Josh Allen is looking a lot more like the 2019 version

[Maynard]

11 hours ago, Vertig0 said:

 

100% agree.

 

Again, I think he'll be fine, but he's always been a self inflicted victim of hype. He came out of the tunnel in Buffalo to 'MVP' chants, he was given a $150+ million contract, he's getting national media attention and ads for the first time ever and the Bills are a super bowl favorite. 

 

Bundle all of that up given his personality and he's back to thinking that he needs to win the game every play. He's over throwing, over thinking and putting way to much pressure on himself. You can almost see it in his eyes. He wants it too badly and despite it all, you can't hate him for that. 

 

Give the kid a little time to re-ground himself, let his teammates show him "look Josh, you had a ***** day and we won 35-0, we got you, you don't have to do this alone, this is a team game" and let him realize that he doesn't need the constant self pressure and he'll be back to 2020, zero expectations Josh Allen. I'm confident he'll get there. 

I think you nailed it here. I can see it in his eyes, facial expressions, and rosy cheeks. I’m no expert here and that might sound completely idiotic, but those 3 attributes are dead giveaways to me. I think he’s putting way too much pressure on himself instead of letting things come to him naturally. Luckily, no hero ball yet.
 

It’s throwing off his mechanics and overall decision making. It’s not all on him I get that. The O~line has been atrocious and receivers are not separating. Overall, I do think this is a mental thing and I do think Josh is intelligent enough to recognize and address it. Hopefully he comes around quickly and we’ll be singing his praises again. 

[Coach Tuesday]

Watch the throws again.  Most of the time he’s fading away from “pressure” (real or imagined) and throwing off his back foot, sometimes lofting/feathering the ball to account for the earlier release.  He doesn’t trust his protection.

Edited September 20, 2021 by Coach Tuesday

[Wayne Cubed]

Just now, CountDorkula said:

What about every other team whos starters barely played pre-season? That excuse doesn't work.

 

Allen has been off, he needs to figure it out, or this team wont go far.

 

This team goes as Allen goes.

 

Some teams did choose to play their starters in pre-season. Example, Mahomes and the KC offense played a lot in the preseason. I'm not saying that's what causing this but Andy Reid is a firm believer in using the preseason to get into a early rhythm.

 

I think it's a combo of things. OL being bad isn't helping and Josh said on Saturday Daboll was putting new plays into the gameplan. Which they had to use pregame to practice. That isn't going to help.

 

Agreed this team goes where Allen does.

[LabattBlue]

Where is his oft praised QB whisperer when desperately needed? 😂

[cd1]

12 hours ago, Marvlevydraftdaygenius said:

It is the way Defenses are going to play him this year.  No Smoke no speed over the top and Dabol must be more balanced this year.

 

I have thought that on almost every throw to Sanders - 'those were "Smoke" balls. 

 

Josh does not seem to be in sync with Sanders. (?)

[SCBills]

I have to correct myself.. earlier in the thread I pointed to Derek Carr going off on the Steelers…

 

Did not know he played the Wal-Mart brand Steelers with no Haden or Bush, and TJ Watt leaving the game early. 
 

So far, we’ve played two good defenses and our offense looks completely out of sync.. both can be true.  
 

It’s not just Allen, not just the OL, not just the WRs.    Allen is off when he has time and an open WR.  OL played better against Miami but was historically bad against PIT. WR’s seem to be getting no separation and/or Allen just isn’t seeing the field and is forcing the ball where there’s traffic. 
 

Whatever it is, I have faith it can be fixed… but in the meantime, I’ll laugh a little that I’m finding Knox and our running game to be the most reliable aspects of our offense through two games. 
 

 

Edited September 20, 2021 by SCBills

[Boatdrinks]

Maybe his baseline is going to be somewhere between 2019 and 2020. There’s no guarantee he can repeat last season’s performance. This is true whether you paid him or not. Lots of NFL QBs have had a year and never quite reached that level again. Regardless of what fans want, we just don’t know yet. 

[Ramza86]

Year 4, stadiums are roaring, hes an emotional kid

 

Hes playing to his emotions still. Hes gotta learn to calm himself mentally and get back to those quiet stadium days. 

 

Hes certainly not at his best. Steelers pass rush and fins pass defense two real tough matchups though. Lets see how he does the next 3 weeks.

[buffaloboyinATL]

9 hours ago, Bangarang said:

10 starters returned. No coaching or scheme changes. But it’s  getting in sync with Sanders that is part of the issue? I don’t buy that for a second.  

One new receiver can absolutely change the chemistry. There are plays where he normally would look for Beasley or Diggs where he appears to be trying to force it to Sanders. I believe they will get their rhythm and timing down as they get experience together (Allen and all of the WR’s) but only time will tell for sure. 

[CountDorkula]

10 minutes ago, buffaloboyinATL said:

One new receiver can absolutely change the chemistry. There are plays where he normally would look for Beasley or Diggs where he appears to be trying to force it to Sanders. I believe they will get their rhythm and timing down as they get experience together (Allen and all of the WR’s) but only time will tell for sure. 

IM sorry to me this is BS. The excuses need to stop. 

 

Players are in and out of systems all the time, Good QBs don't miss a beat. They just make it work.

 

Rodgers is still MVP, without a lick of talent on that team outside of Adams. 

 

Allen and the offense needs to figure it out, whatever it is.

 

 

[BananaB]

The oline looks like *****. You can tell he ain’t comfortable standing behind them right now. A lot of the time he’s taking off early. If the line get their ***** together and he’s still struggling then we got a problem. There were times he probably could of stuck in there yesterday but I think it’s in his head at this point

 

35 points against a good D playing while our group is still struggling. I’ll take that. Move on to the next and work on improving 

Edited September 20, 2021 by BananaB

[Gugny]

Just call a spade a spade.  Allen looks like crap.  I am super confident that he'll right the ship;  but to say he hasn't been pretty bad is simply wrong.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

15 hours ago, KzooMike said:

Last 4 games:  98 of 169, 58%, 942 Yards, 6 TD's to 2 INT's, 80.53 Rating

 

2021: 47 of 84, 56%, 449 Yards, 3 TD's to 1 INT, 77.92 Rating

 

2020 Regular Season: 396 of 572, 69.2%, 4544 Yards, 37 TD's to 10 INT's, 107.1 Rating

 

2019 Regular Season: 271 of 461, 58.8%, 3089 Yards, 20 TD's to 9 INT's, 85.31 Rating

 

 

So what we have seen this season and over the last 4 games is at or below the level of play we have seen in 2019. Which looks right from what I observed, in fact, I would say this team looks very much like the 2019 team. Allen capable of making plays, excellent defense. Playoff team, but not consistent enough to be more.  

 

The question becomes what's going on with Josh? To me Josh looks confused and indecisive which leads to a breakdown of his mechanics and poor timing in our passing game. He doesn't know where he wants to go with the ball and that is concerning. Why isn't he reading defenses as easily as he did in 2020?

 

It seems it is not at all uncommon for QB's that have break out years to regress the next year once teams focus on taking away what they like to do with consistency. It was certainly a lot easier to communicate and audible last season. Whatever it is I don't think the answers are easy or simple. We will see soon enough.     

 

No offense (see what I did there?  heh) but generally speaking when someone picks a non-standard grouping to analyze, it's a sign of cherrypicking data to prove a point.  Why not pick the last 4 regular season games, or the last 8 regular season games? 

 

I expect you could pick a couple 4 week windows in 2020 and argue that Josh Allen is looking like 2019 Josh Allen.

Try week 3-6 or week 4-8

 

 

[nucci]

19 minutes ago, buffaloboyinATL said:

One new receiver can absolutely change the chemistry. There are plays where he normally would look for Beasley or Diggs where he appears to be trying to force it to Sanders. I believe they will get their rhythm and timing down as they get experience together (Allen and all of the WR’s) but only time will tell for sure. 

Come on....that's a big reach there...one WR....... The Rams have a different QB who sat the entire preseason and seem fine...

[Buffalo_Stampede]

Allen is off right now. But he's in command of the offense much more than he was in 2019. Teams are figuring out how to make it difficult for him. He's been thrown off a little bit. I'm really not worried about him. But I expected a regression to somewhere between his 2019 and 2020 play. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

10 minutes ago, CountDorkula said:

IM sorry to me this is BS. The excuses need to stop. 

Players are in and out of systems all the time, Good QBs don't miss a beat. They just make it work.

Rodgers is still MVP, without a lick of talent on that team outside of Adams. 

Allen and the offense needs to figure it out, whatever it is.

 

Interesting you should mention Rodgers, given that there have been a couple of years here and there were the Narrative was "he's done"

2017 2018 for example; earlier in his career he had great seasons followed by "Meh" seasons.  Remember R-E-L-A-X?

Quote

By the time McCarthy was fired during a 6-9-1 Packers season in 2018, Rodgers had established a reputation as an aging action hero who could no longer do many of his own stunts but still demanded script and casting approval; the Packers, by extension, had fallen from perennial contenders to a straight-to-streaming “Taken” sequel.

 

 

[buffaloboyinATL]

27 minutes ago, CountDorkula said:

IM sorry to me this is BS. The excuses need to stop. 

 

Players are in and out of systems all the time, Good QBs don't miss a beat. They just make it work.

 

Rodgers is still MVP, without a lick of talent on that team outside of Adams. 

 

Allen and the offense needs to figure it out, whatever it is.

 

 

Oh, I agree. My point is, I think they will figure it out. I’m just glad they are shutting out divisional opponents while they do it.  

[Bangarang]

 

45 minutes ago, buffaloboyinATL said:

One new receiver can absolutely change the chemistry. There are plays where he normally would look for Beasley or Diggs where he appears to be trying to force it to Sanders. I believe they will get their rhythm and timing down as they get experience together (Allen and all of the WR’s) but only time will tell for sure. 

Still not buying it. Maybe you’d have a point of Josh was struggling to only throw the ball to Sanders but he’s not. 

Edited September 20, 2021 by Bangarang

[zow2]

On several occasions, Josh was throwing touch passes when he needs to zing it,   and zinging it when he needed to throw touch.

 

He's also holding the ball 0.5 to 1 second too long.  He's not processing the field as quickly as he did last year, and maybe it's the defensive coordinators confusing the heck out of him with wrinkles.  

[buffaloboyinATL]

21 minutes ago, Bangarang said:

 

Still not buying it. Maybe you’d have a point of Josh was struggling to only throw the ball to Sanders but he’s not. 

Last year, it seemed like Allen and Beasley read eachothers minds and Allen knew where he would be if he needed an outlet.  I am not seeing that yet.  I attribute it to getting used to the new receiver in the room, but maybe that is not it.  But as of right now, I am not worried, I believe what I saw last year was real, and they will all be on the same page soon.  <fingers crossed>