starrymessenger

Well poor footwork on short throws is what many observers have identified as a main cause of what they call Allen's "inaccuracy". There is a fair amount of this in his college tape. Don't mean to be argumentative because you know your stuff but I disagree that the pass to Clay in the seam was a good throw. DB recovered well but it sure looked under thrown to me (Clay slowed down) and it was a rope when there should have been more air under it.

Always liked Mitch. Looks like a good one to me.

Yeah. Both his feet were off the ground when he released the ball. Crazy stuff. It's the kind of thing that drove some analysts to distraction.

Good measurables. Runs 4:34 - 4.40. Good ball skills. Injury settled with Colts in May. Hey maybe McCoach can do something with him.

A little bit is ok. A whole lot not so much.

I've not been to New Era. Is there a Wall of Shame?

Dude has those intangible thingees nailed down pretty tight.

We're not talking about the same play (probably I didn't describe it very well). I'm referring to the WR sweep left to right just behind the line where the QB just sort of drops the ball and the WR grabs it and looks to take it upfield usually outside the numbers. I saw Goff do it (don't recall who the WR was, maybe Woodsie, and the execution was better/more fluid). I though Foster did ok on that play.

Daboll also borrowed the misdirection hand off to the WR from the Rams. Worked pretty well with Foster.

Great move by the Pats. Possibly a very good move for the player too.

Brutal. Glad it looks worse than it is.

You mean Laura. What was she doing on the field? Hitching a ride on Josh's back? I must have missed that.

Actually it hasn't been a while. Flame throwing a dart accurately through a narrow window is something JA has always been pretty good at. We saw him do it in the Panthers game (to Ray Ray), the Browns (to Streater), the Bengals (to Benjamin) and again yesterday vs Chargers (Benji again). It's a tough throw and it's great that he can make it. But it's also part of the problem. Too many of his intermediate and deeper throws are ropes with not enuf air under them (like the under thrown pass to Clay yesterday). Taking the pedal off the metal without sacrificing quickness of release and accuracy is what he must learn to do. Getting to better know his WRs and improving his field vision and anticipation are also on the list. The pass to Ray Ray vs the Panthers was great but he had at least one much easier read if he had been able to recognize it (don't recall who the WR was).

I can see how/why fans are impressed and encouraged by what they saw in Allen vs Chargers. But what they saw (and liked) is basically what got him drafted high in the first round and, for now anyway, nothing more. Pre-draft I obviously didn't get to see tape of all his throws at WYO in 2017 but I saw as much as was available on the net, including what I thought was some pretty astute analysis and breakdown in expert analyst podcasts. And what I saw yesterday afternoon was exactly his 2017 tape, or such of it as I got to see. He absolutely looked like the same QB - a physically imposing, determined and mobile raw flame thrower with a strong arm but with footwork/accuracy issues, poor touch and field vision limitations. So I hesitate to sign up to the idea that there has been lots of progress already in his development. If there is I don't see it. Of course it is unreasonable IMO to expect substantial improvement at this early stage but then the hype machine should stop talk about how far he has come for now. He is having to learn from scratch. It's not lining up under centre 30% of snaps that made his WYO offence a pro template. He was given half field and single read responsibilities in a simplified scheme that did not incorporate timing concepts. At the end of the day it was pretty much a standard college O where the QB waits to see if the first or second read breaks open and only then commit. If not, tuck and run. Any wonder then that he needs to learn how to throw guys open with anticipation. There have been some comparisons with Mahomes. Mahomes always threw with anticipation, good instincts, and accuracy. He was very much a natural passer, not just a thrower, that way. His problem was with footwork and of course also (and probably even more so) with beginning to absorb the many complexities of the pro game that a QB needs to master. The laundry list of things that JA needs to work on is longer. Also, JA has been given none of the benefits and advantages that Andy Reid made sure were available to Mahomes. I would have liked JA to redshirt this year before starting but things haven't developed that way so I'll stop complaining about it. Point is tho that Allen has not been done any favours by the Bills. If he manages to overcome and get better the credit will be all his IMO. What we need to see now is gradual improvement. If by the end of the year he's the same guy that we saw yesterday that will not be good because that was not good enuf.

Assuming they get to choose, I've been wondering whether it will be Oliver or Bosa. My guess is Bosa but only because I see them wrongly thinking that HP can serve as a reasonable facsimile of an elite 3 tech.

Well really only Foster is bigger and faster. Not sure he qualifies as a "target" though. So far maybe just a "person of interest" if that.

Maybe but my fear is that if he tries to go vertical behind this line he's more likely to wind up horizontal.

Im beginning to trust the protest.

IMO there is no way that starting JA on this offence at this time is conducive to his development. Common sense strongly suggests the opposite. I'm actually not that concerned about a loss of confidence. He's a player that has already overcome a lot of adversity on the path he followed to the NFL so I see him as unusually strong mentally for a rook. What worries me is that in the circumstances live action isn't where he should be working on improving the (hopefully correctable) mechanical issues affecting his game and beginning to decipher the complexities of NFL defences. I fully expect to see him do some things that as Bills fans we have not seen for a very long time. But the reason for this will be his extraordinary physical ability, not his ability to run a pro offence (and no he did not run a true pro style offence at WYO). The natural ability that he flashed in college is what got him drafted high in the first round. I'm fully on board with that. But I don't want him to continue to be that player. He needs to be a different and much better player. To me the Bills have put him in exactly the same position he was in at WYO - behind a poor team with a bad line and few playmakers. I don't want to witness a replay of WYO vs Iowa week after week, but I fear I may have to. Josh Allen is not Jamarcus Russell or Ryan Leaf. He's better because in addition to physical gifts he is a hard worker and he's bright. Raw intelligence is not always the same as football smarts (or vice-versa) but it's a definite positive. To me he's not Jake Locker or Kyle Boller either. He's determined to succeed and he can make throws that other strong armed QBs who failed don't make. So with all these qualities it's just possible that he will see his way through this situation and find a way to get better. If he does the credit will be all his (not the Bills) because regardless this is no way to bring a raw rookie QB along and he should never have been put in this position. The Bills defence can and I think will play better. That will take some of the pressure off. After that it will be up to Daboll to come up with a gameplan that focuses on Allen's development and bodily security. Putting too much on his plate is almost certainly a disaster in waiting because you know that this player in particular will take it upon himself to throw the whole team on his back, just as he had to do week in and week out in college, and that's when the risk of injury becomes more palpable. The NFL is light years beyond the Mountain West Conference.

Yeah I know WRs can be slow to develop and he probably didn't land in such a good spot but to me he really hasn't shown anything good at all so far and I do find that concerning and even surprising. Also not sure how the move to JA will affect Zay. One of the things Josh needs to work on is making his throws, especially the short ones (but I'd add intermediate) more catchable/receiver friendly. A little too much mustard on them at times.

A very reliable anonymous source told McCoach that Bridgewater was a Muslim from Africa.

They are better than Zay. Both of them.

Professional sports is just another field of human endeavour. In all professions proper training and preparation are key components of success. The more demanding the assignment the more important the preparation. And it just so happens that playing quarterback at this level is one of if not the most difficult jobs in all of sport. There can absolutely be no doubt that the great QBs who got to sit and learn behind solid vets, not to mention HOF guys, benefited from the experience. Of course there are also examples of guys who were good to go day 1. But the examples that come to mind were all more polished than Josh Allen and less in need of development (Peyton, Troy) and in some cases (Ben, Brady) the teams they led were pretty much loaded. For a guy with such incredible raw talent JA never got the same opportunities to develop before turning pro than any of the other 2018 first rounders. And they have all gone to better teams. And only one of them is starting. What the Bills have served up here is a perfect mess of toxic ingredients. Allen doesn't even have a proper QB coach. He is squarely behind the eight ball. Does this mean he will fail? Of course not. But it further stacks the odds against him, odds that were somewhat long to begin with. If he overcomes the difficulties it will be quite an accomplishment. I hope and expect that the Bills will at least not put too much on his plate on game days. For those of us old enuf to remember when Ben and Brady took over the Steelers and Pats were careful to open up the playbook gradually, even though they were surrounded by talent to begin with. I don't recall any rook coming into the league with more natural/physical ability for playing the position than JA. They better not F it up.

After the Ravens debacle this was the predictable outcome. Nate crapping out again badly might have permanently indicted this admins ability to evaluate QBs. Daboll had better have figured something out by Sunday to take the pressure off JA. Chargers weakness has been defending the run so you absolutely want a conservative, run heavy gameplan (and the Bills have the horses). To do that though you probably first need to get them out of the box. So Allen will have to put the ball in the air. Although Allen has the physical ability to challenge every part of the field I think we see a dumbed down O featuring half field reads at best as well as a fair number of quick hitters, in effect single read execution. If they don't ask him to do too much hopefully he will do well enuf to start benefitting from live action experience. Hoping for the best as always but the team should never have been put in this position to begin with.

Setting up a straw man and then knocking him down is a useful rhetorical device. Its not just about injury risk. If you read my posts you would know that it has more to do with player development (though getting mauled can interfere with that). Football is a violent contact sport. You don't decline to play because you might get hurt. OTOH to say that the risk of injury is the same across the board is of course preposterous. The risk of injury increases for a QB if his O-line stinks, he is devoid of weapons and facing a monster D. David Carr was a monumental bust to be sure, but he was beaten to a pulp for three years in Houston behind the worst line in the league. And in the circumstances he even managed to do some good things - so he was not without ability. I don't want Allen to suffer the same fate. If a player fails it's easy to say that he just sucked. Sometimes you need to consider the reasons. And for every star QB who was thrown to the wolves and managed to prosper there are as many if not more who did not, but might have if they had been brought along properly. Some young QBs who did well, like Ben or Brady, took over teams that were already loaded. And those QBs, like Peyton, who were drafted by bad teams, were more advanced in their development and much better prepared than JA, who is extremely raw. Allen will for sure have to start long before he should, but that is not a good thing. It is the result of poor planning at the FO level. I hope he will handle it without regressing but I'm not confident that the Bills know how to develop him - he doesn't even have a qualified QB coach -and in the absence of that development he will surely bust. Trotting out the shiny new toy is the kind of cheap thrill that fans and the media want, but is it in the best interests of the player and the long term prospects of the organization? I would hold him out at least until we are past the Vikings and spend the time intensively preparing him for GB.