transplantbillsfan Posted January 17, 2019 Author Posted January 17, 2019 4 hours ago, VW82 said: Ok so taking the lower left chart as example, would you agree that one of the dots in the red bulls eye is more accurate than one of the dots in the white space? My interpretation is fine. You're making the same mistake as OP in assuming that there are no degrees of accuracy. It's harder to catch a pass at the knees or shoelaces (where you have to bend down to get it) than one that hits you right in the chest. One pass is more accurate than the other. I'm not saying there aren't degrees of accuracy. Of course there are. But judging and valuing those degrees is impossible, especially on the NFL's new favorite pass: the back shoulder throw. On 78.1% of Allen's passes, he gave his professional WR/TE/RB a chance to catch the football. That was 2nd to only one of the other rookie QBs in a highly touted rookie QB class. And that's while he's pushing the ball down the field more than any other QB in the NFL, not just the rookies. Yeah, I think he's 'aight.
transplantbillsfan Posted January 17, 2019 Author Posted January 17, 2019 4 hours ago, oldmanfan said: No. The dot in the red is more precise, not more accurate. That's where you're confusing the two; it's shown right in the label of the diagram. The OP talked about catchable balls. Let's take a WR numbers as the bulls eye. If the QB throws a ball that is "catchable", which I think could be be interpreted as within the catch radius, then it's accurate. But not precise. The OP should weigh in on what he considered accurate. When you say hitting a guy in the numbers consistently, that requires not just accuracy, but precision. When folks talk about fitting a ball into a tight window that's not just an accurate throw it's a precise throw. Allen can stand to be more precise for sure. as for completion percentage by the way, if he throws 30 passes the difference between 52 and 60% is about 2 passes a game. Or two drops or throwaways. I equated a catchable football with accuracy, plain and simple. Defining precision as far as exactly where the ball should have been in relation to the WRs is virtually impossible nowadays, that's why I didn't even try.
reddogblitz Posted January 17, 2019 Posted January 17, 2019 9 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said: Can you identify the passes in that clip that you don't think were catchable? No. I watched it. Most he hit the guy in the hands, but some were good D plays. Some were out of bounds etc, but I'm not going to go back and document each one. The cat needs to be more accurate to be a "franchise QB" (whatever that is). And he needs much better WRs as well. As Giselle would say, he can't throw them and catch them himself. I'm thinking thAt if someone wanted to they could put together a 5:00 vid of bad passes too. Quote whatever stats you want or videos of drops of whatever. Bottom line. He needs to be more accurate and he needs real NFL WRs too throw to. We got a whole off season to work on both. Go BILLS !! 1
transplantbillsfan Posted January 17, 2019 Author Posted January 17, 2019 5 hours ago, oldmanfan said: That's a fair interpretation. Let me try to highlight using a clinical assay, something I do every day. Say you are measuring the concentration of substance X, and you know it's 100. And you want to determine accuracy and precision. Accuracy would be how close you are to 100 over a series of measurements and is generally defined by standard deviation if the mean. So I might not have any of the ten measurements come out 100, but if the values are 95,96,97,98 99, 102,103 104 105, 106 then I am accurate and I accept my measurement because it fits within an acceptable SD. Precision is how many times out of ten measurements I hit the same number. So let's take that sample of known value 100. I do ten measurements and each is 90. I'm very precise but I can't accept that test because it is inaccurate. I agree with my friend above that it comes down to essentially what you consider the SD for a QB throws. The OP considers it (I think) within the catch radius. I think that's reasonable, you may not. But for a QB to be really good he had to combine that with hitting a specific spot reproducibly- precision. It's not an either/or necessarily; the greats need both. It wiuld be interesting to watch film with Allen and ask him where he was targeting throws; it would tell a lot about his accuracy and precision. Take one pass to Croom as an example, I think in the last game. Croom was coming over the middle, and the ball was out ahead of him by 2-3 feet. Terrible accuracy at first blush. But what if he told you he threw it exactly where he wanted, but he and Croom were not communicating on the route, he thought Croom was going to keep crossing but Croom thought he was supposed to sit down? Allen gets accused of being inaccurate because it affected his completion percentage, but in reality he threw a good ball. Interesting conversation and has made me think more about my approach to analyzing things. Or the missed TD pass in the EZ in the 1st Miami (?) game to Zay that looked like a downright terrible throw to a WIDE OPEN receiver but you heard from Allen after the game in his PC that he expected Jones to sit in the open spot and Dabol's immediate reaction combined with his PC tell you he thought Zay should have done the same. I labelled it as uncatchable because I wasn't judging miscommunication. But on the flip side, take Allen's TD pass to Jones against Miami on his quick short crossing pattern that Allen threw slightly behind him. As it turned out, that throw guided Allen into his TD pass. Allen said after the game he made a bad throw and Say made a great catch, so we know what happened in this case, but what if that exact same pass and play were made by Tom Brady or Drew Brees... would PFF or ESPN stats label that as a bad pass or brilliant ball placement? This judgement of ball placement is just so damn subjective, that's why I stuck with catchable vs uncatchable. Still subjective, but significantly less so. 1
transplantbillsfan Posted January 17, 2019 Author Posted January 17, 2019 (edited) 5 hours ago, VW82 said: I think OP took any pass that was even remotely catchable (even if the receiver had to lay out to get his finger tips on it, or stop/alter his route and pull it off the ground) and called it a drop/catchable whereas the PFF and ESPN guys held QBs to a little higher standard in terms of what was considered on target. That would seem to be a simpler explanation than assuming everyone is so completely confused with accuracy vs. precision that they messed up their whole analysis. No. That's literally how I defined uncatchable right in the OP. Ball hits outstretched fingertips = Uncatchable Ball hits outstretched palm = catchable There's a big difference between those 2. You see NFL WRs who make the 1st catch every week. You see NFL WRs who make the 2nd catch never in history. Edited January 17, 2019 by transplantbillsfan
transplantbillsfan Posted January 17, 2019 Author Posted January 17, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, reddogblitz said: No. I watched it. Most he hit the guy in the hands, but some were good D plays. Some were out of bounds etc, but I'm not going to go back and document each one. The cat needs to be more accurate to be a "franchise QB" (whatever that is). And he needs much better WRs as well. As Giselle would say, he can't throw them and catch them himself. I'm thinking thAt if someone wanted to they could put together a 5:00 vid of bad passes too. Quote whatever stats you want or videos of drops of whatever. Bottom line. He needs to be more accurate and he needs real NFL WRs too throw to. We got a whole off season to work on both. Go BILLS !! Okay here's another point regarding methodology. Those "good D plays" are still catchable. And I labelled them as such. If the WR has a ball that comes pretty much into his hands but a CB makes a great play swiping the ball out between his hands, it's catchable. A Hail Mary into a crowd of both Bills WRs and DBs is BOTH catchable AND Interceptable. I was talking accuracy, so that great play by the DB where the ball meets the WR was a catchable ball. But if say an LB jumps and tips the ball midway through that path from QB to WR, it was a tipped/batted pass. If ball is out of bounds but WR can reasonably make an NFL WR catch and drag his feet in bounds, it's catchable. It's only a 5 minute YouTube video. I don't see why noting the places you see the uncatchable passes happen is so difficult. Edited January 17, 2019 by transplantbillsfan
PromoTheRobot Posted January 17, 2019 Posted January 17, 2019 Fluctuations at the quantum level means that accuracy is an illusion. <mic drop>
Philly’sFinest Posted January 17, 2019 Posted January 17, 2019 On 1/15/2019 at 10:17 AM, The_Dude said: The OPs point isn’t necessary. We dont need to do these. This is the kinda crap you write to try and convince yourself that your awful QB, EJ Manuel, really isn’t that bad. I dont need these stats. I don’t need next gen stats. “Stats are for losers.” I saw Allen. He passed the eye test with flying colors. No need for paralysis by analysis with him. He’s got it. And I don’t need stats to tell me that. I must agree with this man. I know the narrative, and I was as critical of the pick as anyone. But from what I saw with the kid, I came away quite impressed. The touch passes need work, and the short stuff seems to be his biggest weakness. All very correctable stuff. The accuracy stuff seems overblown from what I saw. It’s more about him fine tuning his passing, rather than working on accuracy. Besides that, the kid checks all the boxes...especially the leadership, toughness, and hard working part. 2
row_33 Posted January 17, 2019 Posted January 17, 2019 practice practice practice get the patterns down with your skill players and with experience it will fall into place a lot better
Shaw66 Posted January 17, 2019 Posted January 17, 2019 31 minutes ago, Philly’sFinest said: I must agree with this man. I know the narrative, and I was as critical of the pick as anyone. But from what I saw with the kid, I came away quite impressed. The touch passes need work, and the short stuff seems to be his biggest weakness. All very correctable stuff. The accuracy stuff seems overblown from what I saw. It’s more about him fine tuning his passing, rather than working on accuracy. Besides that, the kid checks all the boxes...especially the leadership, toughness, and hard working part. I won't go back and quote the Dude like you did, but you two are saying what I've said, too. I will add, though, for the Dude, that I do appreciate Transplant's work on this, because it validates to some extent what Dude, Philly and I all think we're seeing. We've seen it from preseason - "makes all the throws" kind of talent. It was obvious right away. And like Philly says, it's not that any one is saying Allen is perfect or ready for the Hall of Fame. What we're saying is that he has some things to work on; if you ask McDermott, he'd probably say every aspect of his game needs work. But if you ask him whether he's satisfied where Allen is and the progress he's made, McD likely would say he's exceeded expectations. If Rex were still the coach, he'd say "are you friggin kidding me? Have you watched him?!!?" If Beane does his job during the offseason (oline and receivers) and if McD and Daboll do their jobs, fans all over the country will be talking about Allen next season.
row_33 Posted January 17, 2019 Posted January 17, 2019 13 minutes ago, Shaw66 said: I won't go back and quote the Dude like you did, but you two are saying what I've said, too. I will add, though, for the Dude, that I do appreciate Transplant's work on this, because it validates to some extent what Dude, Philly and I all think we're seeing. We've seen it from preseason - "makes all the throws" kind of talent. It was obvious right away. And like Philly says, it's not that any one is saying Allen is perfect or ready for the Hall of Fame. What we're saying is that he has some things to work on; if you ask McDermott, he'd probably say every aspect of his game needs work. But if you ask him whether he's satisfied where Allen is and the progress he's made, McD likely would say he's exceeded expectations. If Rex were still the coach, he'd say "are you friggin kidding me? Have you watched him?!!?" If Beane does his job during the offseason (oline and receivers) and if McD and Daboll do their jobs, fans all over the country will be talking about Allen next season. with an offseason to work on things it still will be okay with the same crew we went from a QB who was scared to throw into a receiver to a raw rookie with a rifle for an arm
BringBackFlutie Posted January 17, 2019 Posted January 17, 2019 (edited) On 1/15/2019 at 3:35 PM, transplantbillsfan said: So I think this is an important point to make, too. Allen has more of those woefully inaccurate passes than any of the other QBs. He definitely has some real head-scratchers. But those throws still don't happen all that often. And when he's woefully inaccurate, it's usually a pass that just ends up in no-man's land instead of a DB's arms. But how much does it really matter if you have, for example, 2 QBs who throw 30 passes. QB#1 throws 25 into the WR's hands, 3 just out of reach of his outstretched arms and 2 throws end up 5 yards away. QB #2 throws 23 into the WR's hands and 7 just out of reach of his outstretched arms. QB#1 might have those twitter worthy WTF throws you can point to, but was he really less accurate? Actually, yes. The QB who threw the two passes 5 yards out is less accurate, as his misses weren't closer to the target. Accuracy (as @oldmanfan has said a few times in this thread) is the ability to consistently land in the area of the target. Precision is the ability to consistently hit a small area, regardless of its relation to the target. Obviously, you want both, but accuracy is better in the NFL, because it will at least give the receiver a chance to catch the pass, whereas precision, on its own, could mean that the pass is NEVER near the receiver. Now, I just said the above to lend clarity for other posters. As far as the actual situation of Allen sailing some throws into the middle of nowhere, it doesn't make a difference in completion percentage between him and the guy who doesn't, but still misses. Like you alluded- the results on the stat chart are the same. I'll also say that I like the head-scratchers more than the near-misses, because head-scratchers are probably an indication of miscommunication, rather than inaccuracy. So in these situations, given miscommunication as a valid reason for the miss, and taking those throws out of the equation, Allen is actually more accurate, and has a higher completion percentage than the other QB. Edited January 17, 2019 by BringBackFlutie
row_33 Posted January 17, 2019 Posted January 17, 2019 Here's a good Clinic with varying degrees of difficulty and risk. 1
C.Biscuit97 Posted January 17, 2019 Posted January 17, 2019 3 hours ago, Bandito said: What would our offense have been without Josh Allen? He was by far our Offensive MVP this season. That McDermott started Peterman at the beginning of the season, is mindboggling We scored 41 points/ game in Barkley starts. ?
hemma Posted January 17, 2019 Posted January 17, 2019 2 hours ago, row_33 said: Here's a good Clinic with varying degrees of difficulty and risk. Thomas is just an unbelievable receiver Catches 85% of the throws and that is with serious volume. Granted that is from Brees, but the other guys on the Saints can’t approach that figure. I hope Beane comes through in this draft and doesn’t lose out to the new Asst Fins GM.
Shaw66 Posted January 17, 2019 Posted January 17, 2019 2 hours ago, row_33 said: Here's a good Clinic with varying degrees of difficulty and risk. Of course, this is just the receptions, so we don't see Brees's mistakes, but out of all those completions, I saw only 2 that weren't essentially perfect. Two were tough catches but catches you expect the receiver to make. Brees is incredible. Allen doesn't do what Brees does, but no one in the league does, either. Not even Brady.
Stank_Nasty Posted January 17, 2019 Posted January 17, 2019 2 hours ago, row_33 said: Here's a good Clinic with varying degrees of difficulty and risk. 6 minutes ago, hemma said: Thomas is just an unbelievable receiver Catches 85% of the throws and that is with serious volume. Granted that is from Brees, but the other guys on the Saints can’t approach that figure. I hope Beane comes through in this draft and doesn’t lose out to the new Asst Fins GM. Are there any bills over the last handful of years that put the vice grip on that contested td at the 2:00 mark and keep it all the way to the ground? I think not. what a luxury that must be as a qb.
row_33 Posted January 17, 2019 Posted January 17, 2019 23 minutes ago, Stank_Nasty said: Are there any bills over the last handful of years that put the vice grip on that contested td at the 2:00 mark and keep it all the way to the ground? I think not. what a luxury that must be as a qb. i could jokingly suggest they make the catch if they didn't believe they could and half-tried to hang on?
transplantbillsfan Posted January 17, 2019 Author Posted January 17, 2019 I added the raw numbers into the OP for the sake of transparency to anyone who wants to try the exercise because they don't trust my %s.
billsfan89 Posted January 17, 2019 Posted January 17, 2019 20 hours ago, Green Lightning said: It seems that people keep making, woulda, coulda, shoulda scenarios around Josh's completion percentage. I just think it is what it is. Doesn't mean he won't be good, it just is what it is. I think his completion percentage can't just be explained away by outside factors. Although they could be a factor it is what is over the course of multiple College and his first NFL season. Allen does have issues missing some throws and he does need to improve his decision making to take easier throws when available. Allen's cannon arm is a blessing but it means that he thinks he can make almost any throw. That leads to bad decisions or more risky less high percentage decisions. I think his footwork issues certainly prevent him from making some of the easier high percentage throws that he sometimes misses. That being said, can him improve on his deficiencies that lead to his accuracy/completion percentage issues? That's a big maybe. Yes he certainly can improve his decision making, Allen is a bright hard working kid. With good coaching and more experience he can certainly improve on that aspect of his game and making more sound decisions will improve his completion percentage, lower his turnovers, and improve his overall quality of play. Now can he improve his footwork enough to keep him from missing some easy throws? Well that's a much harder thing to do. From my understanding footwork is something that can be improved but its much more difficult to dramatically improve your footwork as a QB. Again Allen is a smart hardworking kid, he certainly is going to put in the work to improve and has the intellect to improve but to what degree can he do it? We all know Allen has the arm strength, the release, the size, hand size, speed, and intangibles of a high caliber NFL QB, but can he make the improvements needed in those two critical areas of the game?
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