Sammy Watkins' Rib

Bill, go back and look at that post again. clearly I list games1-8 and 9-15 for Allen and games 1-7 and 8-14 for Minshew and the QB rating for each span of games. It’s an even split of first half of season vs second half for each player. That is not three games. I’m confused on where you are getting that take. First half of season vs. second half of season.

Oakland? Most definitely not. Atlanta. Probably not. Indianapolis? Week 17? Playing on the road? Certainly possible. Heck, would be interesting to see how many of the regular defensive starters even played the usual number of snaps for the Colts in that game. On the flip side I know for certain none of Allen’s opponents in his final three starts laid down or made personnel changes you would make near the end of a loss season. And the other half of the puzzle was the defensive rankings for those 3 teams vs the 3 Allen faced. And that’s the most important piece of the puzzle obviously.

I believe I first brought up it’s relevance when another poster claimed I was giving out patently false information that Allen had an as good or better second half of the season than Minshew. They countered with each players final three games of the season which was never my original argument. I also noted the stark difference in strength of opponent and meaningfulness of each game. Allen: vs. Baltimore @ Pittsburgh @ New England Minshew: @ Oakland @ Atlanta vs. Indianapolis

I can't argue with that. I never liked EJ Manuel. But i was all in on Fitzpartick during his run in 2011 or 2012 with the Bills. And I loved Tyrod after his first season with the Bills. Darnold has had such a screwed up situation on a pretty bad overall team you have to hold out hope for him still. Allen was on a bad offense two years ago but last years offensive personnel was much better. He was super raw coming out so again, holding out hope that he just keeps developing as he has been.

I'm fairly certain the Raiders playoff hopes were still alive. Even after they lost to the Jaguars they were still alive i think.

I was curious as well. Here's two links. You have to do a little leg work to make sure you don't include the passes from Barkley, or the TD pass Brown threw to Singeltary or any short passes then ended up going for over 15 yards. But the raw numbers are: 18/38 478 yards 5TDs and 2 INTs comes out to a rating of 111.29 The above is for Pro Football Reference. Deeps passes to John Brown. It looks like they define a deep pass as any ball traveling 16+ yards in the air. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/B/BrowJo02/receiving-plays/2019/ https://www.pro-football-reference.com/about/qb-rating.htm I'm sure PFR has a easier way to find the numbers for just Josh Allen to John Brown on deep passes but I haven't figured it out yet. I love playing around with PFR though.

Jones had a few WOW games. No doubt. He's not without his own issues. He's got to clean up his fumbling issues. 18 fumbles in 12 starts. He had five combined fumbles in the two one score losses you reference. Allen's known for fumbling but Jones rookie year makes Allen look like Drew Brees or Peyton Manning when it comes to ball security in comparison. For the record I'm fine if someone prefers Jones over Allen. You can't overlook the great games Jones had on a pretty bad team.

You're completely moving the goal posts here. There was nothing disingenuous in how I presented the original stats. I simply split each of Allen's two seasons into halves. I did the same for Minshew and the same for Darnold in another thread. Do you feel three games is a proper samples size over 8 or or 7 games presented in my comparison? Wouldn't you say there is a dramatic difference in degree of difficulty in the three games you reference for Allen and Minshew? Allen: vs. Baltimore @ Pittsburgh @ New England Minshew: @ Oakland @ Atlanta vs. Indianapolis. All three games for Allen are against top 5 ranked defenses who's teams were playing for the playoffs or seeding. The three defenses Minshew faced were ranked 16th, 19th and 20th. Two of the three teams were not playing for anything.

He also became a less efficient passer over the course of the season. Josh became a more efficient passer over the course of the season against elite defenses in Baltimore, New England and Pittsburgh. Hats off to Minshew for his great start to the season but by the end of the season he was clearly not playing any better than Allen. Credit to Allen for improving? Or discredit Minshew for tailing off? Maybe both? But at the end of the day they were the same player in the second half of the season. So that is why I see them more as equals. Now Minshew was a true rookie. Allen in year two. But Minshew had far more experience and readiness coming out of college. So one could argue a year 2 Allen is on the same level of a rookie Minshew. Again a wash? So then it comes down to other abilities and potential. Both seem to have equal ball security issues. Both are athletic but I think most would agree Allen is on another level. Lamar Jackson is in a tier by himself and then probably Allen and Murray in Tier 2 and tier 3 would be the other athletic QB's like Watson, Wilson, Minshew. One of the biggest thing to see out of Allen in year 3 is what happens with his deep ball? He was decent with it in his rookie season and downright terrible last year. If he can find his deep ball again and improve those numbers he can take another jump in yards and completion percentage and overall rating in year 3. Seems unlikely he will be as bad as he was last year. So we should see an improvement. Question will be how much.

I guess we will just have to score 17 in the the 4th quarter again. Agree. I worry about our run defense in general against any team. If theirs a weakness overall in our defense it is definitely our run defense. New England knows this better than any team.

Yardage can be about team philosophy. For whatever reason it seems ever since Jim Kelly retired we are all about running the ball. Even today in a pass happy league. But with regards to Minshew he actually lost both games he threw for over 300 yards. So yeah yardage is not really a requirement. And in 9 out of 15 games for Allen last year he threw for 60% completion or better. Minshew only achieved that in 6 out of 14 games. Yet Minshew some how ended up 2 percentage points better than Allen on the season. One of those things I guess where the really bad games even if they are fewer can bring the overall stats down. But if they are few and far between is it really a bad thing? Just suck it up, maybe take the rare L and move on.

Whoa! Hold on. The last game for Minshew is there. No reason to leave it out as even with that good last game he clearly had a decline from first half of season to last half of season. Down from 95.0 to 87.0. I only mention that we should consider the odd circumstance of Minshew suddenly having a great game to finish the season in a meaningless game at home when he had a number of bad games leading up to it. And pointed out how is drop off from first half of season to last half of season could actually even be more dramatic. But the true stat for Minshew is there.

There does seem to be a double standard then if that is what he says of Darnold but not Allen. Josh Allen QB rating with season broken into halves: 2018- Games 1-6: 61.8 2018- Games 7-12: 72.6 2019- Games 1-8: 82.9 2019- Games 9-15: 88.8 Sam Darnold QB rating with season broken into halves: 2018-Games 1-7: 74.3 2018- Games 8-13: 81.4 2019- Games 1-7: 81.1 2019- Games 8-13: 87.9 Allen has clearly been making incremental improvements. Or even chunk improvements. I think Allen suffers from a few things when compared to guys like Darnold and Mayfield even though common sense should tell us that Allen is every bit as good as those guys right now if not better and has just as good a chance to be great as those guys. 1. Allen was ridiculed coming out as a guy that was not ready and so many questioned if he was even worth a day two pick let alone top 10 overall. To be fair a lot of the criticism was maybe warranted. Heck, his 61.8 QB rating in his first six NFL starts backs that up. But because that was the narrative, many have not been able to see past the initial scouting report and their initial biases against Allen. 2. The bad start out of the gate with the exception of the one Vikings game. As I mentioned, it helped to re-affirm in the critics eyes that he was over drafted and not ready. 3. The perception that he is an athlete playing the QB position.

True. QB's don't sit and learn any more. The Mahomes and Rodgers examples are rare. But Allen is playing and developing along the way. Again: 2018- Games 1-6: 61.8 2018- Games 7-12: 72.6 2019- Games 1-8: 82.9 2019- Games 9-15: 88.8 And that's just him developing as a passer. We all know what he brings to the game as an athlete too.

Sounds like you are very down on Allen if you are willing to pass on Allen's upside for a better version of Case Keenum. I like Minshew as a Case Keenum/ Ryan Fitzpatrick type. But why commit to a guy that doesn't have a high ceiling? Even if Minshew is the better QB at this moment which I think is debatable. But for arugments sake say he is. I still take Allen based on upside alone. Especially when you factor in Allen being the most un-ready QB to come out of the draft in a long time and he's already improving not just season over season but when you break his seasons down into halves or quarters he continues to make consistent improvements. Allen's QB rating his first two years broken down by half seasons 2018- Games 1-6: 61.8 2018- Games 7-12: 72.6 2019- Games 1-8: 82.9 2019- Games 9-15: 88.8 Can't really ask for more than that out of a QB that some thought had no business being drafted on day 1 because of a lack of readiness. Minshew QB rating broken down: 2019- Games 1-7: 95.7 2019- Games 8-14: 87.0 If you threw out the week 17 game for Minshew (which was a good game for him statistically) his rating in games 8-13 would have been 83.4 A significant drop off from how he started the season before teams had a lot of film on him. Of course that's not fair so I included it in the original comparison. But it is fair to question how motivated that Colts defense was that day to be playing the final meaningless regular season game on the road. Especially considering Minshew had struggled quite a bit leading up to that game.

Did the bridges burn down when Fewell left? I don't recall. Wasn't he interim coach after we got Dick fired with the Billboards?

Does it come with three years salaried driver for that price?

Jets will finish ahead of the Patriots? And you say Bills fans have rose colored glasses? Hope you are right but I don't see the GOAT coach not fielding a competitive team. Especially not after coming off a season with the number one ranked defense. But maybe Stidham will be Peterman level bad?

That play had me jumping off my couch and celebrating in victory. Then I realized it was a forward pass. I'm glad those are considered forward passes though since we use them a lot in our offense now and with a lot of success. Josh can even get a TD or two credited to him every year using them.

And by what metric do we determine Allen is top 10? I love Allen. I think he is our future and will be worth a contract that could make him the highest paid. At the same time I am extremely doubtful he will be top 10 in traditionally meaningful QB stats. Passing yards? No chance. Completion percentage? No way. QB Rating? Probably not. Passing TD's? Unlikely. Maybe total TD's and QBR? The most meaningful stat might be wins. I don't care if his next two seasons are identical to his 2019 season. If we extend our playoff streak to 3 straight years I think he get's paid even if statistically he feels more like the 20th best QB.

Problem is, Allen is so unconventional and McDermott a little too conservative that I don't know that Allen will ever be a top 10 QB on paper by almost all metrics. But that's not to say he won't actually have the skills of a top 10 QB. Also, top 10 get's thrown around a little too loosely I think. Basically top 10 QB has grown to include any franchise QB which then gets stretched closer to top 16-18. Just thinking of option B and the three guys you named makes me want to extend Allen to $100 million dollar deal now.

Sounds like we are backing up the Brinks truck then. Allen definitely has all the tools to be a super bowl MVP.

Can't fully agree here. Allen has been a beast with his legs. Until Lamar Jackson exploded last season, Allen as a rookie put up arguably the best six game rushing streak of any NFL QB in history. Right there with prime Vick. And that is part of the total package with Allen. Allen has also improved his game over the course of each of his first two seasons. The way he finished the final 8 or 10 games of last season was pretty impressive IMO.

Dan "eleven yard endzone" Orlovsky. There is lot of space between loving Allen and thinking a rookie Tua is better than a third year Allen. Like the OP I can get the Darnold love although I would have Allen slightly ahead of Darnold at this point. But Tua? That seems absurd. Heck, I'd even be fine with Fitzpatrick ahead of both Allen and Darnold.

It is 2018 data which makes it pointless in trying to predict Allen's future. Let's take the most raw 1st round QB to come out of college in about 10 years or more and pin all his future on what he does in his rookie year with a terrible supporting cast? Terrible idea. Allen made a huge leap from year 1 to year 2. He's not likely to make as huge a percentage leap from year 2 to 3 but even a modest jumps in percentage will have him putting up some really good numbers for a third year QB that was again, the most raw 1st round QB coming out of college in a long time.