Dr. Who

I thought your response to what appeared to me a rather thoughtful post was pithy and dismissive. It's just easy to respond to a long post with a brief pejorative. Possibly you didn't intend that. I think Allen's performance is not properly gauged by statistics. I think that was the main point of the other fella's post. I'm personally not bothered by "bottom-dwelling" because I believe much of that is due to surrounding talent and a rookie qb who is still learning to read NFL defenses. No doubt, Allen has to improve. I think it is likely he will and you don't. I am not an analytics guy and maybe your pessimism will prove correct. I think the team believes in Allen. I think they think he's going to be a good one and probaby have a better feel than what the numbers are saying right now.

Greg Little appears to have the most upside, though folks question his desire to actually play football. I've read that Williams is better suited to play Guard in the pros. It's not evident there is a top LT in the draft. Oliver is supposedly undersized and possibly a bit of a headcase. I'm not terribly keen on any of these fellas.

I think you're dismissing a pretty cogent argument with facile generalization that simply ignores and thus leaves unaddressed the reasonable points offered.

I'd sorta like to move Dawkins inside to LG and draft a potentially better LT as I think Dawkins is just okay there. Not sure if Jonah Williams or Greg Little are worth taking a chance on in the draft though. In general, I like your thinking. Personally, I like Metcalf if his neck injury is not a perduring issue.

Well, he's not seeing the field like a veteran qb. I'm still glad he isn't instinctively a checkdown qb. We've had plenty of those over the years. I don't think there is anyone on this board who doesn't think Allen needs to develop and improve his game. Just as you are irritated by perceived pedantry, others are irritated when a predraft narrative about inaccuracy results in false conclusions such as Allen has shown no growth over the course of his rookie season. Decision making needs to improve, but he simply isn't "wildly inaccurate" and his numbers would be considerably improved with average NFL receivers on the team.

God bless, old friend. And good for that nun!

I don't know what the psychology is behind a fan of another team who goes on other teams' message boards (not even rival teams at that, really) ostensibly just to antagonize that teams' fans. I don't think it's a good look. But giving the benefit of the doubt that your mental development is beyond that of twelve, your qb rankings also oddly seem to coincide with the level of surrounding talent on each team, which is not to detract from Mayfield's success -- he's a nice player -- but let's not pretend he'd be having the same year playing for the Cardinals.

I think if you improve the line, Shady still has value, especially if you don't ask him to be the main back. At minimum, I don't see why he couldn't be a good 3rd down back who can catch out of the backfield, etc. No rb would have success behind our current oline. Clay looks beat up and played out to me. TE ought to be a reliable safety valve for a young qb, so I hope draft and free agency is used to upgrade the position.

Nah, we want instant gratification and if we can't have that, instant certitude that usually amounts to OBD is stupid.

Allen had a few decent players on his 2016 team. 2017 Wyoming team was very similar to his rookie Buffalo Bills' experience. He was asked to carry the team with very little support around him. Without him, Wyoming was a bad college team. With him, they won games. Imo, you're too driven by stats which I'm sure you are aware can be misleading outside of context. In any event, it will be much more clear what we have in Allen next year, presuming the front office makes at least decent use of draft and free agency to upgrade the woeful talent on offense. (I am agnostic on Daboll. I am still an arrow up fella on Allen.) Tate and DK Metcalf would be nice additions to WR corps.

Let's see what happens when you surround Allen with competent offensive players. He won't be running a WCO, so higher risk passes and fewer "long hand-offs" will always result in somewhat lower completion percentage. I don't judge franchise qb by completion percentage alone, but by how effectively they lead a team. I expect Allen's completion percentage will improve when the abundance of missed opportunities become a reasonable amount of catches. But I'm not seeing significant inaccuracy now (I already explained why not and you reiterated Juco, Wyoming, and rookie season), so I don't expect to see Allen get worse with better players around him.

He's not wildy inaccurate. He's making passes average NFL receivers ought to catch most of the time. The reason folks are "making excuses" is critics keep falsely looking at Wyoming completion percentage as "proof" the guy has an accuracy problem. He has a "touch" problem that strong-armed rookie qbs often have. And is it true or not that the oline, rb, wr, and te are basically bad on this team? Rosenites excuse far worse performance because supposedly no talent -- Larry Fitzgerald is now slow and done (he probably is, but at least you can count on him to catch the ball when it's in proximity to his hands), David Johnson is apparently negligible, etc. But folks who think Allen is a potential franchise qb are gullible (though one can forgive them for being dopes because fans of team) . . .

Nedboy has White Dwarf syndrome.

You really think Whaley was calling the shots in that draft?

Clay this year is a broken down old war horse. I agree about the penumbra of Heisman hype still attached to Jackson, but there's also hangover from the analytics crowd who are going to resist saying nice things about Allen until his play is so overwhelmingly good that they have no choice.

Personally, I prefer the old Hays code movies where the bad guys end up dead or in jail.

Honestly, I am compelled to agree with you ?

You're bordering on crusade territory. Using terms like always and never are usually clues to straw men arguments. Ardent Allen fans still claim he needs to develop. No one here ever claimed he doesn't miss passes. For the most part, Bills fans that I have read do not think Jackson can sustain effectiveness. Most acknowledge his current success, do they not? If you think Lamar is on par with Allen in terms of potential in the passing game, your criteria and evaluative capacity is vastly different than my own. I'll side with 716, in any event. Ravens have a better line and more weapons. Their D is smothering. I surmise the comment on "good in college or something" is meant to contrast Allen at Wyoming with Jackson at Louisville. Taken in context, Allen significantly raised the play of a bad Wyoming team. Compare their record when he played and when he didn't, but so what? Going forward, we'll see how they turn out at the pro level.

Seriously, who is claiming certitude?

Yep. Allen is the polar opposite of Russell's apathy.

Folks who dislike Allen tend to bring up Russell because strong arm and Locker because mainly a runner with a fairly strong arm who flamed out at the NFL level. Some fella reached into the way back vault to mention Bobby Douglass. Allen has shown tangible improvement as the year has progressed. At this point, everyone is projecting. That's the nature of looking at a rookie qb and assessing the future. Since one is forced to imagine a potential becoming an actuality, part of that process is imagining where a player might top out if all goes well. So sorry you dislike the term ceiling. I think Allen has a good chance to be top five. He might fail, but I don't think skepticism is any more rational than my own views. You're free to think otherwise.

Rosen throws a fair number of batted balls, for whatever reason.

If both Rosen and Allen hit their ceilings, Allen will turn out the better player.

I'm not agruing that Allen doesn't need to improve as a passer. I do think his inaccuracy is exaggerated by his critics. His actual play has improved to the point where one can plausibly argue that he is elevating the play of the team around him to a degree. My optimism about Allen, however, is not based on his current level of play, but on projection and on the assumption that the talent level around him will be significantly increased. One can project Rosen to improve a lot with better coaching and players around him, but right now, just based on his play, he looks bad. I watched the first half of his game against a lackluster and injury depleted Atlanta Falcons' defense and he threw a pick six, another int, and fumbled. All contributed to Atlanta points. I can certainly understand why Rosen would be dejected and his line is atrocious. All the same, he simply did not have any fire or a hint of leadership. So to reiterate my main assertion, based on current play alone, Allen is ahead of Rosen.

Of course, two years from now, no one will have to speculate. We'll simply know who is working out and who is a miss. Imo, the analytics fellas who were high on Rosen before the draft are going to continue to favor him despite his generally poor performance, albeit with suasive mitigating factors. Basically, any ranking that has Rosen ahead of Allen is a continuation of pre-draft judgment, because the actual football play should favor Allen. Since returning from injury, Allen's play is arrow up; Rosen's is not.