The criticism of Josh Allen

[Mikie2times]

1 hour ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

I agree with you regarding Lamar, but I think it's stupid that he's probably more of a lock for the HOF than Josh right now.

 

Josh has almost 60 more TDs over the span of his career (both drafted in 2018), lots more wins, lots more total yards, lots more 4th Quarter Comebacks, lots more Game Winning Drives, lots more playoff wins, etc.

 

Yet....

Josh and Lamar are both stone cold killers when it comes to division titles, rushing TD's, and wild card playoff games.  

[Thurman#1]

17 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Where is all this negative talk about Josh?   I haven't heard it, but I don't watch or listen to many of the sports shows. 

 

I've said over and over here that Josh needs to get better.  For all his extraordinary talents, what wins in the NFL is consistent execution of the play that is called, with the right choices and with accurate throws.   Mahomes and Burrows both are better than Josh in that category.  Where Josh excels is on the six to ten plays where things break down and you need someone to make a play.  Josh is outstanding then.  It's the other plays where he needs to be better. 

 

 

Yeah, I haven't heard it either, and I do listen to some sports shows.

 

You're right on target. He's sensational, and he could be even better, particularly at just executing the plays as they're drawn up.

 

9 minutes ago, Mikie2times said:

Josh and Lamar are both stone cold killers when it comes to division titles, rushing TD's, and wild card playoff games.  

 

 

This is stupid.

 

Like Allen wasn't good enough in the 13 seconds game? Nonsense.

 

 

Edited April 1 by Thurman#1

[Ethan in Cleveland]

Josh needs to and can play better.

Turnovers are his biggest issue.

His deep ball was garbage last year. Maybe that was the shoulder.

His WR screen throws are abysmal. 

 

Not much else to work on.

 

What is McDermott going up work on to get better?

 

 

[Mikie2times]

13 minutes ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Yeah, I haven't heard it either, and I do listen to some sports shows.

 

You're right on target. He's sensational, and he could be even better, particularly at just executing the plays as they're drawn up.

 

 

 

This is stupid.

 

Like Allen wasn't good enough in the 13 seconds game? Nonsense.

 

 

This thread is like the rest of the Josh Allen is hated threads. Look at his playoff stats. Look at his total TD's. He's the best in the NFL. Meanwhile we can't even get to an AFC championship game. The only comeback playoff anything we have is a game we lost and cling to like a 4 year and his teddy bear. A lot of reasons why and sorry to break to you but until these things don't happen with freakish consistency or we have a game winning playoff drive maybe, just maybe, Josh is among the reasons. Unthinkable I know.   

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

1 hour ago, 90sBills said:

If it wasn’t clear before it should be absolutely clear now that Mahomes and KC is different in the playoffs when it’s win or go home. He and KC have a survival gear that’s not present with the Bills. Also their offense was moving the ball at will throughout the game so to think they wouldn’t be able to at the end is kinda wishful. Look how easily they picked up that 1st to close out after the missed fg. 
 

So yeah let’s just disregard all those regular season games against KC because they mean squat when it comes down to crunch time. We keep touting those regular season wins against them and some fans were overly confident before this last game. Hopefully this latest lesson reminder will stick going forward. 

Well, you gotta start somewhere. Seeding is crucial so those regular season games were still high stakes. 

[Mikie2times]

5 minutes ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

Well, you gotta start somewhere. Seeding is crucial so those regular season games were still high stakes. 

Is it really that crucial?

[90sBills]

5 minutes ago, Mikie2times said:

Is it really that crucial?

Not when the team keeps losing home playoffs games. lol. 

[SaulGoodman]

14 hours ago, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

All over social media. Reddit, FB, Twitter or whatever the F it’s called these days, it’s literally allover every comment section that has anything to do with Josh Allen or the Bills. Way more hate since the playoff loss. Allen kind of went from a hero to hated pretty fast. 

They’re both early in their primes. Things can turn around if McD can pull his head out of his *** and build a playoff caliber defense. 

 

So…you expected Allen to be the one player on the planet (including Mahomes) who isn’t bashed on social media? 😆

[oldmanfan]

10 hours ago, PBF81 said:

 

So that one thing makes Josh the reason as to why we haven't beaten anything but crap teams in the playoffs his fault then?  Well, OK.  I suppose if that's how you view it.  

 

Which game/play are we talking about by the way?  
 

I guess we'll have to move on to a QB that never misses a pass and one that runs with a little more pizazz than Allen.  

 

 

People are trying to have a reasonable discussion, but you insist on hijacking it with this kind of hyperbolic nonsense.

 

For the Bills to win a Lombardi ALL aspects of the team must improve, coaching, player performance etc.  That includes the QB.

[Utah John]

I haven't seen any of the Josh hate you referred to, but last season was not a good one for Josh.  True, he had some great games, particularly late in the season, but early on, he had some real stinkers.  Since the Bills were on national TV so often, people saw those early games and put Josh into the reject category, and there he stayed the rest of the season despite his great play later.  

 

As others have said, he needs to be more consistent when the plays are there to be made, and still be the wrecking ball we know he can be, when the situation calls for it.

[Gregg]

6 hours ago, Ethan in Cleveland said:

Josh needs to and can play better.

Turnovers are his biggest issue.

His deep ball was garbage last year. Maybe that was the shoulder.

His WR screen throws are abysmal. 

 

Not much else to work on.

 

What is McDermott going up work on to get better?

 

 

 

Given his style of play Allen will always have his share of turnovers. He is probably good for around 15 INT's a year. His style is a lot like Favre. He has a gunslinger mentality who will take chances. That is a big reason why he makes so many great plays but the downside to that is we will have to live with his turnovers from time to time. But the good far outweighs the bad.

[Jimmy Harris 69]

[strive_for_five_guy]

6 hours ago, 90sBills said:

Not when the team keeps losing home playoffs games. lol. 

Totally agree.  We really haven’t gotten bounced from the playoffs because of seeding for a while now.  Very easily could/should have won 13 seconds even though that was on the road.  And then we couldn’t stop the run against the Bengals and Chiefs two years in a row at home.  This year the offense kept it close throughout, but couldn’t pull it out in the end.  Based on FA signings so far, shoring up the run defense seems to be a priority but we’ll see next year if that piece actually pans out for them.

[78thealltimegreat]

Hatred of Allen is because other teams don’t have him and the Bills do.

Put Josh Allen on the Dallas Cowboys and not even Mike McCarthy or Jerry Jones could screw it up. 
The thing about Josh is he’s so damn likable and not arrogant I honestly wish he was since he can play at a level few in the NfL can even touch. 
In addition he’s also got an A list movie actress pretty much as his future wife which plays into the envy of some people as well. 

[Chaos]

23 hours ago, Dillenger4 said:

Josh is a stud at QB. He is top 5 no doubt.

But the "other" fans in the NFL think he is rough around the edges. His accuracy shows, at times, that he is inconsistent which we all see. He can't hit the long ball with "touch" is another comment I hear a lot. And he doesn't see the field as well as other top QB's, hence the missed open WR's we see in many games. But he can ball! And I'll take that all day.

Now just win one baby!

What people call “lack of accuracy “ for Josh means “not alway perfect “. He is among the most accurate QBs in the NFL. 

[Shaw66]

8 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

Here's the problem with on-script plays for a QB in the NFL:

 

The other 10 players on offense need to do their job and be on the same page as Allen.

 

So was it Allen or Gabe more to blame for multiple incompletenes along with a few interceptions on option routes that happened during the season? Was it Allen or Dawkins more to blame for the incomplete pass to Shakir at the end of the drive in the KC game? 

 

Multiple examples of this.

 

Also, I disagree on your assessment of Mahomes. Mahomes is just as scattershot as Allen is, if not moreso, at executing plays as designed and on schedule. 

 

I think your assessment of Allen lacks the nuanced focus of what's actually happening on the OL. 

 

Which statement here do you think is more true:

 

Josh Allen has let down his OL throughout his career by getting unnecessarily sacked and pressured when he could have gotten the ball to the WR as determined by the playcall.

 

OR

 

Josh Allen has made his OLs look better throughout his career by avoiding pressure, sacks, and making incredible plays only he and maybe a couple other guys can make.

 

??????????????

 

Based on your argument, I would assume you believe statement 1 is the more true statement.

 

I'm not a film buff, but I listen to and read a lot of them. Based on your criteria of 75% (30-32 out of 40), I think Josh is actually already pretty Elite even in the category you don't think he is.

 

Frankly, I also don't think that when your QB rips off an unscripted 50+ yard TD run in a playoff game that it's an indication of anything other than greatness.

 

How about his supporting cast and coaching?

This is completely off the subject.  This thread started out about Josh and whether he's being fairly or unfairly criticized.  It evolved, a bit, into whether Josh does his job as well as he should.   You're talking about who should bear the responsibility when the team underperforms.   That is a completely different subject. 

 

Your bolded language makes the point.  Who ever has had a job where their job performance is measured relative to how some other employee did their job?  No one, that's who.  "Well, General Custer, it is unfortunate about that battle, but you outperformed your soldiers that day, so you get an A for the Little Bighorn."

 

Josh, like every quarterback, must be evaluated on objective performance criteria.  Fans to a great extent, and coaches to some extent, do it based on common data, like completion percentage, yards per completion, etc.  But I think that teams and coaches also use far more sophisticated criteria, objective and subjective.  Each play is evaluated by what Josh was supposed to do, and what he actually did.  In a perfect world, your QB does what he is supposed to do 100% of the time.   That's executing the offense.  

 

What fans tend to do with Josh is overemphasize what he accomplishes off script, and particularly overemphasize the WOW! off-script plays.  Nobody claims that Josh is better than Tom Brady, but Josh's off-script percentage is almost certainly better than Brady's.  Brady gave up on plays all the time - when it went off script, particularly if he had pressure on him, he went down. 

 

Josh's off-script plays are good and important, but more important is to get a very high percentage on the on-script plays.  One measure of success on on-script plays is whether you got positive yardage.  I've said often that choosing the 30-yard throw with a 50% completion probability is not as good a decision as the 8-yard throw with an 85% completion probability.   Stringing together positive plays is vey important in a league where the defenses are designed to deny big plays.  And, in 2023, particularly early in the season, we saw Josh doing just that - he had a very high completion percentage in the first five or six games of the season, taking the easy, short throw over and over.  The yards piled up, and the Bills rolled over opponents.  

 

None of that has anything to do with how well the linebackers played, or even how well the offensive line played.   Even when the line sucks, Josh's performance is graded on what he's supposed to do under the circumstances.   When someone misses a block and Josh throws the ball away to avoid a sack, the coaches don't just ignore that play for evaluation purposes.  He's evaluated on whether he should have seen something presnap, he's evaluated on whether he looked soon enough to the side where the rush was coming from, he's evaluated on whether he had a hot read that he should have gone to instead of just throwing it away.   

 

I believe that in that kind of evaluation scheme, detailed, critical evaluation of every aspect of the QB's decision making and physical performance, Josh's grades are good but not yet great.  I also believe that he's made steady progress toward great.  I think he's improved virtually every season.  2023 was his best so far, and he isn't done yet.  

[Shaw66]

45 minutes ago, Gregg said:

 

Given his style of play Allen will always have his share of turnovers. He is probably good for around 15 INT's a year. His style is a lot like Favre. He has a gunslinger mentality who will take chances. That is a big reason why he makes so many great plays but the downside to that is we will have to live with his turnovers from time to time. But the good far outweighs the bad.

I've always thought this philosophy is wrong, for the reasons I've just stated.  Success in the NFL is dependent on a high percentage of positive plays.   In football, the team game that requires more teamwork and more coordination than any other sport, a player who makes big plays by going off script and who, as a result, makes big mistakes from time to time, is a player who contributes to your failure, not to your success.  With 30 seconds to go in the game, down four points and on the opponents' 30 yard line, an interception on a throw into the end zone is NEVER a good play.   NEVER.   If your QB's "style of play" is to go for it, you have the wrong quarterback.   Unless it is literally the last play of the game, every coach wants his QB to make the right play, not the high-risk, high-reward play. 

[Gregg]

13 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

I've always thought this philosophy is wrong, for the reasons I've just stated.  Success in the NFL is dependent on a high percentage of positive plays.   In football, the team game that requires more teamwork and more coordination than any other sport, a player who makes big plays by going off script and who, as a result, makes big mistakes from time to time, is a player who contributes to your failure, not to your success.  With 30 seconds to go in the game, down four points and on the opponents' 30 yard line, an interception on a throw into the end zone is NEVER a good play.   NEVER.   If your QB's "style of play" is to go for it, you have the wrong quarterback.   Unless it is literally the last play of the game, every coach wants his QB to make the right play, not the high-risk, high-reward play. 

 

I agree with you, but I was just pointing out that Allen is aggressive out there and will take chances. Unfortunately, that will lead to turnovers sometimes. I would be shocked if Allen had a year where he has less than 10 INT's.

[Mister Defense]

On 3/31/2024 at 2:22 AM, ChronicAndKnuckles said:

by the media and non-Bills fans seems to be the trend this offseason. He’s getting the label of a guy that can’t and never will get it done. A “poor man’s Roethlisberger” or Phillip Rivers (who I think he’s already surpassed in 6 years.) Guys like Lamar Jackson get flack, but the flat out hating of Allen has been absolutely ridiculous lately and it’s everywhere, I’m not really bothered by it, I’m just wondering where it’s all coming from? Ignorance and sheep mentality? Whether he sniffs a SB in his life time or not, he’s going to be a HOFer on pure numbers alone. 
 

I’ve watched every one of his games as most of us have and he’s clearly not the problem. The turnover stat is so overblown and is on par w/ most of the top QBs in the league. 78 picks to Mahomes 63 over 6 years. That’s 2.5 more interceptions per season than Mahomes if you average it out. Not really that much in a 17 game span and most of them don’t usually affect the outcome of the game as the Bills have one of the best regular season records in the NFL since Allen was drafted. 

 

Okay, while you seem to post this nonsense in support of Allen, I think you are doing exactly the opposite, and undermining him.

 

Why give voice to those saying the above things that I have put in bold?

 

And who are they--who said the Rothlisberger comment?  Who said the River's comment?

 

You then ask us, "Where's it all coming from?"  Good question...

 

You tell us, please!,  as it your post, your info, and we assume you are not just making it all up.  And  please do so right after you read this: who, specifically, and not just the broad generalization you provide--in the "media"?

 

I have never read or heard those comments in any media. I am not doubting you, that  the comments exist, but want to know who said those things--? How can anyone on this board respond to this post if you don't tell us the source, who said them?

 

If not, to me, this kind of post does the exact opposite of supporting of Allen, it undermines him.  Now, it  is just throwing that nonsense out into the ether as if it was from several, many?, legitimate media sources.

 

So, I am looking forward to finding out the answers to these questions. There is no way to answer your questions without the details, sources; the context.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

 

 

 

[Shaw66]

1 hour ago, Gregg said:

 

I agree with you, but I was just pointing out that Allen is aggressive out there and will take chances. Unfortunately, that will lead to turnovers sometimes. I would be shocked if Allen had a year where he has less than 10 INT's.

I won't be shocked. It's coming.