Josh Allen: A fawn in headlights

[LABILLBACKER]

25 minutes ago, MDH said:

 

He turned his back to the LoS consistently and tried to run backwards at the first sign of any pressure. He had pockets to step into plenty of times and failed to do so. That is the definition of rattled.

 

People don't want to admit what their eyes are seeing because they cross their fingers (and close their eyes) and hope he ends up being good. I hope he ends up being a fantastic QB too but it doesn't prevent me from seeing the obvious - the kid looked in way over his head yesterday and was rattled from the 2nd quarter on.

 

This team is going to ruin Allen (cue all the fans who claim you can't ruin a QB) by instilling in him the idea he can't stay in the pocket and has to continually break out to make plays. He did this at Wyoming and he's doing it here. His footwork (which is the cause of his inaccuracy) is never going to improve under these conditions.

 

I'd rather suffer an entire season with Peterman than throw Allen in there and destroy his confidence and hinder his ability to improve his footwork.

 

And if the Bills insist on sticking with him, for the love of God establish a running game and set up a screen game that can build his confidence little by little. 

One thing I have noticed early on is he's not very accurate rolling to his right, which is a major concern. 

[fridge]

9 minutes ago, RussellDopeland said:

"Toe-to-toe with the Patriots through the air". Okay....we know you're on a crusade here, but....REALLY?! By going "toe-to-toe" with the Pats, Chan's prolific offense managed to lose to NE by such margins as 34-3 (2010), 49-21 (2011), 52-28 (2012). Yes, there was that the win at home in 2011; but overall Gailey was 1-5 against NE, and the Bills never exceeded 372 points in any of his three years as coach, whereas the Patriots exceeded 500 points each of those three years. And for reference- the Bills scored overall 300 points in 2013-14 (post-Gailey), under arguably the worst offensive coordinator in franchise history (Nate Hackett).

 

Oh...and Chan's "worse group" consisted of the likes of Stevie Johnson, David Nelson, Donald Jones, Naman Roosevelt, Scott Chandler and two great receiving backs (Fred Jackson, Spiller), with linemen such as Eric Wood, Andy Levitre, Kraig Urbik, Cordy Glenn, Eric Pears, Incognito, Chad Rhinehart. And you consider that group worse? Oh well......back to your crusade!

 

What crusade am I on exactly?

 

I said at least it was exciting to watch.  You highlighted three blowouts he had against NE. Newsflash EVERY ONE OF OUR COACHES HAS BEEN BLOWN OUT BY NE.  His one win and other close shootout loss were probably two of the most exciting Bills games of the last 20 years - and not even because they were particularly fantastic, but because we looked like a modern NFL offense.

 

That offense was more exciting. If you disagree, you're the one on a crusade.

[VW82]

1 hour ago, teef said:

Fading...we know how you feel about him. You and a few other posters have him pegged as a day one bust, and so be it. Every time you see a poor performance from this rookie, these types of posts will come out. 

 

I dont think hunk he lost poise at all. He just wasn’t good. As others have mentioned, he makes big mistakes when he tries to carry the team, and the game needs to slow down. It’s going to take time. I’m more shocked about the general idea that some fans are expecting high end qb play now. His development is going to take time. We all knew it. Now we just have to hear the whining until or if it happens. 

 

Literally no one is expecting high end QB play from this kid in this situation. The issue is he was historically bad yesterday. The oline and WRs didn't help things, but Allen made every mistake at every opportunity, and provided zero play making for the team. It was just a series of negative plays, one after another, until the last five minutes when he finally put together a couple of meager drives to inflate his numbers.

 

Until that point he was 9/24 for 13 net passing yards and 2 INTs. I don't think it's overreacting to be surprised and disappointed to see that his floor can be this low. Good QBs, regardless of where they are in their development or if they're having a bad day, just don't have days that look as bad as Allen did yesterday, not unless they're playing an all time great defense or something which we weren't. Wash offense put up 31 points on GB last week

Edited October 1, 2018 by VW82

[Wayne Arnold]

38 minutes ago, ngbills said:

Yes he looks lost at times. I can accept that.

His presence when he is under pressure looked ok last week but was awful this week. I can handle that too.

What I am most concerned with is the accuracy issues. He will still just flat out miss some throws. I am hopeful he gets better, but sometimes if that is the report on the guy it just is what it is. 
 

 

Accuracy is literally the least of my worries regarding Allen. Always been extremely overblown. He’s a very accurate thrower.

 

Allen’s issues are and always have been mental.

[PlayoffsPlease]

40 minutes ago, MDH said:

 

He turned his back to the LoS consistently and tried to run backwards at the first sign of any pressure. He had pockets to step into plenty of times and failed to do so. That is the definition of rattled.

 

People don't want to admit what their eyes are seeing because they cross their fingers (and close their eyes) and hope he ends up being good. I hope he ends up being a fantastic QB too but it doesn't prevent me from seeing the obvious - the kid looked in way over his head yesterday and was rattled from the 2nd quarter on.

 

This team is going to ruin Allen (cue all the fans who claim you can't ruin a QB) by instilling in him the idea he can't stay in the pocket and has to continually break out to make plays. He did this at Wyoming and he's doing it here. His footwork (which is the cause of his inaccuracy) is never going to improve under these conditions.

 

I'd rather suffer an entire season with Peterman than throw Allen in there and destroy his confidence and hinder his ability to improve his footwork.

 

And if the Bills insist on sticking with him, for the love of God establish a running game and set up a screen game that can build his confidence little by little. 

You last sentence assumes he does not have confidence. How do you know this. 

[teef]

2 minutes ago, VW82 said:

 

Literally no one is expecting high end QB play from this kid in this situation. The issue is he was historically bad yesterday. The oline and WRs didn't help things, but Allen made every mistake at every opportunity, and provided zero play making for the team. It was just a series of negative plays, one after another, until the last five minutes when he finally put together a couple of meager drives to inflate his numbers.

 

Until that point he was 9/24 for 13 net passing yards and 2 INTs. I don't think it's overreacting to be surprised and disappointed to see that his floor can be this low. Good QBs, regardless of where they are in their development or if they're having a bad day, just don't have days that look as bad as Allen did yesterday, not unless they're playing an all time great defense or something.

for the 1000th time, i said his play wasn't good yesterday.  the entire team was historically bad.  i don't think the team was bad because of allen, but he didn't help elevate them either.  if you want to use yesterday's game as to who allen will be in the future, go ahead.  as i've said, i think we're going to seem some vikings games good, and some green bay bad.  he just needs to limit mistakes and develop.  if you don't want to wait to see if that happens, i'm not sure what to tell you.

[dave mcbride]

3 hours ago, LSHMEAB said:

The fact of the matter is that Allen may very well not be the guy.

 

For all the excuses, Allen did not look the part. There was an errant throw early in the game that I could have sworn I saw Aaron Rodgers literally shaking his head at. Now it could have been a coincidence that Rodgers and a teammate were laughing about something else, but it was BAD. I believe it was intended for Clay.

 

Allen is going to be the guy this season, but there's a very real chance we struck out on this pick. If that's the case, the sooner the regime accepts it, the better. We did a pretty good job of cutting our losses with Manuel.

Well, Rogers threw about 10 genuinely errant passes himself yesterday ...

[iinii]

1 hour ago, leh-nerd skin-erd said:

I dont know, I think the book needs to be written on him. He's been out there for 3.5 games straight and only looked good in one of them.  I'd scuttle the whole experiment. 

Rinse, repeat?

[ghostwriter]

4 hours ago, teef said:

i didn't think he looked rattled at all.  he made some dumb mistakes, but the entire team was off, not just allen.  i'm expecting to see more stinkers like this this season.

Thanks for being a voice of reason, Jared Goff and Carson Wentz, two of arguably the hottest QBs in the league right now did not post crazy numbers as rookies. Allen is going to have to take his lumps, it's a good thing he's out there though, he just has to learn on the job.

 

The physical tools are tremendous though, arm strength, mobility, extremely hard to bring down. He absolutely has no help at all, nobody.

[Fadingpain]

8 minutes ago, dave mcbride said:

Well, Rogers threw about 10 genuinely errant passes himself yesterday ...

He had a really off day, but he's injured.  

 

He made a bad throw on one play and the camera zoomed in on his face for like 8 seconds after the play ended.  He was just laughing/smiling the entire time, as if to say "I can't believe I just threw that pass that poorly."

 

The difference, of course, is that the jury is not out on Rodgers.  We know his quality.

 

 

[GunnerBill]

3 hours ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

Are we sure the underneath stuff IS coming open at all?

 

I havent seen an all-22, but it sure seems like he's looking at those quick reads first, seeing everyone is covered, and instead of throwing the ball away he's trying to move on to a deep, last resort option.

 

There are times when it is not but there are times when it is. The thing with short stuff with average and worse receivers is you are generally going into congested areas and if you wait until it is open you have already missed your window to throw because they won't stay open long. 

 

Josh needs to be more decisive, get the ball out quicker and throw with anticipation. It isn't easy this stuff.... being an NFL Quarterback is hard... but it is 3 starts 1 mediocre, 1 good, 1 bad. That is the life of a rookie especially one whose biggest supporters at draft time even accepted was more raw than the other three top 10 guys. 

 

This still has a long way to play out. I am going to be very interested in how he responds against the Titans. I am trying to watch the games differently this year. On offense it is all about Allen and Dawkins, on D I am trying to key in on Edmunds, Milano, Taron Johnson (solid again yesterday), Tre White and Phillips when he is out there. Those are the guys that matter. They are the building blocks for this football team. 

[Domdab99]

This is stupid....he doesn't look rattled, he looks frustrated. 

[teef]

2 minutes ago, NewDayBills said:

Thanks for being a voice of reason, Jared Goff and Carson Wentz, two of arguably the hottest QBs in the league right now did not post crazy numbers as rookies. Allen is going to have to take his lumps, it's a good thing he's out there though, he just has to learn on the job.

 

The physical tools are tremendous though, arm strength, mobility, extremely hard to bring down. He absolutely has no help at all, nobody.

he doesn't have it easy this year, but i'm fine with that.  before coming into this season, i think most of us realized 2 things:  it was going to be a very down year, and that allen was going to take time to develop.  literally almost everyone predicted this, and now that it's happening, people are outraged.  

[VW82]

17 minutes ago, teef said:

for the 1000th time, i said his play wasn't good yesterday.  the entire team was historically bad.  i don't think the team was bad because of allen, but he didn't help elevate them either.  if you want to use yesterday's game as to who allen will be in the future, go ahead.  as i've said, i think we're going to seem some vikings games good, and some green bay bad.  he just needs to limit mistakes and develop.  if you don't want to wait to see if that happens, i'm not sure what to tell you.

 

I never said anything about not waiting. What are you talking about?

 

I have no doubt Allen will have days that look more like the Vikings game. He clearly has some talent. The issue is what's his variance game to game, and what's that going to look like when he's closer to a finished product. Contrary to what people say, these early games are a decent indication of what we're going to get from him, both good and bad. One of the things we learned yesterday is Allen is capable of coming completely unglued against a very average (some might say bad outside of Rodgers) team. So although yes we will likely see more Vikings-like performances, odds are really good we'll also see some resembling this game against the Packers. You seem to be acknowledging this.

 

I think it's a problem to have a QB who is so inconsistent week to week (i.e. his highs are so far removed from his lows). That variance is tough to count on. Allen needs to figure out how to stop the bleeding when things aren't going well, something Peterman couldn't do. Yesterday's game can't ever happen again. At least not THAT bad. Sinking that low in your level of play isn't acceptable. For any QB. Ever. It's just a really, really bad sign for him. That's all I'm saying. 

Edited October 1, 2018 by VW82

[teef]

2 minutes ago, VW82 said:

 

I never said anything about not waiting. What are you talking about?

 

I have no doubt Allen will have days that look more like the Vikings game. He clearly has some talent. The issue is what's his variance game to game, and what's that going to look like when he's closer to a finished product. Contrary to what people say, these early games are a decent indication of what we're going to get from him, both good and bad. One of the things we learned yesterday is Allen is capable of coming completely unglued against a very average (some might say bad outside of Rodgers) team. So although yes we will likely see more Vikings-like performances, odds are really good we'll also see some resembling this game against the Packers. You seem to be acknowledging this.

 

I think it's a problem to have a QB who is so inconsistent week to week (i.e. his highs are so far removed from his lows). That variance is tough to count on. Allen needs to figure out how to stop the bleeding when things aren't going well, something Peterman couldn't do. Yesterday's game can't ever happen again. At least not THAT bad. Sinking that low in your level of play isn't acceptable. For QB. Ever. It's just a really, really bad sign for him. That's all I'm saying. 

i guess this is the difference of opinion.  i don't think he came unglued at all.  it's not that things got worse as time went on...they just weren't good from the get go.  not that's a positive in any way, but it was evident he was trying too hard, and in the process making some big mistaken.  he absolutely does need to be more consistent.  from day one i really felt this season was to see if allen can show that.  i have no idea if he can.

 

sorry for the not waiting comment.  i think i was mixed up in a couple of different comments.

[GunnerBill]

8 minutes ago, teef said:

he doesn't have it easy this year, but i'm fine with that.  before coming into this season, i think most of us realized 2 things:  it was going to be a very down year, and that allen was going to take time to develop.  literally almost everyone predicted this, and now that it's happening, people are outraged.  

 

Not sure people are outraged (beyond the odd one). But even those of us who expected it to be bad are still going to comment on games and say "that was bad." What is the alternative? Don't comment on any games until week 10 or week 12 because we all knew this was a development year for our young players? 

 

I expected this season to be bad, yesterday was really bad, so when commenting on the game there are going to be negatives. Equally it isn't time to freak out. I don't see much freaking out either to be honest. 

[HappyDays]

2 hours ago, AllenWillBust said:

 

What Bills fan is happy right now?  The drunken ones?

 

Are Jets fans happy with Darnold so far? I think you would know better than anyone here.

2 hours ago, Wayne Arnold said:

“His receivers can’t get separation! He has no one to throw to!”

 

 

 

Yep and when Allen hits similar tight window throws to Andre Holmes or Zay Jones or Kelvin Benjamin they can't hang on. His best throws this season have almost all been incompletions.

[Wayne Arnold]

46 minutes ago, OrediggerPoke said:

 

Frankly,  I think he did ok against the Packers at Lambeau given the circumstances. 

 

Oh my.

[HappyDays]

1 hour ago, Fadingpain said:

If we had a competent, calming influence at backup QB (we don't) I think we would have seen him for the 2nd half.

 

Do you feel the same way about Darnold? Should McCown have taken over at halftime yesterday? Once the rookie is named the starter they remain the starter. If every rookie that had a bad half was pulled none of them would ever develop. This is typical overreaction to a single game.

[thebandit27]

3 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I'm not convinced he sees the underneath and short stuff coming open quickly yet. Game still needs to slow down. At the moment it must be like a complete blur for him.

 

No doubt