VW82

This start is eerily similar to the NE game. When Josh is bad he's really freaking bad.

Love to have Rivera on our coaching staff. That man would bring a lifetime's worth of knowledge and relationships for us to leverage. I wouldn't be surprised if McD has already called him to let him know there'd be a place for him next year if he wanted it.

Anyone else not really that concerned about it? I agree he's probably not a RT and given how often we scheme help for him the coaching staff seems unsure about the situation too. Spain is UFA this off season. We can still get value out of the pick shifting him inside, and he can still play T in a pinch. I'd rather let Spain walk and find a decent RT in FA. Edit: plus we still have Nsekhe under contract next year.

To clarify, I meant career game one Murray was a better player than career game one Allen. I don't think it would have mattered what offense you put them in -- Murray was just a little more NFL ready. Today Josh looks like the better player though I know an Arizona fan who would debate that.

McD isn't running the offense, Daboll is. Before that it was Dennison. Our team philosophy is to establish a running game, play mistake free and let the defense do their job which has frequently kept the opposition score down and meant we didn't need to abandon the run. There's part of your answer. Josh being raw last year isn't revisionist history it's generally accepted opinion. You're on an island on this one. Most people thought he was raw coming into the draft. He looked very raw in camp and preseason, and it wasn't until after returning from injury that he started showing consistent ability as a passer, and even then he did a lot of his damage on the ground. It wasn't until this year, and really, post NE that he's started to look like a good NFL QB. Clearly there's something about Peterman. McD got swindled and then Gruden did the same. McD has done so much else right. Pretty sure we can forgive him for missing on a 5th round pick.

I don't understand your 45 games point. Are we talking about Josh or Tyrod or the McD era?? Let's stick to Josh. Last year he didn't do it because he was too raw whereas Murray came into the league a much better player. This year it hasn't happened because our defense is sick and we haven't needed to throw as much. The times where he could have thrown for 300+ like vs. Philly or Cleveland he proved incapable. Will he prove incapable again if given another chance? I tend to think he's shown enough at this point to suggest it's a matter of when, not if. I'm more concerned about his ability to make quick reads and accurate throws from inside the pocket. As was pointed out in another thread, we've done a really good job incorporating roll outs and run & shoot to help get him out of the pocket where he's really effective. Those concepts are putting him in a position to throw for 300. What's going to happen if we play NE in the playoffs and Belichick does what he always does -- makes you have to do the one thing you struggle doing -- and Allen has to stay in the pocket and make plays? To me that's a way more interesting question.

I think the better question is should we try to re-sign him? There are some good points on the No side in this thread, but here's why I think we might consider it: Zo is probably going to retire, Murphy has a history of getting injured, and Hughes has taken a noticeable step back this year. Maybe Johnson steps up next year but that's probably not something you bank on. If we let Shaq walk we might be pretty thin at end and our already shaky run D would likely take a hit. I could see both sides coming to agreement on something shorter term that approaches what he would have made on that 5th year option.

Not so coincidentally, fans like me and people covering the league are starting to come around on him.

Yes, passer rating. FWIW the average passing yards per game of the top passer rating guys through Dak is 257. So it would seem to be QB production + efficiency = wins. Bills' recent history with lack of 300 yard passing games is more weird curiosity than anything else IMO, but I do think it appropriately points to the fact we've had some serious issues at QB over the years. It's not like we haven't often been way behind and needed to throw the ball. Thankfully that hasn't been the case as much this year. The "Josh can't throw for big yardage" theme is going to continue until he does it. He's not your typical QB prospect and because of that he's going to get picked apart more than the others. There are going to be critics all the way until we're scoring lots of points and winning games mainly because of him instead of our defense, and people can point to data like passer rating to confirm it.

Top passers in terms of passer rating and their team records with them as a starter: 1. Tannehill -- 6-2 record, tied for 6th seed 2. Cousins -- 8-4 record, 6th seed 3. Wilson -- 10-2 record, 2nd seed 4. Jackson -- 10-2 record, 1st seed 5. Mahomes -- 7-3 record, 3rd seed 7. Watson -- 8-4 record, 4th seed 8. Brees -- 5-2 record, 1st seed 9. Rodgers -- 9-3 record, 3rd seed 10. Garappolo -- 10-2 record, 5th seed 11. Prescott -- 6-6 record, 4th seed ... 20. Allen -- 9-3 record, 5th seed 21. Brady -- 10-2 record, 2nd seed It would seem that having a good passer is still very much correlated with winning. Allen and Brady are outliers, and it's probably related to their teams having the number three and number one scoring defenses.

He's getting better but I think if you go through all the passing plays you're going to find that a large percentage of them still come from scrambles or roll outs. His TD to Beasley is a good example. Once he escapes he's great at causing the defense to react which frees up our receivers. His decision making in those situations is getting much better. I still think he misses a lot of opportunities in the pocket though. He just doesn't always see them.

It's been interesting to experience this from the other direction. I started with little faith that he'd be a long-term answer, but by the end of last year I was hopeful. This year started off a little shakier than many wanted to admit but he's been good enough lately that he's started to engender faith from naysayers like me. He's earning it. My main quibble still lies where it always did: can he consistently make plays from inside the pocket? I don't think we have an answer for that yet. But he's doing enough elsewhere to make the doubters pause and want to wait and see what the answer is. His growth has been fun to watch.

I can't see McD wanting to pay big free agent $$ to bring in another WR, or anyone for that matter. It's just not how these guys do things. It sends the wrong message. Besides, our current group of skill guys are pretty good -- underrated even, especially on this board. Think we make moves around the edges instead, and replenish via the draft.

I don't think there's been much of a change. Looking at passing yards without any context has never made any sense. If we look at QB rating all of the top 13 guys are either Matthew Stafford or play for a team that would be in the playoffs it they started today. Only Allen and Brady are outliers, and they play on teams with a top 3 scoring defense. Generally speaking, you need good, efficient production from your QB to win.

Are there ever any actual league directives to help or hurt certain teams? I don't think so. Having said that, it's hard to rationalize an entire week's news cycle about how the Cowboys got screwed last week on dubious tripping calls and then proceed to get 4-5 highly questionable calls in their favour to start the Thanksgiving game. Refs are human and can be influenced even if it isn't by a direct order from the league office.

"Stats, schmatz." I think this is the heart of it. Yes, we're 9-3. We might like to thank the defense too for that. At some point Josh is going to need to throw for more than 215 yards and score more than 21 points (current season averages) in a big game against a good team. He was able to do that vs. Cowboys -- he was excellent. Is he going to be able to do that in the playoffs? I sure hope so. This is the root of the doubt IMO.

I'm sure there will still be days where his lack of size gets us into trouble but anyone who says he's too small to be successful in the NFL only needs to throw in tape of this game to understand how wrong that is.

A+ That was a franchise QB performance against a pretty good Cowboys defense. That was legit progress.

What a great team win. I was so wrong about Oliver -- he was fantastic. Franchise QB performance from Allen today. That was probably his best game as a pro.

Josh's best skill might be getting the defense to move when he escapes the pocket, and then locating the guy who gets open as a result. He's done that a lot this year.

Just watched it. That was incredible. He's such an inspiration on so many levels.

Jim is the man. So inspiring.

I'm going make a prediction that Josh throws for over 300 today and breaks the curse. Dallas can move the ball. We might need to score more points than usual to keep pace.

Limit Ed Oliver’s snaps. Denver and Miami were good match ups for him. This is going to be more like the Philly and Wash games. NFC East has some big offensive lines. Too big for Oliver.

Is it psychological or is just that teams are blitzing more on 3rd and short to mid yardage, and we're not very good at recognizing or dealing with the blitz? Teams don't seem to blitz us as often on 3rd and long, instead electing to keep more guys in coverage which I think is one of the reasons Josh has more success. I don't know this for certain so maybe someone on here with the actual stats can comment but that's what I'm seeing. I agree our short yardage run game is not good enough.