Barnwell: Progress Report on 2018 1st Round QBs

[freddyjj]

9 minutes ago, LBSeeBallLBGetBall said:

The only thing I care about is his completion percentage as that stat relates directly to his accuracy. My hope is that for the rest of the season, he learns to check down for 6 yards on 3rd and long. He won't get the first down but his completion percentage will be acceptable, and that's all that matters.

I thought winning was all that matters.  ?

 

 

[CincyBillsFan]

3 hours ago, thenorthremembers said:

Ill summarize for those who dont want to waste their time:

 

Allen:  He isnt as good as Tyrod Taylor, why did the Bills bother.  (Comparing a rookie and a 8+ Year Veteran pretty much negates his entire argument)

Allen Summary:  He has to be more accurate, his wideouts aren't good but it's not their fault they have a 2nd in the NFL drop rate of 5.4

 

Darnold Summary: His offensive line is bad, his supporting cast, and coaches all suck.  It isnt Darnold's fault they have a 4. whatever percent drop rate.  Darnold needs a better supporting cast:

 

Jackson Summary:  Jackson is going to get hurt running so much, and he needs to stop turning the ball over so much

 

Mayfield Summary: Baker is already a Franchise QB

 

Rosen Summary: He really doesnt deserve all the negativity.  He is on his 2nd coordinator and has so many injuries on his team.  His scheme makes him suck, but man look at how good his footwork is.   He will be so much better next year.

 

Overall Summary:  I really liked Mayfield, Darnold and Rosen coming out and didnt like Jackson or Allen.

 

Wow your overall summary hit the nail on the head!  That's exactly what my take on reading this was.  I thought his description of Rosen was especially embarrassing. 

[QCity]

It's a fair assessment of Allen. It's probably not what fans want to hear, but it's fair.

[John from Riverside]

Is it too late to jump into this....or have all the insults already been spoken for?

[DuckyBoys]

You guys prefer a 6 yard check down on 3rd and long vs attempting to get the conversion?  You must have loved Trent Edwards at qb  Nothing drove me more crazy than watching Trent/Tyrod settle for a check down and punt especially late in the game when time was running out.  That Jags playoff game made me want to smash the tv watching Taylor never give a guy a shot and making the play. 

[LB3]

1 minute ago, John from Riverside said:

Is it too late to jump into this....or have all the insults already been spoken for?

Welcome to the party.

[blacklabel]

8 minutes ago, PetermanThrew5Picks said:

ESPN is pretty crappy journalism. But I think most of the national media consensus (post Allen injury games) is they were wrong in their initial assessment (if they doubted) and he does have enormous potential if not admitting that JA has already materialized much potential into genuine talent already in his rookie season.

 

I thought the Ringer article, which is much a better journalism source, someone posted last week did a great job admitting their notions of JA were smashed by his recent performances and it was pretty high praise for JA. Naturally we smashed the article for not knowing JA was great the second he was drafted.. I mean even when they do show change in pre-conceived notions we dismiss it haha. I agree quality journalism shouldn't hold onto pre-conceived notions, and they often do hold onto them.. but that's not to say it isn't out there if you look past ESPN and other mega media conglomerates that don't really bother with writing as a revenue stream.. preferring videos (angry runs lol) instead.

 

Good insight. Yeah, I'm not saying ALL the writers/broadcasters/bloggers, etc. stay stuck on their initial assessments. And it is nice to see people coming off of previous opinions based on what a player shows them on the field. But there are definitely those types that wanna be right so badly that even when faced with concrete evidence negating their point, they still dig their heels in and try to push their view. What Barnwell wrote kinda struck me like that. To not acknowledge that he's been the entire offense for three straight games is either lazy, ignorant or both. And I also think the expectations placed on young players are unrealistic at times. If a player is drafted who was seen as a "game changer" for instance, comes in and struggles in his first few games, you'll see the bust label being thrown around like crazy. There's just such a huge lack of patience to allow young players to grow and gain experience. I'm glad the Bills decided to dedicate a whole season to allowing young core players to get experience. Hopefully it pays off in the future and we can have that sustained success McBeane is after.

[John from Riverside]

3 minutes ago, QCity said:

It's a fair assessment of Allen. It's probably not what fans want to hear, but it's fair.

It absolutely is not fair...not the way Barnwell is doing it.

[C.Biscuit97]

7 minutes ago, PetermanThrew5Picks said:

haha ya think? That's what I was saying. Especially being on the forum exposes you to reinforcing bias, even subconsciously. You read 100 different posters regurgitating the same thoughts you'll think "huh they're probably right" and then you make 101 regurgitating that thought. And on and on the self reinforcement cycle goes. We go bananas over EJ and JP and Tyrod early, and follow the mob when it starts to turn.. but ONLY when 40-50% of posters hop on does the snowball start rolling to the opposite side where Tyrod doesn't even belong in the league to some.. silly thought. All leads to a total black and white perspective.

Haha, good post.  I was the biggest homer on this board. I defended everything the Bills did and would just argue about how wrong the negative people were.  I’ve gotten to a place in life where I just want to see it.  So yeah, the 56% passer from the Moutbain West who is now a 52% passer worried me a bit.  But I also see the amazing physical skills and genuinely hope he puts it all together.   

 

I guess the other way ot look at this is how do Bills fans feel about Rosen?  Because I’m sure it is a lot more negative than Cards fans feel.  

[LSHMEAB]

1 minute ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

Haha, good post.  I was the biggest homer on this board. I defended everything the Bills did and would just argue about how wrong the negative people were.  I’ve gotten to a place in life where I just want to see it.  So yeah, the 56% passer from the Moutbain West who is now a 52% passer worried me a bit.  But I also see the amazing physical skills and genuinely hope he puts it all together.   

 

I guess the other way ot look at this is how do Bills fans feel about Rosen?  Because I’m sure it is a lot more negative than Cards fans feel.  

I haven't seen one flash sequence from Rosen. That's alarming at this stage of the season.

[CincyBillsFan]

1 hour ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

1) I was very to move on from Tyrod.  I think the national people saw a qb who helped us get to the playoffs and played effective football.  Obviously, we knew how limited Tyrod was and it was time to move on.  But as of this point, Allen was not an upgrade to Tyrod but obviously he has time to develop.  But to outside people, it looks like a dumb move.

 

2). How much better was the cast last year?  Obviously the line was better but this year has Zay in his second year.  I think both offensive groups are bad but I don’t see it being a huge upgrade one way or the other.

 

5). How do Bills fans feel about Rosen?  Because he is ahead of Allen on most passing stats but I’m sure we don’t think he is having a good rookie year.  So that’s how a lot of people probably think when they look at Allen.

 

i freely admit I wasn’t a fan of the pick.  I hate the upside, not super productive (especially in a low conference) guy.  They terrify me.  But I love the Bills and want him to be great.  But I’m not just going to pretend.  He is pretty much who I thought he would be (he is way faster though than I though).  He’s had good moments and bad ones.  Hopefully, this team gets better at finding offensive talent.  But I certainly can understand why people outside of Bills fans don’t think he i special right now.  I hope he makes them all eat their words but it hasn’t happen yet.

 

I'll take a stab at responding to these 3 points Biscuit:

 

1)  The truth of the matter is that the QB who got us into the playoffs last year was named Andy Dalton. 

 

2)  The O-line was MUCH better.  The WORST type of pressure a QB can face is when it comes right up the middle.  Losing your two BEST O-linemen who happen to play guard & center guaranteed that Allen would face problems up the gut that Tyrod didn't have to deal with.  One can only imagine how much better Allen's passing stats would be if he could reliably step up into a pocket to make his throws. 

 

5)  I think that Allen has significantly outperformed Rosen to date.  He's shown himself to be a better passer and a much better runner and leader. 

[thebandit27]

1 hour ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

http://www.maxpreps.com/m/career/gendersport/stats.aspx?careerid=d629a44c-eff4-e211-99e4-002655e6c126&gendersport=boys,football

high school 54%

 

http://www.cccaasports.org/sports/fball/2014-15/players/joshuaallen0oal

juco - 49%

 

https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/josh-allen-7.html

wyoming - 56%

 

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/A/AlleJo02.htm

Bills - 52.4%

 

if he improves as passer, he can be special.  But stop acting like it’s some conspiracy that he struggles with his accuracy.

 

 

 

 

We can beat completion percentage to death, and before I go any further, let me make it clear that I believe that he needs to become more consistent with his short and mid-range throws.

 

That said, I continue to ask this question, same as I've been asking it since March: have you seen a critical play on which Allen needed to put the ball somewhere and couldn't do it?  The impression that I continue to get is that he can make the ball go where it needs to go when it needs to go there.

 

The vast majority of his problems come when he tries to do too much , and the next largest percentage of his mistakes come when he rushes short or mid-range boundary throws.  My hope for him is that he can learn to make better decisions (which, like I've said, I know rookies-gonna-rookie and all that) and continue to refine his lower-body mechanics.

[CincyBillsFan]

First thanks for linking to this article.  I don't seek out national sports writers to read because I find them to generally be pretty piss poor at their job.  So if I don't see it here on Two Bills Drive then I don't see it.  And like others have said it is good to get outside our comfort zones and check out what others are saying about our team and our new QB.

 

But when I read one of these articles I look to see if there are statements delivered as "fact" that I know from my own observations are not.  And this article is full of them.  A few of my issues with Barwell's summary of the rookie QB's:

 

*  I don't like that he supposedly looked at only the last 2 games closely and presumably didn't look at all their games closely.  So what the hell is that supposed to tell us?  The MOST IMPORTANT aspect of a rookie QB IMO is whether they are getting better and making progress.  By definition his "analysis" can't answer that critical question. 

 

*  His take on the throw to Clay at the end of the game against the Dolphins was flat out wrong.  That Clay stood there flat footed in the end zone moving to the ball to late; then stumbling so what little movement he made was to little; and then not caching a ball that hit him square in the hands is the correct description of that play.  And I'm not seeing it through rose tinted pro Allen glasses to say that. 

 

*  After finishing his biased take on Allen I dove into his take on Darnold and right away was disappointed.  If this guy ONLY looked at the last 2 games then how can he make a big deal about the lack of pass protection for Darnold and not Allen.  I mean he just watched a game where Allen was HIT TEN TIMES by the Jets and Darnold was not touched ONCE by a Bill. 

 

I could go on but it's a waste of electronic letters to further react to this guy. 

 

BTW, I have no problem with objective criticism of Allen.  I agree with those who say he has a LOT OF WORK to do and that there are elements of his game that need to improve.  But that being said it's not "homerism" to believe we may have found the franchise QB that has eluded us for 20 years.  Allen remains a work in progress and he may fall short of expectations but right now he's improving by the game and has already showed us stuff that qualifies as a big fat wow!

[DCOrange]

2 hours ago, HappyDays said:

 

Then why didn't he compare the other rookie QBs to their predecessors? I guess you could call Sam Darnold a less impressive version of Josh McCown but that would be a pretty ridiculous take. I think Barnwell is still trying to force his point about Tyrod Taylor being better than Bills fans thought. Again I don't care if he doesn't see Allen making progress, even though I strongly disagree, but his take on it was lazy.

 

The Bills moved on from what was viewed as a roughly average starting QB after making the playoffs, and they moved on from Tyrod to a guy that's playing basically a more aggressive style of what Tyrod did. The fact that Bills fans clamored for Buffalo to move on from Tyrod because they wanted more of a passer and they have subsequently ended up with a QB that is currently more dependent on his running ability than Tyrod ever was makes for an interesting comparison between the two. The Jets moved on from a bad journeyman QB. The Cardinals moved on from a guy that retired. The Browns moved on from a collection of horrific QBs. The Ravens are running a completely different style of offense with Lamar vs. Flacco so it's difficult to really make any comparison whatsoever. It's probably more accurate to compare Lamar to guys like Kaepernick and Tyrod, which is what he did.

[stony]

Just read the article. Halfway through I thought two things 1) He’s right 2) Can’t wait to read this thread. In summary, it has not disappointed. 

[BillnutinHouston]

4 hours ago, RalphWilson'sNewWar said:

As a joke I was going to start to call Allen...Taller Tyrod.

 

results still don’t seem to feel much different.   Under 300 yard thrower with running numbers.  Only 1-2 Tds a game.  Offense still at the bottom of the league in offense and scoring.  1-2 deep balls a game and those are usually incomplete.

 

thats Taylor as a veteran and Allen as a rookie.  Which I guess is a positive as Allen as rookie is producing like Taylor as a vet.

 

excpet for completion percentage which Taylor has him on.

Since you are tempted to think of Allen in terms of how he compares to last year's QB, does your analysis take into account changes to the starting OL between last year and this?

[Phil The Thrill]

6 hours ago, DCOrange said:

The Josh Allen section is too long IMO to quote the whole thing, but it's the very first section of the article.

 

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/25518645/rookie-nfl-quarterback-progress-reports-2018-draft-picks-shown-far

 

Shocking....Bill Barnwell the SJW trashed Josh Allen and praised Lamar Smith

[DuckyBoys]

14 minutes ago, DCOrange said:

 

The Bills moved on from what was viewed as a roughly average starting QB after making the playoffs, and they moved on from Tyrod to a guy that's playing basically a more aggressive style of what Tyrod did. The fact that Bills fans clamored for Buffalo to move on from Tyrod because they wanted more of a passer and they have subsequently ended up with a QB that is currently more dependent on his running ability than Tyrod ever was makes for an interesting comparison between the two. The Jets moved on from a bad journeyman QB. The Cardinals moved on from a guy that retired. The Browns moved on from a collection of horrific QBs. The Ravens are running a completely different style of offense with Lamar vs. Flacco so it's difficult to really make any comparison whatsoever. It's probably more accurate to compare Lamar to guys like Kaepernick and Tyrod, which is what he did.

Only thing Taylor and Allen has in common is both run for yards  Taylor protected the ball was super conservative and never tried to fit in/throw receivers open. Allen is aggressive sometimes too much so but has show ability to throw guys open and fit the football into coverage

[Alphadawg7]

1 hour ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

Look, brother. I respect your opinion a lot.  I want you and everyone to be right.  This has become a political debate or telling someone their baby is ugly.  I want to be wrong and Allen to be a 60% passer.  Personally, when I see a long track record of something, it worries me. I’m sure people could breakdown why Jake Locker wasnt really inaccurate too.  But at some point, you just need to see it on the field.  

 

No one questions Allen’s physical ability and want to.  But at some point, stop making excuses, and just become a more accurate qb. He has time and I hope he is just blaming other people for why his % has been lower.

 

And there is reasons to not be convinced, your opinion is valid.  Don’t want you to think I’m trying to ram an opinion down your throat or anything.  He has plenty of work to do in order to become a true franchise cornerstone.  

 

My main point is the stat sheet doesn’t always tell the whole story.  And with Josh, that is certainly a significant part of his story as there is quite a bit of context that gets left out when only looking at stat sheets..  HS he wasn’t fully committed to football as he played multiple sports.  At Wyoming his cast around him was atrocious and it certainly factored in to his stat sheet comp %.  

 

Most importantly for me is the significant improvements he has made in relatively short windows with better coaching for the NFL.  In the offseason, he worked on his mechanics before the combine and it vastly improved and made him blow people’s minds.  Then he came into camp and showed he was much more capable of playing early than many originally believed.  Then he came back after injury looking again like a different QB making very noticeable strides while away.

 

This is why I think his history is irrelevant.  When has he ever had the opportunity to really be coached up?  In a year since his last Wyoming game he has gone from a guy who everyone said wouldnt be ready to play for a year or two, a guy who supposedly couldn’t hit the broad side of the barn...to a guy who should be 6-2 as a starter if not for Clay and ST costing us two wins.  

 

When I watch him play, I don’t see a guy that’s remotely close to as inaccurate as the detractors proclaim.  I see a guy carrying a terrible offense from a personnel standpoint who keeps seeing penalties and drops negate big plays, down and long situations constantly because of penalties or the inability to gain yards by our RBs.  Where his WRs can’t even get open consistently unless they are adjusting to Allen running for his life.  

 

Let’s face it, him getting to over 60% comp right now is a matter of a couple more throws a game being caught.  Factor in how many throw always under constant pressure and flat out drops he has per game...factor in how many completions are erased by penalties.  Factor in how many low percentage deep shots we are forced into on 3rd and very long.  Factor in how many times he is hit while throwing.  And it’s pretty easy to see there is a lot going on besides just his personal accuracy that keep him lower on the stat sheet.

 

What I don’t see is a lot of passes that are just flat out awful and inaccurate.  Does he make some, sure, and he needs to keep working on the fundamentals to reduce them.  But it’s no more than I would expect from any rookie QB and even the best QBs in the NFL miss throws.  But because of the narrative without context with Allen, those get unnecessarily magnified for Allen.

 

Its all good man, and I respect you as a poster too.

 

 

Edited December 13, 2018 by Alphadawg7

[stony]

2 minutes ago, Phil The Thrill said:

 

Shocking....Bill Barnwell the SJW trashed Josh Allen and praised Lamar Smith

Sweet take. Nothing like throwing a good ole SJW take into an article you didn’t like.