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Bills players (Allen) nationally...


mjd1001

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Josh Allen seemingly has to work hard and play better than most any player I can recall in recent history to get respect. The smart national media members have come around the last few weeks but there still seems to be a bewildering amount of caution when it comes to Allen's play:

Here is just a few summaries of what I have heard on Allen today:

1) Mike Vick on Allen wanting Super Bowl and not being satisfied with division title - "Funny". He does go on to say he likes the confidence but I'm not sure why this is funny. Is there only one Super Bowl contender out there (KC) because if other teams are allowed to be in the discussion the Bills are the next team that should come up with all 3 phases playing well and having excellent coaching. I don't think the Bills chances of winning the SB this year is 'funny". 

2) Nick Wright has dug in on his Allen hate and it is mostly laughable at this point. Being asked the same question as Mike Vick, Wright thinks the only way that Allen gets a Super Bowl t-shirt is to find one in Europe where the old shirts that were printed ahead of time end up. Because he is a troll he goes on to say that maybe Allen could find 4 other Bills SB champion shirts from the 90s in Europe as well. Wright is on par with Foxworth as he is just a tool when it comes to talking about Allen at this point. 

3) Skip Bayless still chooses Baker Mayfield over Allen if starting a team from scratch today. Baker has been playing well this year since OBJ went down but let us not forget he has one of the best running games in the NFL. Everything on offense for the Browns starts with the running game and play action. The Bills offense revolves around Allen just like the KC offense revolves around Mahomes. Allen is the Bills offense and how he plays dictates how well the Bills play on offense while Baker can be off and the Browns can still pound you on the ground. 

 

Still plenty of others to praise Allen but I'm tired of all the caveats with Allen in describing his play. Here are some of the myths still out there:

1. Diggs has made Allen. Not true, Allen was already progressing steadily before Diggs got here. Did Diggs speed up the process, for sure, but Allen has actually elevated Diggs into what is by far his best season of his career. In truth, they have been a perfect match and have helped each other just like every other good wr does with their qb. Adams helps Rodgers, Hopkins helps Murray and Kelce and Hill help Mahomes. Take top weapons away and it hurts any qb but a lot of the media want to try an discount Allen because Diggs arrived this year. Allen has been a star in the making and Bills would have added another weapon or two if it were not Diggs.

2. Allen is surrounded by tremendous weapons. Ok, we just talked about Diggs and he is a top level wr. What are the other great weapons. Beasley will have his first 1,000 yard season this year and he has been typically a 600-700 yard guy. Allen has elevated Beasley to a level he has never been at before. John Brown had a career year with Allen last year and has been hurt a good portion of this year. Brown is a low level #2 or high end #3 wr in this league. Beasley is a very solid #3 that has been basically playing the #2 option for most of this year because Brown has been hurt. I like Gabe Davis but he was a 4th round rookie. He is not some special talent at this point and is a normal #3 or #4 wr option. Our tight ends have been inconsistent throughout the year in part because of their talent and in part because of injuries and illness. And our RBs are solid but they are no better than league average duo. In sum, I don't think Allen has been playing with some superior level of wr and rb talent around him. I get Mahomes is a made man at this point, but watch the games and you see how much talent is rolled out onto the field  beyond Kelce and Hill. Watkins is practically an afterthought and they have speed in Hardman and Robinson who are #4 and #5 but could easily be #3s on most other teams. And yet, Mahomes is never discredited for having elite talent around him like Allen because Allen is so lucky to be surrounded by Diggs and Beasley. 

3. Allen struggled after the hot 4 game start. His haters will say he disappeared for like 6-7 games after the hot start. But the national media has no clue what happened. First, Allen did not play poorly throughout this stretch and even had some excellent games such as the game against Seattle. The Titans and KC games were not great but he was not awful either considering the circumstances. What the media wants to ignore (even though they want to mitigate for other teams and qbs) was the covid issue that started with the Titans. There was a ton of uncertainty going into the Titans game as to when and even who we would play. Then we had to come back on a short week and play KC in a poor weather game (wind conditions). We got dominated on the ground and could not run the football. 2 bad losses but this was not all on Allen. Other games like the Jets, we just dominated and toyed with them. We lacked some aggression on offense for a few weeks following the TN and KC games but have rebounded nicely. The media does not understand that the Bills play to win football games and McDermott is not one of those coaches who tries to run up the score or play for stats. If games are out of hand, he is pulling starters and running the football like you should to avoid injury. There are a lot of other teams out there that take an extra series or two to run up stats whether they are winning or losing in garbage time situations. Allen plays in below average weather conditions and does not play for a coach who likes to accumulate stats in garbage time. 

4. Allen has certainly gotten better this year but after a slow start last year, Allen was really progressing in 2019 and the Bills were a 10-6 team who took the foot off the gas at the end of the season. If you listen to the media talk about Allen's only playoff game, you would have thought he put up numbers similar to what Lamar Jackson did in his first 2 playoff appearances. Allen played well in the first half and yet the Bills tried to play conservative in the second half allowing Watson to get hot. Still Allen drove us down the field and got us to OT. We had a chance to win had we had a kicker with a bigger leg. Just because Allen threw a lateral that did not make it to Dawson Knox and really cost us nothing, does not mean he played horrible. But that is all you ever hear about that game is how out of control he was. Does anyone ever ask how did Allen play so poorly on the road against a good Texans team and yet we went to overtime and really had chances to win it had we had a better kicker. It is a complete myth that he played poorly in that game. 

 

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