What will happen with Josh over the next month?

[MasterStrategist]

As aome suggesting that Dorsey go "conservative"/revert to rookie QB offense, I think that is the absolute worst thing to do right now.

 

We don't need to go into a shell or make Josh into a game manager.  He just needs to get into a better groove/confidence, but in our style of offense.  Perhaps he and other offensive leaders sit with Dorsey, determine what works best/they're most comfortable to attack Cover 2 shell defenses and other schemes. 

 

You'd assume that already occurred, but sometimes it's not until the live bullets are flying again that you fully understand what he's "seeing" and "not seeing" in those tight windows.  Ask Joe Burrow, it's not just this year that he lost them a week 1 game (same in 2022 vs Steelers, 4 INTs).

 

Its not an excuse, but shouldnt be overreacting to the point of making big changes.  All these things are fixable, and they have a lot of smart minds in that QB room...they'll get it figured out this week.

[JakeFrommStateFarm]

Josh needs to get his mojo back

[78thealltimegreat]

He literally got called a liar by Peyton Manning during the Manning cast about telling him he was going to take what the D gave him.

 He’ll be fine he is literally being looked at as a national embarrassment right now as he literally single handedly lost them the game. 
He’ll settle down and within a month be throwing for 350 yards and 3 TDs against the fins 

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

Folks remember the two Jets games from last year and how those games went for Allena and the offense right? Jets still have a great defense, in fact their defense is likely much better this year than it was last year and they were really good last year. 

 

Some folks are really over thinking this. They want Allen to be something he is not. They want Allen to be the best QB in the game. Sorry, that title belongs to Mahomes. Allen because of his inefficiencies, largely his YOLO style and refusal to take easy throws, will have to settle for being the 2nd or 3rd best QB. Yes, there are times where Allen will get hot and he will be that best player for stretches. We have seen those stretches multiple times throughout his career. But they won't last an entire season. 

 

It's year 6 for Allen. Like he said, Same S***, same place, different day". On the spectrum of what I expected and not expected out of JA17 and the offense against the Jets in this game, everything was very close to what I expected. Look at Allen and the offenses numbers in the two games against the Jets last year. They are basically the same garbage as this last game. Allen had a couple more turnovers. Basically, anyone paying attention knew this was going to be a bad night for Allen and the offense by their standards.

 

Now that said, I expect a pretty big bounce back by the offense over the next three weeks. I'll be concerned with Allen and the offense if he doesn't have a 2-1 TD:TO ratio vs. LV, WSH and MIA and the offense isn't averaging at least 24 ppg in those three games. 

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

Pain

 

[dave mcbride]

10 hours ago, Simon said:

Whaddya got?

 

Here's my guess:

 

Twofold problem right now 1) He hasn't started trusting his OLine yet after last year's debacle and it's affecting is ability to process and see the field and 2) He loves to challenge himself to make amazing plays, because it's fun

 

It doesn't make him stupid, selfish or scared because he's none of those things, but it does make him a turnover prone QB and he knows that has to change. So he decides to make the change.

Eventually I think he will do so successfully but these next few weeks are going to be hard. Every time he drops back he's going to have his own voice in his head telling him "No, don't bail yet", "No, don't try that throw",  "No, don't take that guy on for an extra yard" and that is going to be very distracting and make it very hard for him to find the Zone. During this time he'll likely do a better job of protecting the ball, but it's probably going to come at the price of making him a less efficient QB.

If he sticks with it and stays patient, eventually that voice will go away, he'll get out of his own head and the decision-making process will become more organic and less forced. At that point he'll start being able to get back in the Zone and then we'll see him spreading the ball around and cutting people up the way we know he can. When this happens, woe to anybody who thinks they can still run man schemes against the Bills offense.

Stay focused and patient young buck, you'll find that place again....

From The Athletic this morning: https://theathletic.com/4858584/2023/09/13/bills-offense-josh-allen/

 

Allen took five sacks and nine hits. He was hit on five of his scrambles, too. So where did the pressure come from? According to TruMedia, Spencer Brown was the main culprit with four pressures allowed. O’Cyrus Torrence and Connor McGovern each allowed three pressures, and Mitch Morse and Dion Dawkins each allowed two. Assigning credit and blame for pressures and sacks isn’t always cut and try, so we went back through to see where things went wrong.

Sack one: Brown was walked back into the quarterback and clearly deserves blame for the sack.

Sack two: This one actually looked like a design run on which Allen got poor blocking and had nowhere to go.

Hit three: Allen was hit on an incomplete pass early in the Bills’ only touchdown drive. Again Brown got overpowered and thrown back into Allen, who rushed an off-target throw that Jets linebacker C.J. Mosley dropped.

Sack three: With 40 seconds left in the first half, Allen dropped back and had a decent pocket. But the Jets sent six rushers, and Allen didn’t get rid of the ball quickly. Instead, he stepped forward into the pocket and fell into a sack for a short loss.

Sack four: Midway through the third quarter Allen had a clean pocket after faking a handoff to James Cook. He dropped his eyes almost immediately and then stumbled to the ground for a sack. This one was entirely on Allen.

Hit six: On the next play, Mitch Morse got beat clean, knocking Allen off his spot. Allen launched a pass into double coverage intended for Stefon Diggs that became his second interception of the night.

Sack five: Early in the fourth quarter, the Jets sent five rushers. Again, Allen’s eyes dropped when he thought he saw a running lane. But Jermaine Johnson beat Connor McGovern and brought Allen down for the sack.

Hit eight: The Jets got a free blitzer through, which happens. Allen made a great play to avoid the rush and flip the ball to Latavius Murray for a decent gain.

Hit nine: With 16 seconds left in regulation, Torrence allowed pressure but not before Allen got plenty of time to hang in the pocket and try a deep pass to Gabriel Davis down the sideline. This wasn’t much of a negative play for the offensive line.

Brown’s inconsistency is a problem but not a surprising one. The Bills started to give him extra help, so they understand this is an issue. The more concerning trend was Allen dropping his eyes early on multiple occasions. That’s a habit that was more common from him in 2018 and 2019. He’s either not trusting his protection, not trusting his receivers to get open or not trusting what he’s reading in the defense. Maybe it’s a combination of the three.

[dorquemada]

7 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

Brown’s inconsistency is a problem but not a surprising one. The Bills started to give him extra help, so they understand this is an issue. The more concerning trend was Allen dropping his eyes early on multiple occasions. That’s a habit that was more common from him in 2018 and 2019. He’s either not trusting his protection, not trusting his receivers to get open or not trusting what he’s reading in the defense. Maybe it’s a combination of the three.

 

the regime's inability to put a varsity level OL in front of Josh is going to be his and their undoing

 

We're seeing the effect of this in Josh's play

[warrior9]

9 hours ago, Bubba Gump said:

Idk, he's in year six and from halftime of the GB game last year, Josh hasn't been the same. Daboll turned the biggest question mark QB from his draft year into a superstar. Two years ago was Allen's best season, and also Daboll's last season in Buffalo. I think the Bills dropped the ball by promoting Dorsey. Listening to Dan Orlovsky on OBL today really opened my eyes. The guy had some real interesting observations about Allen and the offense. He said there were seven plays that really stood out to him about Allen's play. The guy pays attention to detail. He would make an incredible OC if he wanted the opportunity. But I think he is perfectly happy doing what he is doing. He wasn't a great NFL QB, but he is very smart. Kinda like Jordan Palmer. He sucked as a QB but he has helped many others with their mechanics. Some guys have the brains, but not the physical talent to be a successful NFL QB. Josh needs to get his head out of his ass, and quick. 

Yeah I like Dan O too. How good you were doesnt mean you cant coach / know what you're doing.. there are plenty of coaches that weren't successful in the NFL or shoot, even made it in the NFL (our coach). 

 

But to be very honest, now that people have calmed down a litttttttttle, the loss was the best thing for the Bills. Josh needs to realize he isnt going to get wins or things handed to him because he's Josh Allen. I think over the next few weeks, Josh will propel himself into the MVP conversation. He needed a wake up call.

[4merper4mer]

10 hours ago, Simon said:

Whaddya got?

 

Here's my guess:

 

Twofold problem right now 1) He hasn't started trusting his OLine yet after last year's debacle and it's affecting is ability to process and see the field and 2) He loves to challenge himself to make amazing plays, because it's fun

 

It doesn't make him stupid, selfish or scared because he's none of those things, but it does make him a turnover prone QB and he knows that has to change. So he decides to make the change.

Eventually I think he will do so successfully but these next few weeks are going to be hard. Every time he drops back he's going to have his own voice in his head telling him "No, don't bail yet", "No, don't try that throw",  "No, don't take that guy on for an extra yard" and that is going to be very distracting and make it very hard for him to find the Zone. During this time he'll likely do a better job of protecting the ball, but it's probably going to come at the price of making him a less efficient QB.

If he sticks with it and stays patient, eventually that voice will go away, he'll get out of his own head and the decision-making process will become more organic and less forced. At that point he'll start being able to get back in the Zone and then we'll see him spreading the ball around and cutting people up the way we know he can. When this happens, woe to anybody who thinks they can still run man schemes against the Bills offense.

Stay focused and patient young buck, you'll find that place again....

I’d call your oline trust theory a maybe.  Your part about fun is spot on.

 

You say he’s not:

 

Stupid:  Clearly a smart guy but lots of smart guys do stupid things.  He sure does.  It’s fixable as described by you..  Will it be fixed?  That’s the 64k question.

Scared:  Not in any way

Selfish:  maybe not intentionally but his behavior on Monday was one of the most selfish on field performances I can remember.  All he had to do was play poorly in the second half and the Bills win.  He couldn’t manage that.  He just HAD to make those superstar throws every time he thought it was there.  That is selfish behavior plain and simple.
 

I think you’ve very accurately explained what CAN happen and that is also what SHOULD happen.  I hope, but don’t think, that  it WILL happen.  There are two aspects to this.
 

 1. Once he gets rid of the voices and sees success, it allows for the delusion of grandeur to creep back in and the cycle repeats itself.  It’s similar to addiction I guess and we’ve already seen a few cycles.  I don’t want to make light of addictions….this is just football.

2.  Sadly I think there is more evidence that he is selfish than not.  He was willing to let Diggs, who clearly clearly clearly just wants to win, play the villain all off season.  He did nothing to attempt to deflect controversy away from Diggs.  Minimize it overall?  Sure, he did that.  Take any of the blame for the mystery issue?  Nope.  Who knows? Maybe it was mostly on Diggs but usually the guy working hard is the one with his head in the right place.  There are a lot more examples both football related and not.  Any evidence of hard work came only from his mouth and not from any leadership shown, at least not in public.  He’s a big goofy kid who was pretty well prepared to grow as a football player but the limelight appears to have done to him what it does to a lot of people.  
 

If item 2 above is wrong, I think he may be able to overcome item 1 this year.  If not, I still think he might be able to win it some day because of his talent.  Unfortunately it will need to be after some sort of epiphany five years in the making and he’ll probably be in Denver by then.

[4merper4mer]

23 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

From The Athletic this morning: https://theathletic.com/4858584/2023/09/13/bills-offense-josh-allen/

 

Allen took five sacks and nine hits. He was hit on five of his scrambles, too. So where did the pressure come from? According to TruMedia, Spencer Brown was the main culprit with four pressures allowed. O’Cyrus Torrence and Connor McGovern each allowed three pressures, and Mitch Morse and Dion Dawkins each allowed two. Assigning credit and blame for pressures and sacks isn’t always cut and try, so we went back through to see where things went wrong.

Sack one: Brown was walked back into the quarterback and clearly deserves blame for the sack.

Sack two: This one actually looked like a design run on which Allen got poor blocking and had nowhere to go.

Hit three: Allen was hit on an incomplete pass early in the Bills’ only touchdown drive. Again Brown got overpowered and thrown back into Allen, who rushed an off-target throw that Jets linebacker C.J. Mosley dropped.

Sack three: With 40 seconds left in the first half, Allen dropped back and had a decent pocket. But the Jets sent six rushers, and Allen didn’t get rid of the ball quickly. Instead, he stepped forward into the pocket and fell into a sack for a short loss.

Sack four: Midway through the third quarter Allen had a clean pocket after faking a handoff to James Cook. He dropped his eyes almost immediately and then stumbled to the ground for a sack. This one was entirely on Allen.

Hit six: On the next play, Mitch Morse got beat clean, knocking Allen off his spot. Allen launched a pass into double coverage intended for Stefon Diggs that became his second interception of the night.

Sack five: Early in the fourth quarter, the Jets sent five rushers. Again, Allen’s eyes dropped when he thought he saw a running lane. But Jermaine Johnson beat Connor McGovern and brought Allen down for the sack.

Hit eight: The Jets got a free blitzer through, which happens. Allen made a great play to avoid the rush and flip the ball to Latavius Murray for a decent gain.

Hit nine: With 16 seconds left in regulation, Torrence allowed pressure but not before Allen got plenty of time to hang in the pocket and try a deep pass to Gabriel Davis down the sideline. This wasn’t much of a negative play for the offensive line.

Brown’s inconsistency is a problem but not a surprising one. The Bills started to give him extra help, so they understand this is an issue. The more concerning trend was Allen dropping his eyes early on multiple occasions. That’s a habit that was more common from him in 2018 and 2019. He’s either not trusting his protection, not trusting his receivers to get open or not trusting what he’s reading in the defense. Maybe it’s a combination of the three.

I stopped reading at sack 2 because although I agree it was a designed run the portrayal of Allen having nowhere to go is way off.  Although the Jet player 100% made a good play, Allen delayed his run too long.  If he had been there a beat sooner, he is well past that Jet and headed for green pastures.  Blaming that play on OL is disingenuous at best.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

10 minutes ago, 4merper4mer said:

I’d call your oline trust theory a maybe.  Your part about fun is spot on.

 

You say he’s not:

 

Stupid:  Clearly a smart guy but lots of smart guys do stupid things.  He sure does.  It’s fixable as described by you..  Will it be fixed?  That’s the 64k question.

Scared:  Not in any way

Selfish:  maybe not intentionally but his behavior on Monday was one of the most selfish on field performances I can remember.  All he had to do was play poorly in the second half and the Bills win.  He couldn’t manage that.  He just HAD to make those superstar throws every time he thought it was there.  That is selfish behavior plain and simple.
 

I think you’ve very accurately explained what CAN happen and that is also what SHOULD happen.  I hope, but don’t think, that  it WILL happen.  There are two aspects to this.
 

 1. Once he gets rid of the voices and sees success, it allows for the delusion of grandeur to creep back in and the cycle repeats itself.  It’s similar to addiction I guess and we’ve already seen a few cycles.  I don’t want to make light of addictions….this is just football.

2.  Sadly I think there is more evidence that he is selfish than not.  He was willing to let Diggs, who clearly clearly clearly just wants to win, play the villain all off season.  He did nothing to attempt to deflect controversy away from Diggs.  Minimize it overall?  Sure, he did that.  Take any of the blame for the mystery issue?  Nope.  Who knows? Maybe it was mostly on Diggs but usually the guy working hard is the one with his head in the right place.  There are a lot more examples both football related and not.  Any evidence of hard work came only from his mouth and not from any leadership shown, at least not in public.  He’s a big goofy kid who was pretty well prepared to grow as a football player but the limelight appears to have done to him what it does to a lot of people.  
 

If item 2 above is wrong, I think he may be able to overcome item 1 this year.  If not, I still think he might be able to win it some day because of his talent.  Unfortunately it will need to be after some sort of epiphany five years in the making and he’ll probably be in Denver by then.

 

Who knows, maybe a five-first rounder haul wouldn't be too terrible

 

i'm half-joking

 

[BADOLBILZ]

10 hours ago, BobBelcher said:

It's interesting because, from 2018 to 2021 specifically, in Daboll's offense, when Josh had a game where he would make a certain costly mistake, you would generally see him really learn from it and make a point to not letting it happen again in the near future.  When we would see these mistakes reoccur, it was usually some weeks later.  This is one of the things I loved about him; this was the evidence of his growth that was unlike any QB prospect I had ever seen.  The guy LEARNED FROM HIS MISTAKES!!!  And he got better and better and better .... But only up until a certain point, and incidentally, that point is around the time that Dorsey took over play-calling.   Now, personally I have not ready to blame Dorsey just yet because it really looks like a lot of Allen's mistakes are just reckless personal decisions, but at the same time you can't ignore the fact that this regression started to happen after Daboll left.  Is it coincidental?  I don't know.  I just know earlier in his career, he would rarely make the same mistake twice and now he is.  Repeatedly.  It's mind boggling because these are CORRECTABLE issues.  Often times he will be playing very well for stretches and then just suddenly have a brain fart and make an inexcusable play and the defense is taking full advantage (i.e. he hasn't been getting "breaks" lately in the form of dropped picks or recovering his own fumbles).   Now, having said all of this, I still go back to the fact that yesterday in particular was nothing new when it comes to the Jets; they ARE a problem for him and they were a problem for him before yesterday, but with this "new" Josh Allen it's frustrating that even in his "good" games there are ALWAYS 1 or 2 brain fart interceptions.  Why can't he just play a FULL game without these few isolated bizarre decisions?  because honestly, everything else looked PRETTY GOOD to me!  When he was taking what the defense was giving him, he was 9 for 10, moving the chains against a great defense, and it was working!  When he threw that first interception, he had 10+ yards of daylight in front of him?  Doesn't Josh Allen LOVE to run!?!?  The one time we WANT him to run, he doesn't!?  MAN, it's almost like he doesn't want to run if it doesn't look like it is going to entail running into traffic and attempting to bicycle kick 2 LBs.  It's just infuriating to think about lol..which is why this turned into a rant. Sorry.

 

 

He was practically the same QB in 2022 as 2021.   

 

The problems began with Daboll and the 5 losses in the first 11 games of 2021.

 

Allen had a hot couple games in the playoffs after the 2021 season but we were still talking about him not taking what the defense gave him enough and taking too many hits late in the 2021 season in home games against inferior opponents like Carolina and Atlanta.   And he had the finale against the Jets where he targeted Gabe Davis 14 times with just 3 completions.

 

The issues today were the same in 2021 under Daboll.   

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by BADOLBILZ

[dave mcbride]

7 minutes ago, 4merper4mer said:

I stopped reading at sack 2 because although I agree it was a designed run the portrayal of Allen having nowhere to go is way off.  Although the Jet player 100% made a good play, Allen delayed his run too long.  If he had been there a beat sooner, he is well past that Jet and headed for green pastures.  Blaming that play on OL is disingenuous at best.

Your choice, but I'd read the entire thing rather than dismissing it because you disagree about the interpretation of one particular play.  

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

1 minute ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

 

He was practically the same QB in 2022 as 2021.   

 

The problems began with Daboll and the 5 losses in the first 11 games of 2021.

 

Allen had a hot couple games in the playoffs after the 2021 season but we were still talking about him not taking what the defense gave him enough and taking too many hits late in the 2021 season in home games against inferior opponents like Carolina and Atlanta.   And he had the finale against the Jets where he targeted Gabe Davis 14 times with just 3 completions.

 

The issues today were the same in 2021 under Daboll.   

 

Words can not explain how much I despise agreeing with you, but on this, I do.

 

[NewEra]

I don’t know if he’ll ever change.  This is how he plays football.  We just have to protect him better, get him some counseling and sideline support.  Stewing and sulking on the bench doesn’t seem to help him much

[4merper4mer]

12 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

Your choice, but I'd read the entire thing rather than dismissing it because you disagree about the interpretation of one particular play.  

Maybe later.  It was just so blatantly wrong that I felt the rest had to be biased.  Pre-snap I thought it was a QB draw and thought it would work.

[Fan in Chicago]

11 hours ago, Simon said:

Whaddya got?

 

Here's my guess:

 

Twofold problem right now 1) He hasn't started trusting his OLine yet after last year's debacle and it's affecting is ability to process and see the field and 2) He loves to challenge himself to make amazing plays, because it's fun

 

It doesn't make him stupid, selfish or scared because he's none of those things, but it does make him a turnover prone QB and he knows that has to change. So he decides to make the change.

Eventually I think he will do so successfully but these next few weeks are going to be hard. Every time he drops back he's going to have his own voice in his head telling him "No, don't bail yet", "No, don't try that throw",  "No, don't take that guy on for an extra yard" and that is going to be very distracting and make it very hard for him to find the Zone. During this time he'll likely do a better job of protecting the ball, but it's probably going to come at the price of making him a less efficient QB.

If he sticks with it and stays patient, eventually that voice will go away, he'll get out of his own head and the decision-making process will become more organic and less forced. At that point he'll start being able to get back in the Zone and then we'll see him spreading the ball around and cutting people up the way we know he can. When this happens, woe to anybody who thinks they can still run man schemes against the Bills offense.

Stay focused and patient young buck, you'll find that place again....

 

Your post is a hopeful scenario and I truly hope it does come true.

However, I am having a tough time identifying the source of the issue. I am not convinced it is his lack of trust in the OL. He has a tendency to not trust anyone except himself and Diggs. This in itself is troubling. But besides that, I very much worry there is some deep psychological or personal life issues going on which are causing him to not focus and prepare for games. I am very worried about the kid.

 

Lets say I am wrong about this and your scenario plays out, how long will good Josh be playing that way? When will he regress again into bad Josh? Opposing DCs clearly have the easy button to trigger the latter to reappear - like with an alcoholic. 

[Punching Bag]

11 hours ago, Simon said:

Whaddya got?

 

Here's my guess:

 

Twofold problem right now 1) He hasn't started trusting his OLine yet after last year's debacle and it's affecting is ability to process and see the field and 2) He loves to challenge himself to make amazing plays, because it's fun

 

It doesn't make him stupid, selfish or scared because he's none of those things, but it does make him a turnover prone QB and he knows that has to change. So he decides to make the change.

Eventually I think he will do so successfully but these next few weeks are going to be hard. Every time he drops back he's going to have his own voice in his head telling him "No, don't bail yet", "No, don't try that throw",  "No, don't take that guy on for an extra yard" and that is going to be very distracting and make it very hard for him to find the Zone. During this time he'll likely do a better job of protecting the ball, but it's probably going to come at the price of making him a less efficient QB.

If he sticks with it and stays patient, eventually that voice will go away, he'll get out of his own head and the decision-making process will become more organic and less forced. At that point he'll start being able to get back in the Zone and then we'll see him spreading the ball around and cutting people up the way we know he can. When this happens, woe to anybody who thinks they can still run man schemes against the Bills offense.

Stay focused and patient young buck, you'll find that place again....

 

We need a "Pray" response.

[HOUSE]

If it all plays out as expected the Bills will SCORE MORE POINTS IN THE FIRST HALF, leaving Josh out of HERO BALL situations.

Yes it is that simple

[sunshynman]

10 hours ago, John from Riverside said:

He’s gonna put on a clinic next Sunday and he’s never gonna look back

 

10 hours ago, Success said:

I think 80-90% of what we saw last night can be filed under "Jets issue."  He has had some of his poorer play against that team.

 

I think he's going to tear it up in the weeks ahead.  He'll face a few other great defenses - I think the Pats have that, and certainly the Cowboys.  But in general, I think he'll use last night as a learning experience and be able to take real advantage of lesser defenses.  

 

It will be interesting to revisit the hot takes - both here and nationally - in a few months. Obviously, I could end up being wrong - but I think he's going to really rise to this occasion.

 

I hope you are both correct!