those two things are true without caveats. Jackson and Allen were both the two best 'gamer' QBs. It's not surprising that they're the two best from that draft. 

 

Yep what makes Allen great is he genuinely loves playing QB and loves football and is insanely competitive on every play, and he has the athletic ability to back it all up. He's been working nonstop to fix every flaw he had as a rookie and he's having the time of his life out there.

[YoloinOhio]

4 hours ago, Batman1876 said:

I think they missed how many fewer reps he had than the other top guys. He didn't go to elite QB camps, he didn't transfer high schools to go to a better football program and he went to a sub par college program as a result. The more you practice something the more you see diminishing returns, Josh has yet to hit that diminishing returns phase and other Josh was there before the draft. 

I came here to say this. As someone who follows college recruiting very closely, if you aren’t at elite 11 and all the camps you can’t dream of an offer from a big program as a QB. Then if you aren’t at a big program you don’t play in big games against good competition and the nfl will always doubt what you can do at that level. It’s hard enough to project a player’s potential to the nfl - add in the lack of College film vs nfl quality talent. The fact he went top 10 anyway, and would have even if the Bills didn’t take him at 7,  shows that the nfl talent evaluators really didn’t miss. I doubt he was “off” anyone’s 1st round board who needed a QB even if mayfield and Darnold were ahead on some. 

Edited October 1, 2020 by YoloinOhio

[Rc2catch]

27 minutes ago, JohnNord said:

 

I don’t think so.  Darnold would be in a great spot in Buffalo and Allen probably isn’t starting anymore in NY.

 

There so much more than goes into the success of a QB prospect outside of their college stats and measurables.  So much is dependent on the situation they are drafted in.  

That’s kinda the point I was making. If you flip their draft positions Allen is probably out of the league or a severe turnover machine in jersey. Where as Darnold would probably be pretty dang successful here. So I don’t think the draft “experts” were completely wrong, they just didn’t expect Allen would progress or get a chance to profess in the pros 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 minute ago, YoloinOhio said:

I came here to say this. As someone who follows college recruiting very closely, if you aren’t at elite 11 and all the camps you can’t dream of an offer from a big program as a QB. Then if you aren’t at a big program you don’t play in big games against good competition and the nfl will always doubt what you can do at that level. It’s hard enough to project a player’s potential to the nfl - add in the lack of College film vs nfl quality talent. The fact he went top 10 anyway, and would have even if the Bills didn’t take him at 7,  shows that the nfl talent evaluators really didn’t miss. I doubt he was “off” anyone’s 1st round board who needed a QB even if mayfield and Darnold were ahead on some. 

 

This is a really good point, Yolo.   "Draft experts" is kind of a vague term.  It's probably important to differentiate between the actual NFL talent evaluators who prep the 32 draft boards, and the so-called "draft experts" who appear in various media and football information outlets. 

 

The former have accountability for their evaluations and decisions. 

 

The latter thrive on controversy, which bring them attention and clicks.

[Albany,n.y.]

Here's a great Allen & the Bills management team story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2018/07/19/hair-raising-landing-didnt-deter-bills-from-drafting-allen/36985297/

Here's another one: https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/how-the-bills-shocked-themselves-and-landed-josh-allen-tremaine-edmunds-in-2018-nfl-draft/

From 1st story: Once they gathered their breath, the Bills then proceeded with meeting Allen, and put him through a workout.

Without providing Allen with a script of plays beforehand, Daboll began yelling out situations to see how quickly the quarterback could digest the information and make a throw.

"It was, 'All right, the deep dig. Now. Five-step, this. Go.' And he processed it quickly," Beane said. "His workout was very good. And when we left there, we felt very confident."

They were confident enough to give up two second-round picks to Tampa Bay and trade up five spots to draft Allen at No. 7.

Where their confidence wavered involved what bumps they might encounter upon leaving Laramie.

"We were a little distracted about how we were getting out of here," Beane said. "It was like, 'Where do we drive to have the plane meet us?'"

 

CHARTING ALLEN

To address questions regarding Allen's accuracy, Bills scouts turned to game tape to chart every throw he attempted. They assessed what caused the incompletions, including times he threw the ball away when his receivers weren't open.

The Bills also took into account Wyoming's offensive philosophy, which didn't include many short passes.

"He had no gimme throws," Beane said of a quarterback who went 152 of 270, in completing just 56.3 percent of his passes, with 16 touchdowns and six interceptions in 11 games last year.

The only real concern was Allen's footwork, which Beane said notably improved by the time he played at the Senior Bowl in January.

"I'm not saying it's fixed," Beane said of Allen's footwork. "But improved."

 

From 2nd story: 

Allen helped his stock with a strong Pro Day and with how he handled himself during meetings with Bills ownership and management, both at Wyoming and in Buffalo. The more film they reviewed the more his best attributes stood out to them, with Beane still raving about Allen's gutty performance against Colorado State, a 16-13 Wyoming win under duress in November in which Allen completed just 10 of 20 passes for 138 yards and no scores, and accounted for just 198 total yards.

"It was a snow game," Beane said. "In the first half it rained and in second half it snowed, and he was not only their running game and throwing game, he was their whole offense and he willed that team to victory. His stats, if you look at his stats, they look terrible. But if you watch the tape, that's where you see a guy that carried his team to victory."

When Beane went to watch Allen play he paid almost as close attention to how he conducted himself on the sidelines -- keeping cool and rallying lesser teammates who routinely let him down with mistakes and dropped passes -- as he did to what was happening between the lines. His attitude and team-first ethos won the Bills over through the process. The subsequent time they spent with Allen leading up to the draft -- after that shaky interaction at the Senior Bowl -- backed up everything he had seen on film or from the binoculars in the press box.

"We met Josh for the first time at the Senior Bowl and spent about a half hour with him, and it was tough," Beane said. "He was super nervous and I thought he was trying too hard, as some of the other ones were. He was just really wanting to impress. 

"When we flew to Laramie his flight was late and he was flying from L.A. to Denver and I think he felt bad that he was late for dinner and he showed up and I was like, 'Man, we've got our owners here, he's going to feel really [nervous].' And he was relaxed and calm and confident. It was like he was a different kid than we saw two months earlier. It just felt natural with him.

"And we brought him here to Buffalo too. You know we saw him in his surroundings in Laramie, so let's bring him to our surroundings, and he just seemed like one of our type of guys. And you saw that leadership and the things I saw on the sidelines when I saw him play live. Even at the Senior Bowl he was high-fiving linemen, patting guys on the butt, clapping all the time. He's into it every play. It wasn't about him, it was about the team, the we, and that's what I think is really important."

 

 

 

[The Virginian]

Desire, heart, grit, and toughness.  Four elements that the analytic guys can't measure.  Combine that with his intelligence, humility, and ability to lead his teammates and you've got yourself a hell of a player and human being.  We call it Cowboy Tough in Wyoming and JA has no shortage of Cowboy Toughness.  He's also competitive as hell.  Tell him he can't do something and he'll plow through brick walls to prove you wrong. So the analytic boys be dammed.  Ignore the haters and their stats. Just enjoy the ride.  Someday, in the not too distant future,  I predict Josh will lead the Bills to the Super Bowl and the Lombardi Trophy.

[K-9]

5 hours ago, Lieutenant Aldo Raine said:

Because many of these scouts and GMs are like some of the know-it-alls here at TBD where only big boys from big boy programs who put up big time college stats can only be successful.  Remember the heated debate this summer where forum members were saying Fromm was gonna challenge Allen for the job.  That was a fun debate; of course many of those posters are eating their words now.

Pro scouts and GMs had Allen pegged as a first round pick; pretty much after his sophomore year at Wyoming. The arm talent and athleticism were readily apparent to everyone. 
 

You are spot on about the know it alls here and in the twitterverse , though. They just couldn’t see past his completion percentage and the occasional wild throws. 

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

He's some how more of an athlete and bigger running threat at the next level than he was in college. I think most everyone missed on that. It's rare a guy becomes a scarier runner at the next level. I certainly didn't know he was this athletic where as we all knew Cam, Jackson and Murray were super athletes coming out. 

[pretzel logic]

Cosmic physical tools and one the highest wonerlic scores for a qb..........furthermore, he only played 2 full season in Wyoming.....got thrown in shark tank as a rookie and has become one of the top sharks in the league ....Bills took him in as a baby qb and raised and nourished him into a  NFL Franchise  QB 

[Nihilarian]

I think what sold Brandon Beane on Josh Allen was that he grew up on a farm and was no stranger to hard work. Up at the crack of dawn and worked till dark on his fathers farm.

 

Was a scrawny 180lb 6'2'' kid when he entered Junior college and no big school wanted to give him a scholarship to play football. After 2 years of JR he sent out over 2000 emails to football schools with his resume and only two responded. Wyoming and Eastern Michigan and the latter rescinded their offer once they found out he was talking with the former.

 

Josh Allen got to Wyoming and turned a perennial loser into a bowl game player by basically carrying the team on his shoulders. Even coming from California didn't deter Josh from playing in the snow and cold of Wyoming. In his final season at Wyoming every player that had touched the ball the year before was gone from the team, so he was playing with a bunch of rookies and still got them to a bowl game. 

 

Josh Allen knew what his problems were going into the combine and talked with Mike Mayock (now Raiders GM) about his accuracy issues. 

 

 

[Buffalo716]

37 minutes ago, Sammy Watkins' Rib said:

He's some how more of an athlete and bigger running threat at the next level than he was in college. I think most everyone missed on that. It's rare a guy becomes a scarier runner at the next level. I certainly didn't know he was this athletic where as we all knew Cam, Jackson and Murray were super athletes coming out. 

I don't think that is not that he wasn't a running threat. He broke his collarbone his first year at Wyoming running

 

They didn't really run any read options for him his next year, and he only ran off improvisation

 

His Juco running stats are insane

[GoBills808]

1 minute ago, Buffalo716 said:

I don't think that is not that he wasn't a running threat. He broke his collarbone his first year at Wyoming running

 

They didn't really run any read options for him his next year, and he only ran off improvisation

 

His Juco running stats are insane

Yup everyone missed his legs

 

which is to say they missed his overall athleticism

 

which is to say they missed a lot

[Buffalo716]

1 minute ago, GoBills808 said:

Yup everyone missed his legs

 

which is to say they missed his overall athleticism

 

which is to say they missed a lot

I knew the kid was a world-class athlete. His legs let him survive his rookie year

 

And he needed every bit of athleticism and determination that he has

[transplantbillsfan]

Allen was a relatively short, skinny multi sport athlete in High School at a rural unknown High School who grew physically late into himself.

 

He really wasn't recruited, so he then had to really learn the game at a JuCo followed by low level D1 Wyoming.

 

Plenty of mistakes along the way learning the game.

 

That's why.

[Utah John]

What they saw was, he wasn't very good, at least not when he was drafted.  Just like a horse breeder or trainer can look at a colt and size it up as a future racer, the Bills' FO put in the time to get to know him, and see how he responded to coaching and what his desire to improve was.  The Bills didn't intend for Allen to play much or at all in his rookie year, so we got to see the raw JA on full display.  What we're seeing now is a great player emerging.

[cage]

12 hours ago, Buffalo716 said:

What people missed is what people miss about all great athletes

 

Their desire to win and improve at all costs

 

This sums it up best.  The only thing I can add is that many people don't think that a QB can improve his accuracy once they get past college and into the pros.  It is what it is, in their minds.  We've said it on this forum over and over again regarding EJ Manuel.  He was an inaccurate passer and it will never improve.  That's baked into how people think about the position in the same way that your 40 time affects WR/CBs.  And there was plenty of video example to reenforce that point-of-view.

Edited October 1, 2020 by cage

[Shuganuts]

ome word... COACHABILITY.   He’s always had the physicaL tools/talent, but never in HS and college did he have top tier coaching.  The brilliance of our staff was not doing too much too soon,  it seems each off season, they chose an area to focus on and BOY has he improved each time.   Props to Palmer too I suppose...

[smuvtalker]

12 hours ago, Dablitzkrieg said:

I have always thought and heard from "experts" that accuracy can not be taught.  You either have it or don't.  I was way off.  Allen has proven so many including myself wrong and I love it!!

Ditto.  I too was one who thought that a qb coming out of college with a career 56% accuracy percentage could never fix that.  I threw up in my mouth when we made that pick.  My initial thought was "@#$%, WHEN will we finally get the qb position solved?"

 

Crow never tasted so good...

[CLTbills]

I'll have to spend some time searching for it, but I remember hearing Beane say in an interview - I'm pretty sure the Bills scouts flew to Wyoming to watch him play - That what they saw in person was more valuable than what they saw on the field. How he interacted with his teammates on the sideline. The leader that he was, the desire to win are things that you just can't teach. As others have posted, I think they saw his deficiencies as things that could be coached/fixed - mechanics, experience, talent around him. 

They placed as much value on his leadership qualities and that fire/desire to be the best and to win at all costs (which can't be taught/coached) as they did on the on-field product.

 

Damn, we are so lucky to have Brandon Beane. 

 

Edit: Found it!

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/sports/football/nfl/bills/2018/12/14/josh-allen-leadership-has-come-naturally-buffalo-bills/2312594002/

 

But Beane was barely paying attention to any of that when he went to scout Allen live at Wyoming last fall. What he wanted to see was whether Allen possessed the qualities that define a leader, the things you don’t see on the game film. 
 

 

“I could see all the stuff in pre-game, how’s he interacting with his guys?” Beane said. “When they’re going through stretch lines, is he patting them on the butt and getting them going? When they go three-and-out two series in a row, what’s he doing? When he comes off, who’s he talking to? Is he talking to one guy, is he screaming at people, is he a mute? What’s his leadership like? It’s such an important part of playing that position because we all know you’re going to have those days or weeks when you lose three in a row, how’s he going to respond, can he handle adversity?”

What Beane saw then, he sees now, which is why he and the Bills are so excited about Allen’s future.

Edited October 1, 2020 by CLTbills

[DCbillsfan]

Bills saw a very raw talent who didn't have much coaching who is a leader, has a strong desire to improve, is coachable, humble, and has a huge desire to win.  Beane is a wizard.

[finn]

I'm not sure the real experts underestimated Allen that egregiously. Do we know of any teams that had him lower than the second round? They knew about his upside but also knew taking him high was a gamble, which it was at the time. The "experts" in the media are another matter. They've learned they don't need to watch tape, meet the player or consider intangibles like motivation, competitiveness and football intelligence. Their job is to f*llate the darling of the day (Mayfield, in that draft) and parrot other "experts" on the other picks, which evidently is what fans want to read. And they're the ones, most of them, who are still refusing to acknowledge they were wrong. 

[Hebert19]

Honestly its the same as diggs.   

 

Big ass chip on shoulder.   He won't fail.

[ehfeuh57]

Mel Kiper did have him 1 at one point on his big board

 

https://www.sbnation.com/2018/1/18/16905840/nfl-mock-draft-2018-mel-kiper-jr-josh-allen-wyoming-cleveland-browns

Edited October 1, 2020 by DrDare

[GreggTX]

I seriously doubt anyone could have forseen a 12% jump in completion% from year 2 to year 3. I've been watching football for 60 years and I've never seen a QB do that before. What Josh is doing now is unique, not his numbers  but the improvement.

[NoSaint]

Just like all the others, he was a long shot but not impossible.

 

we are trending towards him beating the odds, which is great.

[Kwai San]

A lot of really really great replies to this thread...after making it this far I would lean towards 2 things.  Heart and Hard Work.  JA has the heart and lord know he has done the hard work.  Great time to be a Bills fan now.  Remember he is going to have some flat out stinkers from time to time but it sure seems like he is on his way to a lot more really solid games.

 

Go BILLS - Go JA!!

[DCOrange]

As many have pointed out, people underestimated how hard he'd work to improve his game. I also think he was simply hard to evaluate the last season at Wyoming. It was a common occurrence to see a team rush 3 or 4 people and have multiple people get through to him untouched. His WRs looked like they had feet for hands. That last season of his was about as unwatchable as it gets from a supporting cast perspective.

 

I also think some teams just don't look at the QB position the right way. IMO, the key with drafting QBs is going for guys that you think have a chance of being truly great. The worst position to be in in the NFL in my opinion is to have to give a massive second contract to a QB that is average at best. But I think a lot of teams value stability over ability and that leads to teams valuing guys like Rosen over Allen.

 

I also think one of the mistakes that was made with both Allen and Lamar is underrating how much a QB's running ability can lift up the rest of their game. For someone like Rosen that was a sitting duck in the pocket, the margin of error to becoming a great QB is just so small because if he doesn't turn into an elite passer, he has nothing else to fall back on. Guys like Allen and Lamar have much greater margins for error because their running ability will result in more passing windows to throw into (not to mention the ability to pick up yardage when no passing window exists). That also makes guys like Lamar and Allen playable early on, because they could survive while being a little slow in their reads or a little off on their passes while other QBs could not.

 

And lastly, as I've said many times over the years, Allen is the exact kind of physical tools guy that you want to bet on because he exudes confidence and supreme work ethic. That's the kind of mental makeup you need to be able to make the most out of your raw tools.

 

TLDR: Allen was more pro-ready than he was given credit for due to his athleticism. I think teams just don't value the QB position correctly when it comes to the draft and that is at the expense of someone like Allen. And lastly, his final season at Wyoming was pretty much unwatchable.

Edited October 1, 2020 by DCOrange

[colin]

so josh allen shows the limits of nerd analytics in football.  it works well in baseball because you have so many IID trials, and such a huge data set you can get meaningful information even on situational stuff.

 

in football, every play can have so many variables that the numbers generated are not fungible and thus one has to perform a deeper analysis using qualitative data.  in that regard, the eye test can very easily beat out a hundred tabs of data.

 

the point made about josh being a late bloomer in this thread is a good one.  there have been lots of interesting things written about how early bloomers get a big advantage in terms of coaching and competition in American sports.  

 

the best example of stat dorkery vs eye test and gut feel for things like leadership and other inflatables might be between the two joshes.  rosen had a great pedigree, but some bad attitude red flags.  Allen was no one from no where, but everyone who met him saw him as having a good football temperament.  rosen had polish and great stats vs pac 12 opponents, allen was up and down like a yo yo and didn't consistently dominate much lesser competition.  at the end of it tho, rosen is a petite weak clownshoe of a man with a slender effete neck and the face of a whiny quitter, while allen is man child dynamo with a wide eyed optimism and a contagious spirit.

 

sometimes the eye test really is what counts and stats really are for losers.  the PFF and internet snark football dweebs have egg on their face.  you love to see it!

 

[All_Pro_Bills]

Draft "experts" are not talent evaluators.  They are accumulators of statistics and information.  They looked at Allen's stats and the program he played in and made their conclusions. 

[racketmaster]

First off, the draft has always been a bit of crap shoot and depending on the criteria used to determine a successful draft pick or not it ends up being somewhere around 50% success rate for drafting a quarterback in the first round (might even be lower depending on how high your success standard is). So a lot of people are wrong and it is not that unusual to miss on a prospect, especially a quarterback. I liked EJ when he was coming out and thought he could be an above average starter in the league, especially with the shift in using a quarterback's mobility but it just did not work out (maybe in a different situation he becomes an average starter or maybe it was just a bad draft class with no prospects who were good enough to be franchise quarterbacks). 

 

What makes Allen a little different is that he was such a polarizing prospect. There seemed to be no middle ground and the lines were drawn in the sand on him whether he was going to be good or bad. It was very much like our current political environment where you are basically on one side or another and very few people were in between. When evaluating Allen, I recall being immediately impressed by his size, athleticism and arm talent. I loved his toughness and determination. I loved that he was smart, coachable and was very intrigued with his back story (late bloomer, JUCO route, then Wyoming). You saw that he had little talent to no talent around him his last year at Wyoming and it was all Allen and having to throw into tiny window and playing hero ball because there really was no other option. If you went back and watched his games from the previous year where he threw 28 tds, you saw that he had a little more talent around him and that his play was more productive as a result. However, there was the valid inaccuracy questions and you would see poor mechanics at times and wonder if it was something that could be corrected. So I actually fell into the category of being interested in Allen and hopeful that he could be good but I certainly could not claim that I would have put all my chips on the table in support of him. I recall the debates defending Allen as a prospect and the other side had valid points with the accuracy issues and it would often cast doubts in my mind whether he would actually end up succeeding. I actually thought Darnold would be the safer pick and was hoping that the Bills would land him. After the draft fell the way it did, I was just excited that Denver passed on Allen and that we chose Allen over Rosen (I just thought he was the next Jeff George or Cutler at his best and that was not what I wanted). 

 

After Allen was drafted, here again it was a little unusual as people had become so invested in their "guys" that if you were not an Allen guy you were depressed and had no faith that he would be any good. Usually, your team drafts a qb and most people get on board right away and are hopeful, but not with Allen. People had really went to extremes to trash him in the draft process and it was hard for many to come back from that. Little by little, Allen began earning the trust of his fans and the local media. It was first, his teammates genuinely like and respect him and believe he can be the guy. We knew he was tough and was a more impressive runner than most anybody could have imagined. He had some ability to pass the ball and maybe was not as bad as some thought but still not good enough. Second year Allen did not start out well but he picked up steam and by the end of last year, his critics became mostly silent (at least locally). Silent in that they were now willing to see more for him and not calling for him to be replaced by another draft pick. His biggest critics remained skeptical that he could make the leap to a top tier quarterback but even they saw that he could at least be an average to below average quarterback with his grit, big play arm and running ability. The national media by and large remained more skeptical coming into this year but that is because they don't watch him like we do and go more off narratives that have been assigned to him (classic group thought). Allen had some supporters like Chris Simms but by and large most of the media thought Allen was below average to bad and that it was all the Bills defense that carried this team. They were not totally off base but I think most Bills fans had seen steady progress in Allen and knew his special case background gave us legitimate hope that there was still more inside him. We saw him elevate his game in the 4th quarters of games and knew that this was not something most of his predecessors had done where as they tended to shrink in the biggest moments. And so many were cautiously optimistic that he could become above average this year and there was a significant portion of his fans that believed he could become a top ten quarterback or even a star. And so the first 3 games have happened and as one of those who believed Allen could be a star from the beginning, I can't say that I am surprised by his play but I can say that I did not expect this much of a leap this early in the season. I figured he would get better and better and maybe by the end of this season or next year he could be a top 5 guy but he is playing like that right now. And so at this point, everybody is basically on board with Allen but we also know that there are plenty of people in the national media and even locally that will be quick to turn on him when he has a bad game or two (which is to be expected). Because it is still new and because some people thought Allen would be so bad, he will have to play great for a longer period of time than most in order to get "crowned" a top tier quarterback. And that is okay, if you believe in Allen like I do it does not matter because it is all inevitable. It is just a matter of time before he proves that he is a top 5 qb to the country at large and there will be few doubters. It may take a year or maybe two and for some nothing short of a SB win but I believe in Allen and this organization that at some point in the next 5 years we will be a SB team. Just like many Bills fans, I sleep well at night knowing we have our guy and that is really all that matters. 

Edited October 1, 2020 by racketmaster

[Gordio]

I watched Allen a few times in college and never came away really impressed especially when he would play upper tier opponents like Iowa opening day 2017.  It wasn't pretty.  What kind of changed my thought process about Allen was I was out drinking with my boss around Christmas time and his son & friend came up to meet us.  His friend went to Wyoming.  he told me "don't read too much into Allen's stats, he has no talent around him & throwing to a bunch of walk on receivers."  I started changing my tune about him.  I knew his tangibles were off the chart compared to the other QB's coming out that year.  With that being said, I would of took Rosen.  Glad I was wrong.  

[Chuck Wagon]

It's the difference in a trained scouting mindset vs an internet "draft expert".

 

Professional scouts focus on the things a player CAN do and how can they improve in areas that need help.

 

Internet "experts" focus on what a player CAN'T do.

 

Anytime a former player or someone with a scouting background talked about Allen as a prospect, they gushed about him.  The internet on the other hand focused on his games against P5 teams and said he'll never make it.

 

Frankly I think if the Browns had a stronger stomach and were better run, they would have taken Allen #1 overall, but they got crushed in the media when they floated that and went with Baker.

[mjt328]

Scouting is about applying the known (stats, physical traits, film) and trying to project it into the future.

It's not an exact science.  It's an educated guess.

 

As I've stated before, I don't think the draft experts necessarily "missed" on Josh Allen.  

 

All of the known information they had revealed a raw prospect with elite physical skills, but who needed tons of work on refining his mechanics.  Quarterbacks are always risky.  But even more so with major projects like Allen.  Draft history is loaded with QBs who were fantastic athletes, but couldn't fix their footwork or couldn't learn to process a defense.  EJ Manuel is a great example from right here in Buffalo.  I believe he also had the drive to get better, but it just didn't happen for him.

 

One of my friends is the brother of a scout on the Indianapolis Colts.  We had a conversation during the 2018 offseason, regarding Kirk Cousins as a free agent and the upcoming QB draft.  He stated that Internet analytics guys tend to lean towards the safer prospects (Baker Mayfield, Josh Rosen) who have shown more success at the college level.  But pro scouts tend to lean more towards guys with tremendous upside.  Although guys like Allen are way riskier and take more time/effort to develop, the payoff is much higher if you happen to succeed.  Hit on Mayfield and you have a playoff team.  Hit on Allen and you have a Super Bowl team.

 

[Bulldog]

It is so difficult to assess these college prospects. The elite physical skills can be relatively easy to evaluate - speed, strength. size, etc. However, so much of the game is mental - especially for a position such as quarterback. The most important questions to answer are often the most opaque - how well will the prospect adjust to the speed of the pro game, how well will he learn to read pro defenses, what will his work ethic be after he suddenly has more money than he ever had in his whole life (when he signs his rookie contract), what will his leadership skills be in a locker room and playing field full of men (rather than young college guys), will he driven to accept nothing less than championships or be happy to have achieved becoming an NFL player & achieving financial security?

 

The draft is an art more than it is a science. So many people missed on Josh Allen because the process of reviewing a college QB prospect is fraught with an enormous amount of speculation about personal attributes that are extremely difficult to quantify. Josh Allen checks off all the boxes on the "intangibles" - it took a lot of guts to roll with your feelings about the young guy rather than going with a so called "safer" choice like Josh Rosen. If these intangibles were so easy to evaluate - then Tom Brady & Russell Wilson wouldn't have been bypassed multiple times by every team in the league when they were on the clock for the draft. Kudos to McBeane for having the guts to make the hard choice - now they can reap the benefits that come with it.  And so can we ...

     

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

7 hours ago, Buffalo716 said:

I don't think that is not that he wasn't a running threat. He broke his collarbone his first year at Wyoming running

 

They didn't really run any read options for him his next year, and he only ran off improvisation

 

His Juco running stats are insane

 

It wasn't shown as consistently in college, for whatever reason.  And he's been better in the PROS is what I am getting at. As a rookie he put up the best rushing season since Mike Vick, until Jackson had his season last year. Nobody saw that coming.

 

 

 

 

[jimmy10]

Raw talent and coachability is my guess. 

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

1 hour ago, GreggTX said:

I seriously doubt anyone could have forseen a 12% jump in completion% from year 2 to year 3. I've been watching football for 60 years and I've never seen a QB do that before. What Josh is doing now is unique, not his numbers  but the improvement.

 

Josh "Anomaly" Allen

 

 

[Rick 'r Mortis]

My take...they did not 'miss' anything. They were spot on. Watch games from his first year...hell, read posts on this board from his first year.

He's improved, big time. While others like Rosen and that guy for the Jets look terrible to bad. Things change and I believe a big part is Josh's competitiveness.

[Just Joshin']

The case study is on why Allen is successful and Rosen is not.

 

IMO it comes down to what is hard to manage: attitude, coach ability, leadership and desire.  Allen is rich in these qualities while Rosen is bankrupt.