Expectations for Josh Allen this year

[Hapless Bills Fan]

On the one hand this article from USAToday BillsWire:  expect Allen to be slightly better than Blake Bortles

"Here was Bortles’ stat line from 2018: 13 touchdown passes, 11 interceptions, 209.1 yards per game. Bortles started 12 games last year and played in 13 overall. If Bortles were to average this number for the entire season, he would have finished with 3,346 yards passing. ......

 With Allen, it’s not unreasonable to expect him to approach Bortles-like numbers. .......a conservatively realistic stat line for Allen is a season of 3,300 passing yards, 16 touchdown passes, 12 interceptions, and completing 56 percent of his passes."

 

How would you feel about that, TBD'ians?

 

On the other hand, then there's this from NFL.com's Michael Robinson picking Josh Allen as the 2nd year QB winning the most games:
"2019 is Josh Allen's year to shine. He'll lead the Bills to an 11-5 record and playoff berth. .....I really like how GM Brandon Beane and head coach Sean McDermott have built this team from the trenches out, adding center Mitch Morse, guard Quinton Spain and rookie guard/tackle Cody Ford on offense, as well as an aggressive pass rusher in first-round draft pick Ed Oliver. The Bills' big offseason additions will allow them to play a physical brand of football. Buffalo won't be flashy but will surprise a lot of teams this season. "

 

Obviously I love that prediction, but is it realistic?

 

The Bills had 3 losses by 7, 4, and 4 points last year which given different outcomes on a few plays, could have been wins

(of course, we had close wins that could have been losses too).  So it's not a huge stretch of the imagination that given some improvement, our record could have been 9-7.  We also had 6, arguably 7, blowout losses.  3 of them were in Josh Allen's first 4 games, including one where the score was out of hand when he came in.  3 of them were when he was injured.

 

Thoughts?

In McDermott's 3rd year, I myself want to see the team take a clear step.  We've been oscillating between 6-10 and 9-7 for 20 years now.  Yep, 1999 was the last time the Bills saw double-digits in the W column.  That's what I want to see.

 

As far as Allen, I want to see him pushing 60% completions.  58%, at least Bortles like.   I also want to see pushing 220 ypg (that would be 3500 yds) and a 1.5% TD/INT ratio.  I'd feel great about his progress if he ends the year close.

 

[whatdrought]

I won’t care too much about comp percentage overall, because I expect them to really use his deep ball a lot. I expect an offense to be made up of a symbiotic relationship between Allen taking shots, and the run game pounding it out. I think we’ll know if he’s the real deal this year.

[Stank_Nasty]

Allen was 5-6 basically running around winging it playing hero ball with no line, wr’s or run game. 

 

I think your numbers are reasonable and if the defense even just holds serve, with Allen taking that realistic jump I think 10 wins is very very doable.... 11 or maybe more if Oliver takes the defense to another level. 

 

We just saw the bears take this recipe to 12 wins. Put an already solid defense over the top with an elite playmaker and do everything in their power to surround their young developing qb with enough help and talent to supercharge his progression. 

[BringBackFergy]

I’m in the 10-6 or 11-5 camp. The kid is a natural and will get better each game (especially with the trenches fortified). 

[Bangarang]

3,300 yards, 16 td and 12 int on a 56% completion percentage is trash and likely means our offense is also trash yet again.

 

Fortunately, I think he’ll perform better than that. 

[Happy]

10-6 is probably realistic.  Let's say for arguments sake we could have been 8-8 last year, 10-6 is a logical progression up, even with a lot of new players.  I also think Josh Allen will be a lot more comfortable running the offense since he will be the designated starter and get most of the reps in camp/practice.  Daboll has a lot on his shoulders bringing everyone up to speed and on the same page, but if he can do this, a Wildcard spot is not out of the question.

 

On defense, the biggest question mark is DE.  Need someone other than Hughes to be an aggressive pass rusher.  I'm really hoping Shaq Lawson takes a step up and adds pass rushing ability to his run stopping ability.

[ColoradoBills]

10 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Thoughts?

In McDermott's 3rd year, I myself want to see the team take a clear step.  We've been oscillating between 6-10 and 9-7 for 20 years now.  Yep, 1999 was the last time the Bills saw double-digits in the W column.  That's what I want to see.

 

As far as Allen, I want to see him pushing 60% completions.  58%, at least Bortles like.   I also want to see pushing 220 ypg (that would be 3500 yds) and a 1.5% TD/INT ratio.  I'd feel great about his progress if he ends the year close.

 

 

So would I.  It would be more than enough for JA to keep up his end of the bargain.

With the exception of the Orton year Bills haven't had 3,500 yards since 2011.

 

As for wins/losses.  Too much of a team thing.  Logically I got a 8-8 maybe a 9-7 season but it depends so much on so many new players.

If all goes real good 10 wins is not out of the question.  The 1st 2 games right out of the gate will mean so much.

[Estro]

I've actually thought about what I would consider nice, solid progress for Josh Allen this year.

Looking at his stats from last year, Allen average about 175 yards passing per game w/ roughly 1 TD pass and 1 INT per game played.  These are all underwhelming, but for a QB that was considered a bit of a project not unexpected.  What I'd like to see by the conclusion of the 2019 d=season to feel pretty positive about where things are headed is the following (assuming he starts 16 games):

 

-3600 yards passing (225/game), a big jump from last year, but still a very low/conservative # compared to league avg.

-23 TD's passing (roughly 1.5 per game), once again a decent jump from last year, but still fairly low compared to the league

-11 or less INT's.......1 per game, from '18 isn't going to cut it......10 or 11 over 16 games will be marked improvement

 

As far as rushing goes I'm not even going to put numbers on that......I expect it to be impressive and help us win a couple of games......that's really the strength of Josh.  The main improvements I am eager to see all revolve around him passing.  If he can make marked improvements in that dept. over the next few seasons he has the chance to be really good.  If not......we will be talking about another QB in a couple of seasons.  

[IgotBILLStopay]

27 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

On the one hand this article from USAToday BillsWire:  expect Allen to be slightly better than Blake Bortles

"Here was Bortles’ stat line from 2018: 13 touchdown passes, 11 interceptions, 209.1 yards per game. Bortles started 12 games last year and played in 13 overall. If Bortles were to average this number for the entire season, he would have finished with 3,346 yards passing. ......

 With Allen, it’s not unreasonable to expect him to approach Bortles-like numbers. .......a conservatively realistic stat line for Allen is a season of 3,300 passing yards, 16 touchdown passes, 12 interceptions, and completing 56 percent of his passes."

 

How would you feel about that, TBD'ians?

 

On the other hand, then there's this from NFL.com's Michael Robinson picking Josh Allen as the 2nd year QB winning the most games:
"2019 is Josh Allen's year to shine. He'll lead the Bills to an 11-5 record and playoff berth. .....I really like how GM Brandon Beane and head coach Sean McDermott have built this team from the trenches out, adding center Mitch Morse, guard Quinton Spain and rookie guard/tackle Cody Ford on offense, as well as an aggressive pass rusher in first-round draft pick Ed Oliver. The Bills' big offseason additions will allow them to play a physical brand of football. Buffalo won't be flashy but will surprise a lot of teams this season. "

 

Obviously I love that prediction, but is it realistic?

 

The Bills had 3 losses by 7, 4, and 4 points last year which given different outcomes on a few plays, could have been wins

(of course, we had close wins that could have been losses too).  So it's not a huge stretch of the imagination that given some improvement, our record could have been 9-7.  We also had 6, arguably 7, blowout losses.  3 of them were in Josh Allen's first 4 games, including one where the score was out of hand when he came in.  3 of them were when he was injured.

 

Thoughts?

In McDermott's 3rd year, I myself want to see the team take a clear step.  We've been oscillating between 6-10 and 9-7 for 20 years now.  Yep, 1999 was the last time the Bills saw double-digits in the W column.  That's what I want to see.

 

As far as Allen, I want to see him pushing 60% completions.  58%, at least Bortles like.   I also want to see pushing 220 ypg (that would be 3500 yds) and a 1.5% TD/INT ratio.  I'd feel great about his progress if he ends the year close.

 

 60% completion and 220 ypg are useless if they don’t lead to wins.  Just win baby!! Then we will talk stats.

Edited May 14, 2019 by IgotBILLStopay

[mead107]

19-0 Baby 

[Buffalo Boy]

I see 9-7 to 11-5 as our range this year.

JA was a different QB when he came back last year. With a better O line and a legitimate run game I think he takes another step forward.

By the second half of the season this team will hopefully have an identity . My hope is it’s a tough nosed team that refuses to quit. 

[US Egg]

"Expectations for Josh Allen this year".....

 

That he plays all 17 games and no one else is needed to play QB.

[without a drought]

In his 2nd year Bortles threw for 4,428 yards and 35TD and 18INT.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

27 minutes ago, IgotBILLStopay said:

 60% completion and 220 ypg are useless if they don’t lead to wins.  Just win baby!! Then we will talk stats.

 

One reason I bring them up is because a while back I did a study on QB success by draft position, for which I had to come up with criteria for...QB success.

What I found empirically was that >59% completion, > 1.5 TD/INT, and a floor of ~220 ypg seemed correlated to...wait for it....winning.

25 minutes ago, without a drought said:

In his 2nd year Bortles threw for 4,428 yards and 35TD and 18INT.

 

So he did.  What went wrong?

 

[JoeF]

Hap, this is a great topic.

 

I think Josh is going to be his most dangerous with a balanced attack.  Most folks would interpret this as run/pass division which ranged from 2/3 pass and 1/3 run (Green Bay) last year to 47% pass and 53% run (Seattle).  The league average was about 59% pass.

 

https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/passing-play-pct

 

The Bills were 29th by the way with a 53.6 Pass/46.4 run ratio.

 

I don't think the Run/Pass ratio is applicable to Josh.  I think its a more complex ratio.  Its:

- Pure Run (play designed to hand off to a RB or a Jet Sweep)

- RPO (Josh has the option - mostly for Red Zone or a down with less than 5 yards to go (could be second, third or fourth down)

- Short Medium Pass Game - Routes all 15 yards or less and less than three-second release

- Full Route Tree Pass game - includes deeper routes of 15 yards or more

 

I think making a defense prepare for all 4 segments of this balanced offense and running all 4 types of plays from the same sets of formations is key to Josh's success.  Josh proved last year that he can run all 4 types of plays but is probably weakest at Short Medium Pass Game and strongest with both his legs and arm in the Full Route Tree pass game and RPO.  If Daboll can devise a scheme that mixes these four types of plays, Josh will average 250-300 total yards a game and the Bills running game will be top 5 in the league.  If this works -- the Bills are likely a playoff team.

 

I know its not stats per game or yards passing or completion percentage or TD passes..but I think this is the "balance" the Bills need to achieve.

Edited May 14, 2019 by JoeF

[IgotBILLStopay]

1 minute ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

One reason I bring them up is because a while back I did a study on QB success by draft position, for which I had to come up with criteria for...QB success.

What I found empirically was that >59% completion, > 1.5 TD/INT, and a floor of ~220 ypg seemed correlated to...wait for it....winning.

 

 

Perfect response! Apologies for my hasty post. I think I was a little biased because the numbers you posted appeared to be too Tyrod like. 

 

I also think Josh Allen is a competitor. He will do what it takes.  I think We are going to win with him giving us 150 yards in the air in some games and 350 yards in others.

 

That is you cannot measure his progress from just stats alone.

 

[Dark]

I think 7 to 10 win range feels about right.  The key to this season is establishing the running game with Shady and Motor and then play action deep shots will obviate completion percentage and play to Josh's strengths.   The defense will be Top 10 and could be elite in the coming years.

 

I think Josh will end up with something like 3,400 pass yards 22 TDs and 13 INTs with ~400 rush yards and 3 TDs, but the ability to establish the run will be the key to wins.

[Augie]

Progress. Like pornography, I’ll know it when I see it. 

 

I’ll be happy to see either.   ?

[KD in CA]

As usual, it depends.

 

If they are 6-10 and rarely establish any passing rhythm in games they lose by 10+, those numbers would be disappointing

 

If they are 10-6 and have 3 productive backs and rush for 2500 yards, I'll be fine with those stats.

[Jauronimo]

I'll define success by continuing to develop rather than stats.  I want to see him show command of the offense.  Recognize defenses, go through his reads, operate from the pocket.  I would like to see him develop some rhythm and touch on short passes, the high percentage plays.  I would also like to see him rely on his legs less and avoid unnecessary hits.