20 Years of QBs and 300 yard Games

[GunnerBill]

4 hours ago, GoBills808 said:

Matt Ryan and the Falcons would disagree.

 

Matt Ryan is an upper echelon Quarterback though. And it is a bit like Drew Brees. Brees has never failed to make the playoffs when the Saints defense has been ranked 27th or higher. He doesn't need good defenses to make it. Just for them to be better than historically bad. Matt Ryan has had a top 10 defense once in 12 years in the league. He has only had a defense ranked in the top half of the league (top 16) on three other occasions. He did actually miss the playoffs in Quinn's first year with a 16th ranked defense but generally his number is 21. Give him a D ranked 21st or better and he makes the post season. 

 

Has he passed for 300+ so many times because of those defensive frailties? Yes. But if you wouldn't be happy with a Matt Ryan level Quarterback I don't know what to tell you. He has been an outstanding NFL player. 

[Thurman#1]

I greatly appreciate all the hard work, but disagree with one major underlying assumption.

 

You give credit/blame for how long it took to get a 300 yard game to the QB. And that just doesn't make sense. Whether or not you get 300 yard games has a lot to do with chance, a lot to do with your OC, a lot to do with game situations, a lot to do with your receivers and a lot to do with how many passes the QB throws in a game.

 

Most of the reason Allen hasn't got a 300 yard game yet is that he hasn't thrown all that many passes. 28.59 passes a game. That's just very few.

 

There's nothing special about the number 300 either.

 

Russell Wilson didn't throw much either, early in his career and he hit 300 for the first time in his 17th game, and for the second time only in his 28th game.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Thurman#1

[Thurman#1]

1 hour ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Matt Ryan is an upper echelon Quarterback though. And it is a bit like Drew Brees. Brees has never failed to make the playoffs when the Saints defense has been ranked 27th or higher. He doesn't need good defenses to make it. Just for them to be better than historically bad. Matt Ryan has had a top 10 defense once in 12 years in the league. He has only had a defense ranked in the top half of the league (top 16) on three other occasions. He did actually miss the playoffs in Quinn's first year with a 16th ranked defense but generally his number is 21. Give him a D ranked 21st or better and he makes the post season. 

 

Has he passed for 300+ so many times because of those defensive frailties? Yes. But if you wouldn't be happy with a Matt Ryan level Quarterback I don't know what to tell you. He has been an outstanding NFL player. 

 

 

Nice post.

[Seven-N-Nine]

7 hours ago, HappyDays said:

Thank you for compiling the data, it's an interesting point. Allen won't have a 300 yard game until he connects on some deep passes. Right now he must be the worst QB in the NFL at deep passes and he needs to be better. As a point of optimism, last year he was one of the worst short passers in the league and he has made tremendous improvements there. So I'm still hopeful. I honestly don't know what his problem is with deep passes. Either he isn't timing them right or he's not putting enough air on the ball. If he figures it out and gets to a league average completion percentage on deep throws he'll hit a 300 yard game before long.

 

Somehow, some coach or coaches got into his head and ruined his deep ball IMO.

[Nihilarian]

2 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

I greatly appreciate all the hard work, but disagree with one major underlying assumption.

 

You give credit/blame for how long it took to get a 300 yard game to the QB. And that just doesn't make sense. Whether or not you get 300 yard games has a lot to do with chance, a lot to do with your OC, a lot to do with game situations, a lot to do with your receivers and a lot to do with how many passes the QB throws in a game.

 

Most of the reason Allen hasn't got a 300 yard game yet is that he hasn't thrown all that many passes. 28.59 passes a game. That's just very few.

 

There's nothing special about the number 300 either.

 

Russell Wilson didn't throw much either, early in his career and he hit 300 for the first time in his 17th game, and for the second time only in his 28th game.

All good points. 

 

Allen didn't come out of the draft as an NFL polished QB that should start day one like Darnold or Rosen. Mike Mayock stated he thought Allen should sit and learn for a season. Well hell, that didn't happen because the guy they pegged as the starter was a complete waste. Knowing this what does that tell you about the offensive coaching staff? It tells me that they really don't know what they are doing. Besides that Allen's first QB coach was never a past QB coach as he was an assistant WR coach previously. 

 

Look back at how bad last years offensive line was where most of the time Allen needed to run to evade the rush. This happened so often and he was so good at it that the OC put in designed QB runs. 

 

Lastly, the current Bills OC has never fielded an offense better then 22nd in his previous four stints as an NFL OC. Coaching has so much to do with how well a QB is developed and plays. Manning had Tom Moore as his OC. Brees had Cam Cameron as his OC and who is the very same OC who developed Joe Flacco.

 

 

Oh yea, one more thing. Allen currently has 1493 passing yards after playing in 7 3/4 games so far. Now extrapolate that out another nine games... and he will have a 3000+ yard season with at least one 300 yard game. Plus, hopefully he stays healthy! Daboll needs to stop with the designed QB runs. 

Edited October 31, 2019 by Nihilarian

[Giuseppe Tognarelli]

Interesting!

 

Wouldn't 1.xx years be 1 year+, and 2.xx 2 years+? If less than 1 year, shouldn't it be 0.xx?

[stuvian]

now that the entire league has skewed everything to the passing game defenses no longer know how to tackle. When this gets realized en masse, the league will revert to the running game

[row_33]

8 hours ago, StHustle said:

Anyone else find it strange that both Tyrod and Josh went from pretty good deep ball passers their first year starting to terrible at it in year 2?

opponents in year 2 spend an exponentially increased amount of time writing the book than they do for a rookie 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throwing it long is rewarded with PI calls, this have helped recent decent QBs become stars 

 

 

Edited October 31, 2019 by row_33

[billsfan1959]

1 hour ago, ScottLaw said:

Don't really agree with this.

 

I would guess of those QBs who are throwing for 300 plus yards get there between late 20 to early 30s in attempts. Russell Wilson is the one outlier in this thread, but Seattle ran a pretty conservative offense his first couple years there. I wouldn't consider our offense conservative at all.

 

There were 8 QBs last week that threw for over 300 yds. The average attempts per QB was 40. Out of the 8, 5 had over 40 attempts and averaged 46 attempts. The other 3 averaged 32 attempts. Of the three that reached 300 yds on 32/33 attempts, 2 had at least one completion over 65 yds and the other had 2 completions over 45 yds.

 

Looking at games throughout the year, this is pretty common - and rare to see a QB hit 300 yds on less than 30 attempts. The only QBs reaching 300 yds on attempts in the low 30s are doing so on at least 1-2 big plays. Attempts in the range of 40 -50 appear to be the more common range for 300 yard games.

 

EDIT: You might have meant the number of games it took a QB to reach a 300 yard game. If so, it still is interesting that many of them that did reach 300 yards did so with 40+ attempts more often than not. I would like to see Allen air it out (40-45 attempts) for a few games to see what happens.

Edited October 31, 2019 by billsfan1959

[StHustle]

Josh completes too many passes where the receiver immediately has to fall to the ground. YAC is a big part of reaching that 300 yard plateau. Ball placement is a big part of YAC.

[billsfan1959]

Just now, ScottLaw said:

Allen would get there if he had any deep ball accuracy.... he also struggles big time to have a complete 4 quarter game and is just too erratic at this point.... Guy completed 2 of his last 11 passes after their last scoring drive in the 3rd quarter. 

I agree he would have had several 300 yard games if he were able to complete some of those deep balls. As far as the consistency over 4 quarters, that is not all on Allen, particularly the 3rd quarter woes they had in most games. The offensive line in front of him did an awful job of handling opponent adjustments in the 3rd quarter in the Jets, Giants, Bengals, and Tenn games. As far as his last game it wasn't good in the 4th for a lot of reasons, including Allen himself; however, it was really the 1st time he din't show up this year with the game on the line.

 

Allen is not nearly there yet; however, I believe he will get there. 

[oldmanfan]

Interesting read.  Reminds me of the old correlation vs. causation stuff I learned in statistics.

[Trogdor]

3 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

I greatly appreciate all the hard work, but disagree with one major underlying assumption.

 

You give credit/blame for how long it took to get a 300 yard game to the QB. And that just doesn't make sense. Whether or not you get 300 yard games has a lot to do with chance, a lot to do with your OC, a lot to do with game situations, a lot to do with your receivers and a lot to do with how many passes the QB throws in a game.

 

Most of the reason Allen hasn't got a 300 yard game yet is that he hasn't thrown all that many passes. 28.59 passes a game. That's just very few.

 

There's nothing special about the number 300 either.

 

Russell Wilson didn't throw much either, early in his career and he hit 300 for the first time in his 17th game, and for the second time only in his 28th game.

Buffalo currently ranks 17th in pass attempts per game. 

13	Carolina	35.6
14	Miami	35.4
15	Green Bay	35.4
16	Houston	34.4
17	Buffalo	34.1
18	Dallas	34.0
19	Philadelphia	33.8
20	Jacksonville	33.5

 

Out of the other teams around us, only Kyle Allen and Fitz have failed to hit 300 so far. Allen only broke 300 twice in college, including only once his Junior year when he had 3 current NFL players and Gentry who had time on the active roster for the Bears. That's pretty stacked for that conference. Honestly, I'm more interested in the games where Allen throws for under 200. He seems to really suck against middle of the road to good defenses. Fingers crossed that he turns it around and at least hits a better level of turnover/td ratio.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Trogdor

[billsfan1959]

1 minute ago, ScottLaw said:

Sure it's not all on him. But a lot of it is.... he also doesn't have much to throw to outside of John Brown who's a solid #2 WR on most teams.

 

No idea if Allen will get there or not. Time will tell, right now if the defense doesn't have a good game the team doesn't win because the offense is still a struggle.... wondering if that will ever change under McDermott.

 

I think he should shoulder his fair share of blame (ball security, ball placement, deep pass issues) - but, there is also a fair share to be shouldered by others, both players and coaches. I think continuity and talent around him still play a part. There doesn't seem to be any kind of consistency at all in the run game, which, certainly could help Allen out. They ship off McCoy, yet, somehow can't find a way to incorporate Singletary in the game plan, in spite of the indication that he is a natural playmaker with the ball in his hands. Beasley and Knox have both been disappointments in their ability to actually hang onto a pass. And this offense seems to lack that ability to finish drives for points when they have a chance. Thery are good in the red zone; however, they have so many drives that stall out between the opponents 40- 20 yard lines. They have had 18 drives inside the opponent's 40, in seven games, where they did not score a point. If they would have just kicked a field goal on 15 of the 18 drives, they would be 12th in scoring right now, instead of 24th.

 

I also scratch my head at times in terms of developing an offensive game plan that maximizes Allen's strengths and minimizes his weaknesses. For example, you have a young QB who has greatly improved his accuracy in the short to intermediate game; however, he is struggling with the deep pass. So, in the New England game, Daboll decides to attack the very strength of their team (secondary play) with Allen's primary weakness right now (the deep pass). It was a complete disaster on many levels. When Allen wasn't throwing interceptions and incompletions on deep passes (and often while he was doing so), he was running for his life behind a line that couldn't hold off New England's rush long enough for deeper routes to develop. Add in the fact that most receivers on this team can not seem to find any kind of separation on a consistent basis. That's just one example.

 

I do think Allen will get there because he has shown a remarkable ability to improve areas of his game when he focuses on them and his overall play has truly improved since he came into the league. He just has a lot of areas to work on. And the team around him still needs to get better. I'm also not sold on Daboll to bring the best out of Allen.

 

You are right, time will tell.

[Rob's House]

Throwing for 300 yards isn't necessarily a good or bad thing, but throughout the course of a season you're going to have some games where the circumstances are such that a good QB will have over 300 yds passing.

 

I'd rather have a guy w/ 200 yds & a win than 350 b/c he was playing from behind in a loss, but I don't want the guy who can't put up yards when playing from behind either.

 

I'm trying to think of a good QB who doesn't throw for 300+ at least a few times a year. I can't think of one.

 

I can think of a bunch of scrubs that fans made excuses for who didn't, but no good ones.

 

[Billsfan1972]

Very simply 300 yards means you are capable of bringing a team back or staying in a game.  

 

I hate when people bring up records and don't throw out when both QBs threw for 300 and one lost.  

 

People going on about 300 not meaning anything seems to miss the point that if Allen threw for 300 vs. the Eagles the Bills probably win.  Same vs. NE.....  

 

There are too posts about how often the Bills have lost by 10+ and if you don't think throwing for 300 may have had an affect on the outcome, get your head out of the sand.

 

And this is not about Allen.  The Bills have gone 40 games, so plenty of blame to go around and this is on McDermott and the coaching staff 

Edited October 31, 2019 by Billsfan1972

[prissythecat]

3 minutes ago, Billsfan1972 said:

Very simply 300 yards means you are capable of bringing a team back or staying in a game.  

 

I hate when people bring up records and don't throw out when both QBs threw for 300 and one lost.  

 

People going on about 300 not meaning anything seems to miss the point that if Allen threw for 300 vs. the Eagles the Bills probably win.  Same vs. NE.....  

 

There are too posts about how often the Bills have lost by 10+ and if you don't think throwing for 300 may have had an affect on the outcome, get your head out of the sand.

 

So many things wrong with this post lol.   Many analysts have already shown that 300 yard passing game does not correlate with winning.  Yet you post drivel like this.

[Billsfan1972]

2 minutes ago, prissythecat said:

 

So many things wrong with this post lol.   Many analysts have already shown that 300 yard passing game does not correlate with winning.  Yet you post drivel like this.

No when you don't look at the actual stats or details and throw insults it shows your lack of critical thinking.

 

If Allen throws for 300 vs. The Eagles, one can reasonably expect the game is closer and maybe winnable.  

 

Just adjusting for when both QBs throw for 300, then the winning % is closer to 60%.

 

The fact the Bills have gone 40 games without a 300 yard game is troubling.  It shows a lack of understanding of where the league is evolving.

 

Yes losing QBs throw for 300 plus but that also puts pressure on the winning team too to keep scoring.

 

Very few 300 yard games where the qb did not score 20+ points.

[Coach Tuesday]

Thanks for doing all of that work Mango.  Very interesting breakdown but I'm not yet sure what to make of it.  As you've said here and elsewhere, Allen's most useful comp in terms of the type of offense they'd like to run, and the type of overall strategy McD favors (defense first), is Russell Wilson and the Seahawks.  IIRC, Wilson's first couple of years featured many, many games where he'd put up something like 15-22 for 225 yards and 2TDs, with 30-50 yards of scrambling.  The defense kept those games close in Seattle.

 

But at some point, just like Wilson, there will eventually be games where the D is struggling and Allen needs to win a shootout.  To me, a 300 yard game signifies either an anomaly (like JP Losman's bananas game against the Texans where he hit Lee Evans for two 83 yard TDs in one quarter, and which then became a shootout as the Texans stormed back), or, more typically, that the coach and OC trust the QB enough to put the game in their hands - which is more indicative of the point you're making, i.e., that if a QB doesn't have a 300 yard game by about Year 2.5, it probably means their coaches don't trust them very much which probably means they aren't likely to be a long-term starter in the league.

[prissythecat]

24 minutes ago, Billsfan1972 said:

No when you don't look at the actual stats or details and throw insults it shows your lack of critical thinking.

 

If Allen throws for 300 vs. The Eagles, one can reasonably expect the game is closer and maybe winnable.  

 

Just adjusting for when both QBs throw for 300, then the winning % is closer to 60%.

 

The fact the Bills have gone 40 games without a 300 yard game is troubling.  It shows a lack of understanding of where the league is evolving.

 

Yes losing QBs throw for 300 plus but that also puts pressure on the winning team too to keep scoring.

 

Very few 300 yard games where the qb did not score 20+ points.

 

What utter nonsense.   Are you a statistician?    You must not be one if you propose an adjustment like that to back up your silly point.

 

Also,  I dont' know if you actually watched the Eagles game.  But the reason we lost is not related to lack of passing....   Its directly related to lack of ball security and inability to stop the run as the Eagles gashed the Bills for over 200 yards on the ground.