2023 MVP: Lamar will win it with 15 fewer TDs than Josh Allen (end of season talk pg 75+)

[DCOrange]

1 hour ago, Scott7975 said:

 

Thats a fair point.  I'm not making a claim that the Ravens aren't better with Lamar as opposed to a backup.  Obviously they are.  Those losses don't mean all that much to me because sometimes its about who you play and when you play them.  Their ppg wasn't all that different IIRC because I looked it up at the time.  Lamar has also only won 1 playoff game and their backup was a fumble 6 at the goal line from winning the playoff game IIRC too.  Miami was the 2 seed almost all year and flirting with the 1 seed.  They ended as the 6th seed wildcard and will likely be 1 and done again too.  Anything can happen.  I still believe the Ravens team wins more games than the Bills team with backup QBs in a full season.

Difference in scoring with and without Lamar by year:

2019: -5.5 points per game without him

2020: -16.3 PPG

2021: -15.3 PPG

2022: -12.5 PPG

2023: -19.6 PPG

 

Should note 2019, 2020, and 2023 were only one game without Lamar, but there's obviously still a major difference in 2021/2022 where he missed 10 games entirely and played a handful of snaps in 2 others.

 

[GunnerBill]

45 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

 

Ravens are 1-3 in the playoffs with Lamar.  900 yards, 55% completion, 3 TD and 5 INT, 5 fumbles.  His last game was 3 years ago. 

 

I know all that. That wasn't relevant to my point. 

[DapperCam]

On 1/8/2024 at 10:36 PM, BullBuchanan said:

It's still wild people are still arguing Allen was legitimately close here. He wasn't in the conversation by a mile and won't finish top 3 in voting. He may not even be top 4. I'd absolutely put Stroud over him.

Allen played 1 phenomenal quarter of football out of the last 12 and was largely awful for the rest of it. As far as high-end complete games, he had 4 maybe 5 and several of those were against weak teams. That's not MVP caliber.

All we needed from him yesterday was to not put us in a massive hole, which he did. Then we needed him to be superman to pull us out of it - which he did. How many accolades should a guy get who repeatedly does that when a pedestrian game management QB would have been good enough to completely roll the opponent?

Our defense holds the highest scoring and top yardage team in the league to 14 points - including none int he 2nd half and somehow we call Allen the hero.

I think you’re wrong. I think he’ll finish 2nd in voting, but I guess we’ll see.

[julian]

33 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I know all that. That wasn't relevant to my point. 

Still pretty horrible for a 2 time MVP you gotta admit.

[C.Biscuit97]

On 1/9/2024 at 10:33 AM, Scott7975 said:

 

Dude, he had over 400 yards of offense and 79% completion rating and was responsible for most of those yards.  Dude made some key throws and kept our offense on the field all game long. He did this while being under pressure most of the game.  Miami blitzed at like a 40% rate and got home quite a bit.  Not just with one guy but multiple guys.  This might have been the worst game this oline has played.  Our running game wasn't doing ***** either if it wasn't Allen. The dude made some incredible throws in all that pressure.

We scored 14 points without their 3 best pass rushers. This is after lack luster efforts against the Chargers and Pats. 
 

allen is amazing. But let’s stop pretending like this is some well oil machine and the turnovers aren’t hurting us. 

4 minutes ago, julian said:

Still pretty horrible for a 2 time MVP you gotta admit.

A lot of good qbs suck early in the playoffs. Elway didn’t win a SB until he was like 38. But Lamar has a ton of pressure on him this playoffs. It’s still a regular season award. 
 

 

59 minutes ago, DCOrange said:

Difference in scoring with and without Lamar by year:

2019: -5.5 points per game without him

2020: -16.3 PPG

2021: -15.3 PPG

2022: -12.5 PPG

2023: -19.6 PPG

 

Should note 2019, 2020, and 2023 were only one game without Lamar, but there's obviously still a major difference in 2021/2022 where he missed 10 games entirely and played a handful of snaps in 2 others.

 

People who say a backup could do as good as Lamar are flat out liars.

[Scott7975]

8 minutes ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

allen is amazing. But let’s stop pretending like this is some well oil machine and the turnovers aren’t hurting us. 

 

I never said anything about being a well oiled machine.  The offense has had problems.  Some of that is on Allen.  Some of it is on everyone else.

 

 

 

[GunnerBill]

14 minutes ago, julian said:

Still pretty horrible for a 2 time MVP you gotta admit.

 

Yes, but again, not relevant to the conversation I was having. 

[julian]

8 minutes ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

We scored 14 points without their 3 best pass rushers. This is after lack luster efforts against the Chargers and Pats. 
 

allen is amazing. But let’s stop pretending like this is some well oil machine and the turnovers aren’t hurting us. 

A lot of good qbs suck early in the playoffs. Elway didn’t win a SB until he was like 38. But Lamar has a ton of pressure on him this playoffs. It’s still a regular season award. 
 

 

People who say a backup could do as good as Lamar are flat out liars.

I’m talking about the playoff numbers he has and less about the record, but I totally agree some players have taken a few go around before finding their playoff success.

 

 I think Lamar is an amazing athlete and an excellent QB, I’m just waiting for him to put it together in the playoffs to put him in Mahomes/Allen stratosphere.

[GunnerBill]

2 minutes ago, Scott7975 said:

 

 

 

This chart is interesting.... if I am reading it right it says the Bills EPA is pretty good and that Josh produces strongly against it. The second half of that is not particularly a surprise, cos Josh is incredible. I am surprises that the Bills offense has the third highest EPA though. No surprised that the 49ers is the best, they have Kyle Shanahan but it suggests the Bills overall offensive efficiency has been better that one might imagine. 

[Scott7975]

1 minute ago, GunnerBill said:

 

This chart is interesting.... if I am reading it right it says the Bills EPA is pretty good and that Josh produces strongly against it. The second half of that is not particularly a surprise, cos Josh is incredible. I am surprises that the Bills offense has the third highest EPA though. No surprised that the 49ers is the best, they have Kyle Shanahan but it suggests the Bills overall offensive efficiency has been better that one might imagine. 

 

I'm not really a big EPA or even PFF guy but when I see these charts on twitter I try to post them here because I know some are big on EPA and such.

[GunnerBill]

7 minutes ago, Scott7975 said:

 

I'm not really a big EPA or even PFF guy but when I see these charts on twitter I try to post them here because I know some are big on EPA and such.

 

I'm not a big EPA guy either so I might be misinterpreting the chart haha. 

[DCOrange]

I also think re: Lamar's playoff struggles, some context is needed. He was inarguably bad in his playoff debut as a rookie; no argument there. His second playoff game, he was a sophomore and put up a total of 508 yards while his receivers dropped more passes in one game than you might see in half a season from a normal team, some of which directly led to turnovers and points off the board. He certainly made some mistakes in that game (including a laughably bad fumble) but it was similar to a lot of Josh Allen's good games where he turns it over but does so much else that it outweighs the bad. It just so happens that in this game, Lamar's WRs dropped all of the passes that would have made up for the bad. Lamar was legitimately good in his 3rd start and then we shut Baltimore down the following week.

 

I'd say he's been good in 2 of his 4 playoff games. Certainly nowhere near the god-like level that Allen reached a couple years ago, but I think Lamar is miscast as a playoff choker when it's really as simple as he struggled as a rookie (like the vast majority of QBs do) and has generally been let down by the dreadful playmakers around him. He still doesn't have a good group around him this year, but it's by far the best he's ever had. He's at least throwing to NFL caliber players now instead of a washed up Willie Snead, Crabtree, Seth Roberts, etc. (and his defense has been tremendous this season which should help too).

Edited January 10 by DCOrange

[BullBuchanan]

12 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

2021 Allen???? Dude... did you actually watch the Bills in 2021???

 

Oh... and I call your bluff... I think it would really get under your skin if Allen wins MVP.

Of course I did. I've missed one game since 1990.

Why would it get under my skin? He's one of my favorite players on my favorite team. I'm  rooting for the guy to be his best self every play of every game. Just because he disappoints me, doesn't mean I don't like him.

Edited January 10 by BullBuchanan

[C.Biscuit97]

1 hour ago, julian said:

I’m talking about the playoff numbers he has and less about the record, but I totally agree some players have taken a few go around before finding their playoff success.

 

 I think Lamar is an amazing athlete and an excellent QB, I’m just waiting for him to put it together in the playoffs to put him in Mahomes/Allen stratosphere.

Agree with this 100%. I do think him being a 2 time MVP this early is a little crazy but this was a flawed year. 
 

but if people think Allen gets criticized, they should look at Lamar. Heisman trophy winner who some thought should switch poo. If they flame out this year, he will get absolutely crushed. 

1 hour ago, Scott7975 said:

 

I never said anything about being a well oiled machine.  The offense has had problems.  Some of that is on Allen.  Some of it is on everyone else.

 

 

 

I don’t think any reasonable person disagrees with that. 

[Alphadawg7]

12 hours ago, BigDingus said:

 

Exactly. It's been this way for a while, though Allen was starting to be mentioned in some peoples' top 5 candidates after the Cowboys & KC games. But for some reason, people want to pretend the turnover narrative doesn't linger hard, especially among other fanbases.

 

I've noticed a lot that there's been way more anti-Allen backlash the last 1/4 of the season too. Any time you see a segment with an analyst or athlete talk positively about him, half the responses are insulting Allen's turnovers & awareness, or comparing him to their own QBs they feel don't get as much credit as Josh.

 

I just read a comment under Cowherd's video praising Allen after the fins game, saying something like "I'm sure if Dak had 8 more TDs but 12 more turnovers, the media would grease him up like they do Allen!" and it had nearly 1,000 likes. People can roll their eyes all they want, but that's not an outlier, that's the reality outside of Bills fans now.

 

Also, the MVP system is broken IMHO.  It's too influenced by recency bias where you can steal or lose the MVP in the final weeks of the season erasing everything that happened prior to that.  Lamar will win it, but his entire season isn't the most impressive over several other guys, he just had the biggest 2 weeks of his season as his last 2 games while the other candidates either had a bad week/loss (Purdy, McCaffrey, etc) or may have won but not in an impressive fashion like Allen.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Alphadawg7]

As I mentioned earlier, I think the end of year vote weighs too much on recency bias with the end games and overlooks the bulk of the season.  Here is a thread about some alternate ideas on how to handle the MVP race

 

 

[GoBills808]

4 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I'm not a big EPA guy either so I might be misinterpreting the chart haha. 

that chart is for QBs, where Allen is third in EPA/dropback behind Purdy and Dak

 

the Bills offense is 2nd overall in EPA

 

these stats can be found here https://www.nfeloapp.com/

[Mr. WEO]

6 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I know all that. That wasn't relevant to my point. 

 

We  all agree that the Ravens are dependent on Jackson for success--true for any team with a top 5 or 10 QB.

 

"Lamar is pretty critical to the Ravens results."

 

This is also true in the postseason.  Allen's Bills are 4-4 but his performance is an order of magnitude better than Jackson's, overall.

[UKBillFan]

1 hour ago, Alphadawg7 said:

As I mentioned earlier, I think the end of year vote weighs too much on recency bias with the end games and overlooks the bulk of the season.  Here is a thread about some alternate ideas on how to handle the MVP race

 

 

 

Whereas the Pro Bowl is opposite - IIRC it takes into account less than two thirds of the season at the point the vote opens (after week ten). I mean, still over a third of the season left and people can vote on who's been best throughout the season? The end results each year speaks volumes about the stupidity behind that.

[C.Biscuit97]

3 hours ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

Also, the MVP system is broken IMHO.  It's too influenced by recency bias where you can steal or lose the MVP in the final weeks of the season erasing everything that happened prior to that.  Lamar will win it, but his entire season isn't the most impressive over several other guys, he just had the biggest 2 weeks of his season as his last 2 games while the other candidates either had a bad week/loss (Purdy, McCaffrey, etc) or may have won but not in an impressive fashion like Allen.  

 

 

 

 

 

At the same point, Lamar and the Ravens have been the most consistent team all year. They take leads early and just win games. I can’t definitely see Allen having worst td numbers, cutting down on turnovers, and winning the MVP.