BarleyNY

I had a long post recently that basically said that the Bills are doing this and that it’s the right thing. They have to see if Allen can be a quality QB or not. What they asked of him in the Cleveland game wasn’t all that much for a quality NFL QB. He didn’t deliver, but they should hold that course and find out if he can.

While it is true that DYAR, DVOA and QBR are not perfect, they do work very well to gauge how well a player (QB) is performing. They also make efforts to account for surrounding factors. I am not sure what your point in saying you don’t think coaches use them. Teams evaluate all of their players constantly. I doubt they’d need ESPN or Football Outsiders to evaluate their starting QB. They’d obviously have a finer point on that evaluation themselves, but I’d very seriously doubt that it’d be a lot different. So I think we can safely look at those metrics and understand that we have a pretty good idea of the job Allen is doing. As for Darnold and Mayfield, they are not Allen. Each needs looked at on their own. I haven’t watched enough of Darnold to form an informed opinion. I’ll say that I didn’t love him coming out of college and that his numbers suck in the NFL. They’re almost as bad as Allen’s. It certainly doesn’t look good. I’ve watched a lot more of Mayfield. He was pretty good last season, but he’s been nearly as bad as Allen this season. The numbers bear that out. So since he’s shown something I stick with him and try to get him better coaching. Dunno about that last part. I’d be happy to roll with Allen if he looked promising, but he’s failing with some pretty basic stuff. And it’s the same stuff he had problems with in college. Hell, it’s not just Lamar Jackson and Baker Mayfield from his draft class that are outperforming him. Gardner Freaking Minshew is a 6th round rookie who is. Oh and so is Kyler Murray. Allen has a year in the NFL on both of them. Bottom line: We drafted a QB who was known to have poor accuracy when he came out of college. He still looks to have the exact same issue after more than a season and a half in the NFL. Why do you think that will change with another year?

Wouldn’t it be on the QB to call a hot read in that circumstance? And why would the Browns definitely be going to blitz on a 3rd and 3? If anything they’d be thinking about jumping short routes on that down and distance. It’s certainly not optimal for a blitz.

https://www.footballperspective.com/is-espns-qbr-the-best-measure-of-quarterback-play/ Here is an analysis of ESPN’s QBR metric. The writer looked for correlation between QBR and winning and found that the correlation was +.68. For those not familiar with statistics the scale is -1 to 1 where -1 is perfectly negative correlation, 0 is uncorrelated and 1 is perfectly correlated. .68 shows a strong or “large” correlation. So rather than look at how many passes a team throws, you are much better off looking at how well each QB plays. In fact, nothing else that is unrelated could be remotely as telling. Obviously you can look at defensive performance in part by how it impacts the opposing QB’s performance as their measure. The running game, special teams and situational coaching decisions would also have impacts, but even collectively their impact wouldn’t add up to close to what the QB’s performance would except for how they impacted it.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethirtyeight.com/features/for-a-passing-league-the-nfl-still-doesnt-pass-enough/amp/ This is a good analysis of why teams should pass more.

It’s fair to ask whether the guy you brought in is better than than they guy you got rid of. But Sullivan really just stirs the pot. Really not the time or place for that question.

It’s fair to think that the team is in a better place than they were under the previous regime. It’s also fair to tell this regime that maybe they want to shelve the cockiness about thinking their better than them until they prove it by winning something.

Allen would be even further down in QBR and DVOA rankings if other starting and backup QBs had gotten more snaps and qualified. But no one wants to hear that the guy they root for isn’t very good. If Allen played for the Dolphins he’d be getting ripped apart and they’d be laughing about him.

If you call me a hater, then I get to call you a fanboi. Thems the rules. I guess we will find out, but Rosen, Lynch and Manziel tell me it’s a real possibility.

BUT TYROD WAS BASICALLY A ROOKIE!!!

Just going to hit some points here: - DVOA is a much better gauge of performance than yards or points for offense and defense. You seem knowledgeable enough to know this but have chosen to pretend otherwise to try to make your point. - Whether or not it would’ve been a viable strategy to run Singletary a lot more against Cleveland’s stacked box is pretty irrelevant to the main point here. We can debate whether that would’ve worked all day, but thats not the issue. - The real issue is that doing so should not have been necessary. It’s that Allen could not beat simple, undisguised man coverage. This wasn’t Allen getting beaten by Belichick, it was him being beaten by a bad DC running a basic scheme that he’s seen since high school. And if it had been some bad reads here and there against a tougher scheme I wouldn’t have an issue. But he just couldn’t make the throws. I don’t see how that improves and I don’t want to waste another season watching it happen again. - Lastly, people keep saying he’s improving. I see a few areas where he has, but overall he is still poor and it’s about exactly as poor as last season. I’d guess that a big reason for that is that teams have learned how to play him. Let’s take a look. His Total QBR has dropped from 52.0 in ‘18 to 36.0 this season. His Defense Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) went up from -35.9% to -23.0%. That’s still terrible for a starting QB. There have been 41 QBs this season that have performed better according to that statistic. So if he really is improving overall, it’s not by nearly enough. If he doesn’t make a big jump during the rest of this season I think the Bills should look for an upgrade. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/qb/2019 I think that was true in the past, but that the rookie salary cap has made it easier to move on from high picks. Still, you might be right.

Don’t put words in my mouth. It really depends on the QB and the situation. It is fair to say that if, after two full seasons in the NFL and 20+ starts, a QB can’t effectively do rudimentary parts of his job and sits comfortably among back ups in his overall performance, I would look to replace him as starter. Do you disagree? That would hold true for any starter by the way. It’s better to move on from mistakes sooner rather than later. If Allen doesn’t improve this year, do you really think the light will go on in this offseason? Do you want to bet 2020 on that possibility? I sure don’t.

If I’m the Bills OC I’m begging the FO to get me a competent starting NFL QB next season. I’m not sure that Barkley can be any better than Allen, but I give him a shot if I do. If not, then I am calling a more conservative passing game, I’m running RPOs and hoping Allen can hang onto the ball and I’m running more even if it’s into stacked boxes. But that’s because I would’ve given up on Allen as a passer and as our QB beyond the very near term. But if you haven’t given up on him and you think he can be the guy for the Bills, then you have to let him take his lumps and try to work out how to be an NFL QB. That’s what the team is doing. As much as I don’t believe in Allen I understand that they haven’t given up on him and, therefore, that is what they’re doing. Allen hasn’t come around (yet?) and the team is tailing off from their encouraging start. That’s getting fans upset and a bunch of them are looking to blame everyone but they guy whose fault it is. But maybe, just maybe, he does come around and maybe there isn’t really a lot to lose by finding out. Let’s face it - if Allen doesn’t get more accurate and if he can’t beat man coverage, then he’s never going to be a starting caliber NFL QB. (This isn’t the toughest thing a QB will have to do.) If the Bills want to see if he can be “the guy” then they need to give him the chance like in Cleveland. If and when they’re done with him, then they can take the ball out of his hand and try to find a way to get through the season.

Browns are below average against both the pass and run. DVOA for passing defense ranks them 19th and their DVOA for rushing defense ranks them 22nd. Hardly a big difference. They were also stacking the box against the run. It’s good to know the real situation. I’d love my main point addressed. Why are people advocating running Singletary into a stacked box as the solution while leaving unaddressed Allen’s issues throwing against man coverage or man with a single high safety? Why is the former the issue and not the latter?

Singletary did about as well as any back in his situation, but the success he had was in getting tough yards after contact. I guess we could continue to run our 5’7” 200# RB into a stacked box all day rather than ask our 7th overall pick QB to beat man coverage, but I do see some problems there as well. One is that I’m pretty sure Singletary won’t last all that long doing that. I’d have done things like run some draws to him when the Browns finally backed off, but I’d have limited running him into 8+ defenders. Notably no other back had any success running the ball. The other, much bigger, issue is this: It means the Bills have given up on Allen. After the Washington game I really thought that was the case and the offense had been tailored to protect him, but I was wrong and the Cleveland game shows it. What’s more, the whole team will know it if their plan is to run into stacked boxes rather than put the ball in his hands - and that’s really the problem. They’d be better off making it official and starting Barkley. I was never a believer in Allen, but I’ve tried to give him a chance. Turns out that he’s the guy I (most people) thought he was coming out of college and he’s going to have to prove he’s more to get me to change my mind. I was done giving him a pass after game 8 this season.

Cleveland was in Cover 1 a ton. Single high safety with a stacked box. They didn’t even bother to disguise it. Singletary was not getting much against that. They dared Allen to beat them with one safety over the top and he couldn’t. What’s supposed to happen is that the offense is supposed to take advantage of the single coverage and beat the largely man coverage which then would force the defense to back off. They could not do that because Allen was not accurate enough often enough. I’ll give him this though - he was good against zone where receivers could find seams to sit down or slow their route. The problem was that the Browns mostly stayed with that base Cover 1 defense. Running Singletary into that defense would not have helped the Bills win this game. A further worry is that the Browns looked to be in regular zones. I didn’t see them use zone pattern matching like the better defenses do.

It’s funny. When we drafted Allen I said that if we want him to be successful we’re going to have to treat him like Duante Culpepper and find him a Moss and Carter to run under deep balls he chucks up for grabs. That’s absolutely a viable way to run an offense, but let’s not pretend that it wouldn’t be covering up a big QB deficiency with great WR talent. It’s also viable to find a QB who can throw accurately and beat man coverage somewhere other than short and over the middle.

Does anyone seriously think the problem with our offense is the TEs?

So you don’t think other teams adjust? When teams are getting beaten by the run they don’t stack the box and dare the Bills to beat them through the air? You aren’t seeing this? Heard this discussed on 550 yesterday afternoon. They said that the Bills were rushing for 3 YPC against 8 or more in the box against Cleveland. If you can’t trust your offense to be successful through the air when that happens, then your problem should be obvious. (Hint: It’s not that the OC should keep running the ball.)

The refs - and league - blew the call in the Vikings game. There is no reason for that. But I noticed that the shovel pass in the Washington game where Singletary went for 49 yards was counted as a completed pass and went toward passing yards.

Every QB does miss throws. Every QB makes other mistakes too. But they all do those things at different rates. I would refer you to Allen’s advanced stats that point to him missing throws and making other mistakes at much higher rates than a good starting NFL QB should be. And things like advanced stats are important to look at because we all see Allen make good plays too. He makes some excellent throws/plays every game. Those give fans hope, but consistency is the issue. When you compare the rate of good and bad plays, he is coming up very short. Just take a look at how he ranks - and note that he’d be behind more QBs if more had enough pass attempts to qualify (second table) but didn’t due to injury: https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/qb/2019

I disagree. They are letting Allen play. They’re running the ball enough to consistently get 8 in the box and then asking him to make plays. He’s just not making enough despite having some favorable coverage situations. I don’t know how much more the coaching staff could be doing for him on gameday. I do agree that the huddle/no TO mistake is unacceptable. That needs worked out yesterday. I was at the game and haven’t rewatched it yet so I’ll double check what I think I saw, but Cleveland sure looked to be taking the run away and daring Allen to beat them.

I said it would be reasonable to save the TO, but I didn’t say anything about the huddle. It doesn’t look like that was on McD so I wasn’t holding it against him. It was definitely a mistake by Allen (or maybe Daboll) though. Going up to the line and running a play would’ve been fine too. That’s all I was saying. I should’ve been clearer on the last part. The TO would’ve given the Bills more ability to work the middle of the field. It could’ve also given them a chance to give the FG team more time to set up. Sure, they’re NFL players and they should be able to run out and go, but Hauschka hasn’t exactly been stellar this season. I was just thinking some extra time could’ve helped him.

That would’ve been reasonable, but it would’ve been their last TO. I can also understand why he’d want to preserve that TO for the FG attempt.

Yup. One game at a time.