CincyBillsFan

If the criticism is legitimate I can except it. But do you really believe Allen's bad INT was a LOT worse then Darnolds? Sure Allen had 3 TO's today and he must do better to protect the ball but Darnold had a throw that 9 times out of 10 would have either been a pick 6 or a huge INT return. That it was dropped doesn't absolve Darnold of a bad throw. IMO Allen & Darnold had a similar passing game. They each had a terrible INT; they both made several excellent throws; and they both made big throws in driving their teams down the field at the end of the game. IMO Shook was to positive on Darnold and to negative on Allen. I also disagree with Shook's characterization that Allen's running is not sustainable. I think it is with only a slight down shift in the number of carries per game. With respect to this game I thought Shook was disingenuous to throw out his critique of Allen's running, which did net 101 yards and a TD, without pointing out the disastrous Bill's O line play which had Allen running for his life and combined with the loss of their starting and back-up RB's meant that the ONLY Bills rushing option was Allen.

Okay is this Nick Shook a moron or is it that he actually doesn't watch the games? Talk about a shoddy and untrue description of the game today. The idea that this fool is making money covering football is alarming. Here's a few things this hack got wrong: * While drooling all over Darnold's game winning drive and extolling his very nice deep throw down the sideline Shook completely ignored that on the previous series Allen took the Bill's down the field for what could have been the game winning FG and made an equally nice deep back shoulder throw to get the Bills into the red zone. * To lay the game on Allen's last INT is beyond lame. It shows an utter awareness of what went during the previous 59 minutes of football. * Was Allen's 1st INT really that much worse then Darnolds? I mean Allen was working on a FIRST & 25 (thanks to bad penalties) and his INT didn't cost the Bills points or lead to Jets points. Darnold's throw which seemed every bit as bad as Darnolds cost the Jets at least 3 points. Shook also failed to note that the Bill's defense dropped a potential pick 6 on a very poor Darnold throw. * And to remind Shook that the injury that kept Allen on the sidelines for 4 games happened in the pocket. It also would be apparent to anyone that watched today's game that Allen took a much worse beating in the pocket then he did running the ball. What's not sustainable IMO is Allen getting crushed in the pocket on almost every pass play. * And for the record I believe that the NFL is in the process of a seismic shift in offensive football that will require QB's to do what Allen is doing on the ground. And as long as Allen runs smartly, sliding or going out of bounds at every opportunity, his runs will remain an important weapon in his arsenal.

The story on defense IMO was the time Darnold had to throw. To allow a rookie QB to sit back there like that is astonishing. Did the Bills ever lay a hand on Darnold behind the LOS? Given the guys track record for committing turnovers you would think the Bills would have been blitzing the hell out of Darnold. But all to often they tried to rely on a 4 man rush that didn't get near him.

Okay now I'll touch on the QB play today: * Overall I thought both Allen & Darnold looked good and showed me that these two are going to be going at it for a long time in the Division. Sure both guys made rookie mistakes but they also both made some fantastic plays to. * Now some folks are going to quote the passer rating and say Darnold kicked Allen's butt. But I say you have to look beyond the numbers to truly compare the two QB's passing performance. At the risk of sounding like an apologist making excuses when you compare the QB's keep in mind the following: Both QB had very bad INT's. Classic rookie mistakes. Allen had a 2nd INT at the end of the game but that was in desperation time. Let's not forget that Darnold should have had TWO INT's as a Bills player had a clean break and simply dropped what should have been an easy INT. Maybe even a pick 6. Also consider the number of dropped passes Allen had compared to Darnold. Factor in these two things and the two QB's had close to identical games. * Both QB's did a nice job at the end of the game to put their teams in a position to win. And Jet's and Bills fans should be excited by this. Allen led the Bills on a 65 yard drive just missing a TD pass to put the Bills up 23 - 20 with a FG with 2 minutes left. Darnold then one upped him with a game winning TD drive. In each of the drives both QB's had huge throws with Allan's being that beautiful back shoulder pass to Foster and Darnold with that great deep throw to move the ball to the 5 yard line. It's fair to say that both QB's were clutch when the game was on the line. * Allen also had a nice end of the half drive to put the Bills in position to end the half with a FG. He threw a couple of rockets to covert 3rd & longs on the drive. Putting you team in position to score at the end of the half is clutch QBing. * Allen had 101 yards rushing including a TD. He also had a bad fumble but the Jets only got a FG out of it. The truth is Allen took a much nastier beating in the pocket then he took running the football. The # of hits Allen took compared to Darnold was noticeable. And those hits WERE NOT the result of Allen holding onto the ball to long. The Jet's pass rush was getting to him very fast. * Bottom line is both the Jets & Bills should be happy that they probably have their franchise QB's for the next 10 years.

This is wrong on a number of levels. But the most obvious one is that late in the 1st half, at a critical moment in the game, with the Bills facing a 3rd & 15 at their own 5 yard line they trusted Allen to drop back into the end zone to try to convert the 3rd down. And he rewarded their trust with a laser beam pass good for 20 yards and the 1st down. And for the record, Allen had a number of superb passes out of the pocket today.

It's been a while since a Bills loss ruined my dinner but this one did. It's clear as day that there is so much work to be done to rebuild this team that it's almost frightening. Some comments on the game: * The special teams were truly awful. You know your kick coverage is bad when you have to resort to squib kicks. That's what they do in High School. Today's loss is entirely on the ST. Think abut this series of plays. Bills take a 14 - 3 lead and both the offense & defense are playing well. Looks like a possible blowout. ST surrenders a 51 yard KO return giving the Jets the ball in Bills territory. D holds them to a FG but lead now 14 - 6. Bills have a nice drive that ends in a FG and a 17 - 6 lead. Jets return the next KO to the Bills 6 yard line. A couple plays later it's 17 - 13. The Bills momentum is blown and the Jets figure they can win this game. All because the Bills can't cover a freaking KO. * After a strong start the Buffalo defense ended the game on a whimper. Bottom line is that once the Bills went up 23 - 20 late in the 4th quarter the worst thing the BIlls D should have given up was a FG to send the game into OT. This is not the first time this year that the Bills D has not been clutch when they needed to make a stop to win the game. Sure the stats have this D near the top of the heap but stats can be misleading. They are a good but not a great defense. * And who was the defensive coaching genius who decided that you don't put pressure on a rookie QB? For crying out loud the Bills did not register a single sack. Even worse how many times did they even touch Darnold? To watch the Jet's QB sit there in the pocket while our D-line was counting one Mississippi, two Mississippi.... was hard to take. * We really missed McCoy out there today. Not only is he the ONLY RB who is any sort of a threat to catch the football and do damage out of the backfield we sorely missed his blitz pick-ups. One of the reason the Jets blitzed the hell out of Allen (in addition to his being a rookie) was that they knew both Ivory & Murphy wouldn't be able to read the blitz and protect the QB. And they were right. * The lack of any running game beyond Allen's scrambles was amazing to watch. That we were down to our 3rd string RB in the 2nd half didn't help. * The O line had their worst game of the season. My goodness when a line can't run or pass block, you know you have problems. * But the big picture is this - for the 2nd straight week the Bills lost to a division opponent by 4 points and had a chance to win the game late. In a weird way this is not such a bad outcome because it improves our draft position and tells me that we are close to winning these types of games. Had we lost today 27 - 3 then it really would have sucked. This one hurts because we should have won the game. But in the end we just improved our chances to make a great deal on draft day.

I'm very optimistic about Allen's future with the Bills. But then again at halftime in Buffalo's 4th Super Bowl I thought the Bills had the Cowboys right where they wanted them and we all know how that turned out! Previous posters have pretty much hit on everything so I'll just throw out a couple of random observations: * If there is one thing Allen has shown us is his ability to learn & grow as a QB. Pre-draft he took the initiative to obtain one on one coaching and significantly improved his footwork & mechanics. And in spite of not getting the lions share of preseason snaps with the first team and then getting thrown to the wolves in the 2nd half of the Ravens game, the kid has clearly improved in every aspect of his game. There is no reason to think he won't work his butt off in the off season and continue to improve by leaps & bounds. * Allen has shown that he can rehab and come back from a serious injury. This is no small thing because over his career he's going to have to do this a few times. * I disagree with folks about Allen's running. I suspect this will remain a big part of his game because that's where the NFL is going. If you think about it the NFL is NOT innovative. They rely on college football to lead the way. As an avid college football fan I continually see the NFL adopt collegiate offenses a few years after they've been shown to be effective. I think the crazy passing numbers we're seeing out of a few teams are a clear sign that the NFL is adopting the run & gun spread offenses of college football. In other words the NFL is becoming the Big 12. And an important part of that game is a QB that can move the sticks on the ground. With the rule changes protecting runners a savvy QB should be good for 700 - 800 yards rushing per season without increasing his injury risk. As others have noted, Allen has taken a bigger beating in the pocket then he has running the ball. * The poster RocCityRoller came up with the best description I've seen of Allen to date - he's our "baby Farve". The POTENTIAL is there for him to be great but he's still in the early stages of his career and NOTHING is guaranteed.

Did you catch Inside the NFL where they had Kiko miced up? At the end of the game a very pissed off Allen shook Kiko's hand and said "see you in a few weeks". But the way he said it was sort of nasty like I can't wait to get you guys up here to lay a butt whipping on you.

Just want to thank you for all the awesome content you post. I really appreciate it!

Like others I've noticed a completely different vibe from Allen on the passing plays. Pre-injury he showed signs of this explosiveness but over the course of a game it was hit or miss. Now, every time he drops back to pass I get the sense that something good could happen. Weather permitting I fully expect the coaches to turn Allen lose against the Jets in the same way they did in the 2nd half against the fish. While this may lead to a fumble or pick, the Bills defense should be up to the challenge of holding the Jets to 3 on any mistakes. Bottom line is I agree with the author of this thread - there's been a change in how the Bills are progressing Allen. I like it! And what would have been an otherwise boring conclusion to a bad season has morphed into a situation where we're in for a lot of entertainment over the next 4 weeks. What more could you ask for.

I love the optimism - even if it's a tad bit premature! Kelly was special and that's why he has a statue in Canton Ohio. Allen has an enormous amount of work ahead of him to even be discussed in the same terms as Jim Kelly. But the tools are there and that's why the Bills moved up and took the guy with the highest upside at QB in the last draft. But let's all take a breath and keep in mind that Allen is going to have at least one very bad game between now and the end of the season. That's what rookie QB's do. But like I said the optimism of this thread is refreshing and if we have to endure pessimistic, end of the world wailing about how Allen will be the biggest QB bust in history then we sure as heck can have a thread that dares us to contemplate the opposite - a 2nd HOF QB. Why not? It sure beats the alternative.

Long time coming IMO. If the alligator arms on what should have been a TD catch didn't do it then I suspect the coaches took a long hard look at Allen's 2nd INT and came to the conclusion that had KB ran his route aggressively then there wouldn't have been an INT there. As an aside, right after Jones first TD catch against Miami someone posted on the game thread that on that play KB ran his route then seemed to be heading out the side of the end zone to go get something at the concession stands. When I watched the replay it actually looked like that was what he was doing! Good riddance - a clear case of addition by subtraction.

I agree and I suspect that Shady could play this role well once we've set in place the other conditions that allow an offense to use the check down guy effectively.

Oh great, inbreeding, just what we need in our NFL refs.

The NFL has a problem with to many mouth breathing morons in striped shirts trying to enforce overly complex, subjective rules designed by mouth breathing morons in the front office. The games are getting harder & harder to watch and it sucks that after every big play you have to hold your breath to see if there's a flag or not.

To build on your point, I think it's a good thing that Allen doesn't go to his check down receiver that much. I once heard a coach say that you know a rookie QB is rattled and may be on his way to being a bust when he throws the check down pass to often. IMO the Bills don't have the talent to fully exploit the check down yet: * Shady could be that guy but even he's lost a step and doesn't give us the check down threat that say an Alvin Kamara/Todd Gurly/Christian McCaffrey does. And unlike most NFL teams we don't have anyone at TE that could remotely be considered a check down threat. * For the check down pass to work properly you need to have a viable deep ball threat. It's only been in the last few weeks that the Bills offense put enough speed on the field at receiver to provide that threat. It also takes a QB willing AND able to throw the ball 60 yards downfield. Allen has both of these attributes and while he just missed the 70 yard bomb to Forster don't think for a minute the Jet's safety's won't be studying that play in the film room this week. * But if fans want to see 70% completion percentages they should hope Allen takes a page out of Anderson's play book. I mean the guy was hitting his check down passes at 90%! Think about all those 3rd and 12 plays where he threw the perfect 8 yard completion!

Heck, I'll settle for an off season where he takes most of the first team snaps in practice! Watching a lot of NFL & College football helps define what a "drop" is for me. And the one thing I'm not seeing from Bills TE's/receivers this year are GREAT catches. Think about it, the best catch of a Josh Allen pass was by Demarco in the Chargers game! Heck yesterday in the college football championship games I saw guys making awesome catches all over the place. In the NFL the QB's job is to get the ball close to where the receiver can make a play on it. Receivers who DON'T MAKE AMAZING catches don't last long in the NFL.

And when all is said & done what matters here is that Allen showed a maturity far beyond his years by accepting responsibility for missing a wide open Receiver. He didn't throw Jones or Clay under the bus and that is a far more important thing then winning or losing a meaningless game. And as others have noted this was NOT a case of inaccuracy but miscommunication - a problem easily fixed in practice.

Agree. Folks who are calling it a bad throw are acting like Allen dropped back in the pocket had ALL day to scan the field and then make a throw to a wide open guy in the end zone. Instead Allen was running for his life narrowly avoiding a couple of sacks and then turning and throwing a catch-able ball to the end zone. Frankly, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED it was an incredible throw. As others have noted there are only a couple of QB's in the NFL who could have gotten that ball to Clay and I would add that there's only a couple of QB's in the league who could have escaped the rush and not been sacked.

And this is why I really like Allen a lot. He doesn't throw his teammates under the bus. In the long wrong this is far more important then winning this one game.

Some thoughts on Allen today: * The runs are a part of his game and IMO he should keep doing it. Do people appreciate the acceleration Allen shows as he takes off? And he showed good sense in sliding time after time. The truth is Allen is more likely to get killed in the pocket then running for 20 yards. He is channeling Cam Newton in this part of his game and that's a good thing. * His passing game is improving in every facet. He's scanning the field, checking down on his reads and his throws for the most part were accurate today. The throw to Demarco showed great touch and the 1st TD pass was a stupendous throw. * He drove us down the field and put us in a position to win the game. The throw to Clay on 4th down wasn't his best pass but it was good enough. As Loften said it was like Clay's feet came out from under him as he seemed to get a late start coming back to the ball. And for the record there are a number of TE's in this league who make that catch. BTW, do people realize how far Allen threw that pass after running around eluding tacklers for 75 yards? * Sure Allen made mistakes and he has a lot of things to work on. But today was an example of a day where his play should cause Bills fans to be optimistic about the future. Every week this guy is looking more and more like the real deal. That's what I thought to. For a big body guy he sure does get muscled off the ball a lot. Remember in the first half on that 3rd & 17 in which Allen threw laser to KB 1 yard short of the first and he couldn't push his way past a DB that outweighed by 50 pounds?

Didn't say that. But at what point do the drops and alligator arms start to get to Allen's head? BTW, that TD throw was sweet.

I've seen Allen make that throw at Wyoming before. Great pass!

I don't want to hear anything about Allen's passing accuracy. That was a perfect TD pass. PERFECT! You have to guess that ball. Oh and now a nice Allen TD run coming back.

Agree on his first couple of throws but that last one was outstanding. he fit the ball into a very small window. Our guys have to make that catch.