"How lessons from Josh Allen’s rookie year propelled him to stardom in 2020"

[Thurman#1]

11 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

Comparing rookie Allen with Tom Brady or Drew Brees is silly.

 

 

Um, no, comparing rookie Allen with rookie Brady or Brees is just fine, as is comparing college Allen with college Brady or Brees. More, it appears I never mentioned Brady or Brees. That was you, desperately trying to acquire a point.

 

This is the post you replied to:

 

On 11/21/2020 at 4:17 PM, Thurman#1 said:

 

There aren't reasonable grounds to say that Allen was accurate coming out of college, or early in Buffalo. He wasn't. He had plenty of times when he made the right read, made the right decision, and airmailed the ball or threw far in front or far behind the reciever. He did this at a much higher rate than pretty much any successful pro QB did. He had to improve his accuracy a lot. 

 

 

Could you just quickly point out where I mentioned Brees or Brady? No, right?

 

I said, "He had plenty of times when he made the right read, made the right decision, and airmailed the ball or threw far in front or far behind the reciever. He did this at a much higher rate than pretty much any successful pro QB did." Neither Brees nor Brady were anywhere near as inaccurate as Josh - even in college or early in their careers - and that's the comparison (to "any successful pro QB") I was making. 

 

Clearly, I was also comparing him to guys much further down the QB ladder, guys like Dalton or Derek Carr. Very very few QB as inaccurate as Allen was in college and early have done well.

Edited November 22, 2020 by Thurman#1

[Shaw66]

5 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Shaw, it would be reasonable to think that "the problem was not that he had mechanical flaws that had to be corrected," if it weren't for the fact that we have dozens of interviews from Jordan Palmer and from Allen himself talking about the bad mechanical habits he had that they were working on correcting, specifically over-striding, stepping in the wrong direction, not rotating his hips into the throw, etc., and that it would help his accuracy.

 

Was some of the work they've done with Allen that they needed to tame him, calm him down? Absolutely. Without question. But was taming him anything to do with his accuracy? I don't think so at all. The taming part was much more towards getting him to take checkdowns when it made sense, to go with the design of the play rather than hanging on to the ball in hopes something would come open later down the field, and so on. And those changes have definitely made Allen a better QB. He's improved in so many areas it's incredible. Startling and wonderful.

 

But he also had a lot of bad mechanical habits he'd fallen into that they have largely corrected that directly affected his accuracy.

It really doesn't matter, but I don't think you're correct about this.  Jordan Palmer is a football player, not a writer.  So when he said Allen had bad mechanical happens, it's quite possible that's just poor word choice.  A football player is less likely to make distinctions in his language that capture the difference between "bad habits" and no habits.  

 

I didn't see Allen doing anything wrong consistently wrong.  I never saw a QB whose mechanics were bad.  Every throw was unique.  He didn't do the same thing wrong every time.  A habit is something that you do the same every time a situation arises, and that wasn't Allen.  Rolling left, for example, sometimes he threw a pass that only a half dozen NFL QBs throw, sometimes he was a disaster.   That's not a bad habit; that's just a situation that requires awareness and consistency.  

[transplantbillsfan]

8 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

You did state it. Unfortunately, that doesn't affect the fact that you didn't prove anything there but that when you look at film you came up with an opinion that is very very different from nearly everyone else in pretty much the NFL world.

 

You went back and looked at old film from a lot of guys. You then gave us your opinion on what happened. And that's what it was, your opinion. Which is fine. You've proven what your opinion was by going and looking at film. 

 

 

Pretty objective actually.

 

I broke it down by simply catchable vs uncatchable for the WR.

 

Ball within reach of the hands or not.

 

No judgment on ball placement... just if it was a catchable football or not. And ultimately Allen threw a LOWER percentage of uncatchable footballs than some surprising rookie QBs. Basically, Allen looked like every other promising 1st round rookie QB starting in year 1.

 

I can't speak for the national pundits other than to say it's hard for anyone to admit they were wrong and it's even harder when it's on national TV.

 

Just listen to Troy Aikman's analysis of Allen as he commentated on him during the KC game.

8 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Um, no, comparing rookie Allen with rookie Brady or Brees is just fine, as is comparing college Allen with college Brady or Brees. More, it appears I never mentioned Brady or Brees. That was you, desperately trying to acquire a point.

 

Depends on what you mean by "comparing." If it relates to an expectation of where Allen should already be, it's silly.

 

If it's the target, it's fine.

 

But Allen’s distance to that target was really no different than your typical highly touted rookie QB as far as accuracy was concerned.

 

Decision making was another matter, and THAT’S been his most drastic improvement, not accuracy.

 

 

[transplantbillsfan]

8 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Um, no, comparing rookie Allen with rookie Brady or Brees is just fine, as is comparing college Allen with college Brady or Brees. More, it appears I never mentioned Brady or Brees. That was you, desperately trying to acquire a point.

 

Depends on what you mean by "comparing." If it relates to an expectation of where Allen should already be, it's silly.

 

If it's the target, it's fine.

 

But Allen’s distance to that target was really no different than your typical highly touted rookie QB as far as accuracy was concerned.

 

Decision making was another matter, and THAT’S been his most drastic improvement, not accuracy.

 

 

[Thurman#1]

14 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

Depends on what you mean by "comparing." If it relates to an expectation of where Allen should already be, it's silly.

 

If it's the target, it's fine.

 

But Allen’s distance to that target was really no different than your typical highly touted rookie QB as far as accuracy was concerned.

 

Decision making was another matter, and THAT’S been his most drastic improvement, not accuracy.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I get it.

 

You have an opinion, and nothing else. And you're telling us that opinion. Which is fine. But again, we knew your opinion before.

 

Thing is, other than that opinion of yours, backed up by ... well, your opinion, there isn't any evidence or really anyone else saying the same thing.

 

Allen had accuracy problems, which he has really successfully addressed. You don't think so. Both of those things are just fine.

 

 

[Thurman#1]

14 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

Pretty objective actually.

 

I broke it down by simply catchable vs uncatchable for the WR.

 

Ball within reach of the hands or not.

 

No judgment on ball placement... just if it was a catchable football or not. And ultimately Allen threw a LOWER percentage of uncatchable footballs than some surprising rookie QBs. Basically, Allen looked like every other promising 1st round rookie QB starting in year 1.

 

I can't speak for the national pundits other than to say it's hard for anyone to admit they were wrong and it's even harder when it's on national TV.

 

Just listen to Troy Aikman's analysis of Allen as he commentated on him during the KC game.

 

Depends on what you mean by "comparing." If it relates to an expectation of where Allen should already be, it's silly.

 

If it's the target, it's fine.

 

But Allen’s distance to that target was really no different than your typical highly touted rookie QB as far as accuracy was concerned.

 

Decision making was another matter, and THAT’S been his most drastic improvement, not accuracy.

 

 

 

 

First, dividing things up by how many catchable and uncatchable footballs a guy throws is in no way measuring his accuracy. Accuracy is far far more nuanced than that, it has to do with how well you hit a guy in stride, how well you lead him away from defenders, whether you hit him between the numbers and so on.

 

You're not measuring accuracy there. You're measuring whether or not some guy on the internet thinks your balls are catchable or not. And that's fine, it's just quite far from accuracy.

 

As for whether your method is objective, it couldn't possibly be clearer that it is absolutely not. Saying that your method was objective is a joke.

 

The fact is that we often have people on these forums arguing whether the ball in a given case is catchable or not and disagreeing violently. It's an opinion. Now, some cases are obvious and everyone would get them the same, but many are not. Many are very subjective. And it's a simple fact that beliefs, opinions and prejudices affect perception.

 

You could've made your analysis bulletproof by pointing out what you thought of which plays. I challenged you many times to do that. You refused, for reasons that seemed pretty obvious to me and many others.

 

And again, you're a guy who did many of these little studies, all of which seemed to produce results showing that Tyrod was a franchise quarterback back when that's what you believed. Which was basically the whole time he was here, except the long period of time when you thought he'd gone far beyond a franchise QB and was "near-elite."

 

If you want to continue believing that Allen was as accurate as others, that's fine, but you have never given us any reason to believe it. You're pretty much alone on that.

 

He certainly has improved a great deal on decision making as well, but that's not that unusual. Nearly every QB coming into the NFL takes quite a while to improve that, and if they don't, they fail. Impovement of deicision-making isn't that big a deal, as it's common among guys who become successful.

 

Improvement of accuracy is far far less common. Many pundits, coaches and scouts have argued that it's not possible to do. That argument never made sense, as plenty of QBs have improved accuracy to some degree, from Brady and Rodgers on to many others. But very very few have improved it to a really large degree, which is I think what those pundits are really talking about. Luckily for us, Allen is one of those very very few exceptions who have made really large improvements in accuracy.

 

But yeah, you're right, decision-making, too.

 

 

 

 

[transplantbillsfan]

11 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Yeah, I get it.

 

You have an opinion, and nothing else. And you're telling us that opinion. Which is fine. But again, we knew your opinion before.

 

Thing is, other than that opinion of yours, backed up by ... well, your opinion, there isn't any evidence or really anyone else saying the same thing.

 

Allen had accuracy problems, which he has really successfully addressed. You don't think so. Both of those things are just fine.

 

 

 

Same ole Thurm.

 

Glad to know you haven't changed.

 

If you want to dismiss the exercise then do it by watching every single pass from all 7 of those QBs in their rookie years, collate the data, and let's compare.  I make the methodology as objective as possible without considering ball placement... you can find it here:

 

I doubt you'll find anything other than the fact that Allen was no less consistently accurate than your typical NFL rookie 1st round QB starting in year 1

[transplantbillsfan]

11 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

First, dividing things up by how many catchable and uncatchable footballs a guy throws is in no way measuring his accuracy. Accuracy is far far more nuanced than that, it has to do with how well you hit a guy in stride, how well you lead him away from defenders, whether you hit him between the numbers and so on.

 

And yet it's pretty obvious that any ball that is UNCATCHABLE would also be inaccurate and Allen threw a lower percentage of UNCATCHABLE passes (when excluding Throwaways) than Wentz, Watson, Mayfield, Watson, Jackson, and Rosen.

 

I'm guessing those would be those "wildly inaccurate" passes you referred to with Allen.  If you actually watched him and watched all those other rookie QBs their rookie years, you would realize that Allen was not any less consistently inaccurate (since that's a term I'm sure you'd agree one doesn't need to quibble with as there's no variance of an uncatchable ball with good ball placement

 

11 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

You're not measuring accuracy there. You're measuring whether or not some guy on the internet thinks your balls are catchable or not. And that's fine, it's just quite far from accuracy.

 

Not when you remember that any uncatchable pass is also obviously inaccurate.

 

11 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

As for whether your method is objective, it couldn't possibly be clearer that it is absolutely not. Saying that your method was objective is a joke.

 

The fact is that we often have people on these forums arguing whether the ball in a given case is catchable or not and disagreeing violently. It's an opinion. Now, some cases are obvious and everyone would get them the same, but many are not. Many are very subjective. And it's a simple fact that beliefs, opinions and prejudices affect perception.

 

Passes within reach of at least one of the WRs hands is a catchable football.  Fingertips and beyond is not.

 

That's it.  It's significantly less difficult to evaluate that than it is ball placement.

 

Of course there's some subjectivity.  But I used those same measurements for every single QB, so the standards  for the others were the same.

 

11 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

You could've made your analysis bulletproof by pointing out what you thought of which plays. I challenged you many times to do that. You refused, for reasons that seemed pretty obvious to me and many others.

 

What I thought of which plays?  I provide examples in that thread.

 

 

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

On 11/22/2020 at 4:31 AM, Thurman#1 said:

Um, no, comparing rookie Allen with rookie Brady or Brees is just fine, as is comparing college Allen with college Brady or Brees. More, it appears I never mentioned Brady or Brees. That was you, desperately trying to acquire a point.

so typical of him if I must say. 
 

He didn’t like Josh at first and now it seems he’s heat over heals with praise 

And why keep reposting the this?  

[Thurman#1]

On 11/22/2020 at 11:58 PM, Shaw66 said:

It really doesn't matter, but I don't think you're correct about this.  Jordan Palmer is a football player, not a writer.  So when he said Allen had bad mechanical happens, it's quite possible that's just poor word choice.  A football player is less likely to make distinctions in his language that capture the difference between "bad habits" and no habits.  

 

I didn't see Allen doing anything wrong consistently wrong.  I never saw a QB whose mechanics were bad.  Every throw was unique.  He didn't do the same thing wrong every time.  A habit is something that you do the same every time a situation arises, and that wasn't Allen.  Rolling left, for example, sometimes he threw a pass that only a half dozen NFL QBs throw, sometimes he was a disaster.   That's not a bad habit; that's just a situation that requires awareness and consistency.  

 

 

No, Shaw.

 

It really was not even close to a misunderstanding. He didn't just say that Allen had mechanical problems. He went into detail over and over again about what those mechanical problems were and what he was doing to fix them.

 

As one of several examples, here is an excerpt of a pre-draft interview with Jordan Palmer, but after Palmer had spent months working with him. And it's very very clear that he sees at least one very very specific problem (though he's talked about several others at different interviews at different times as Josh developed.

 

 

 

"Of course, the big question with Allen is his accuracy and his 56.2 completion percentage, which scares the heck out of offensive coaches. But guess what?

" 'We've fixed it,'' said Palmer.

"He said with Allen's poor completion percentage 'there are two ways to look at it: one, what he's doing mechanically, and then two what's happening around him, receivers and the concepts and the coverages that they're seeing and there's a lot of complexities that go into both of those.'

" 'From a mechanics standpoint you have to be athletic enough take an old muscle memory and create a new muscle memory. Take something that was an old habit and replace it with the new habit. With Josh, it was tied to his base and kind of where his feet are placed and how short his front stride is. And so making a small adjustment has made a huge impact.''

He said "the growth in accuracy that you're going to see throughout the draft training process and throughout his transition into the NFL and to being a franchise starter, is going to be tied to that.''

 

https://www.cleveland.com/browns/2018/03/jordan_palmer_on_browns_candid.html

 

He's referring specifically to the low completion percentage when he talks about other things than accuracy, like "... what's happening around him, reciever and the concepts and coverages ..."

But he very specifically addresses accuracy, specifically in terms of replacing bad old habits with good new ones. There was no mistake in communication here. Palmer is a very erudite, well-spoken guy, specific and educated in what he's talking about.

 

More:  "When the ball comes out of a guy's hand crappy on a good player, it's the sequencing,'' said Palmer. "You actually have to fix the sequencing and build muscle memory around that. If he has a bad throw, he'll follow it with a really good one because he has the fix.''

 

And again, this is one of several times he's mentioned various mechanical problems he and Josh were working on and changing.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Thurman#1

[Thurman#1]

On 11/24/2020 at 6:31 AM, SlimShady'sSpaceForce said:

so typical of him if I must say. 
 

He didn’t like Josh at first and now it seems he’s heat over heals with praise 

And why keep reposting the this?  

 

 

 

Um, no, Transplant was the guy who hated him with a wild and unceasing passion. Until about a week after the Bills drafted him.

 

As I said earlier in this thread, and Trans will back me up - because he was arguing with me telling me that success by Allen was not even a possibility - I thought he had a good chance to succeed. I wasn't convinced he would, but I thought he had a good chance, and thought him being a top ten guy was reasonable.

 

So, nice try.

[Thurman#1]

On 11/24/2020 at 5:58 AM, transplantbillsfan said:

 

And yet it's pretty obvious that any ball that is UNCATCHABLE would also be inaccurate and Allen threw a lower percentage of UNCATCHABLE passes (when excluding Throwaways) than Wentz, Watson, Mayfield, Watson, Jackson, and Rosen.

 

I'm guessing those would be those "wildly inaccurate" passes you referred to with Allen.  If you actually watched him and watched all those other rookie QBs their rookie years, you would realize that Allen was not any less consistently inaccurate (since that's a term I'm sure you'd agree one doesn't need to quibble with as there's no variance of an uncatchable ball with good ball placement

 

Not when you remember that any uncatchable pass is also obviously inaccurate.

 

Passes within reach of at least one of the WRs hands is a catchable football.  Fingertips and beyond is not.

 

That's it.  It's significantly less difficult to evaluate that than it is ball placement.

 

Of course there's some subjectivity.  But I used those same measurements for every single QB, so the standards  for the others were the same.

 

What I thought of which plays?  I provide examples in that thread.

 

 

 

You can kid yourself as you often do - remember how you loooooooooooooooooooooved Tyrod, Trans? Remember "near-elite"? - but the idea catchable and uncatchable, no matter how you set up your criteria, is subjective. The fact that we regularly have arguments on here about dozens of catches a year makes that very clear. It's subjective as hell. Arguing otherwise is kidding yourself.

 

And again, catchable and uncatchable doesn't particularly address accuracy. It's a much easier bar to get over. Sure, uncatchable balls are inaccurate. But Drew Brees, as an example of a really accurate guy, would call tons of catchable balls inaccurate failures. And he'd be right. A ball that forces a guy with a chance to get YAC to stop is inaccurate. A ball that forces a guy to reach back on a play when nobody's ahead is inaccurate even if it's caught.

 

In many cases a catchable ball just has to get into a target that's maybe 8 - 10 feet wide and 10 feet high. Not always. If the coverage is extremely tight it can be smaller but very often we're talking a huge target, so big that hitting it doesn't begin to show accuracy.

 

And yeah, you provided examples, but that proves nothing. When I did my studies, I annotated every play. It's the way to show you're working hard at avoiding confirmation bias. And a guy convinced for three years that Tyrod was a franchise QB is no stranger to confirmation bias. You give a few examples, but we don't know on how many others you let your biases take over. There's no way to know. I'd been riding you on that years before you began this study. You weren't willing to make it bulletproof. The reason why is what observers have to look at.

 

It's why what you have there is a wonderful collection of your opinion. And again, nothing wrong with that. Opinions are fine, whether they make sense or not. Well, you've said much the same thing your past few posts. Fair enough, nothing wrong with that either, but anyone who's watched you talk Buffalo QBs knows that you will never not get the last word even if it means a thread drags on till it's necrotized.

 

Me, I used to crack myself up by urging you on. But I'm over that.

 

 

Edited November 25, 2020 by Thurman#1

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

1 hour ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

 

Um, no, Transplant was the guy who hated him with a wild and unceasing passion. Until about a week after the Bills drafted him.

 

As I said earlier in this thread, and Trans will back me up - because he was arguing with me telling me that success by Allen was not even a possibility - I thought he had a good chance to succeed. I wasn't convinced he would, but I thought he had a good chance, and thought him being a top ten guy was reasonable.

 

So, nice try.

 

No,  That ^ was my point.  From hate to exuberance. 

 

There are literally a dozen Josh threads going you and Trans are welcome to partake on them you know.

 

There really isn't anything to prove. Josh is good. Period.  Anyone that says he isn't is being a tool.  

Edited November 25, 2020 by SlimShady'sSpaceForce

[transplantbillsfan]

6 hours ago, SlimShady'sSpaceForce said:

 

No,  That ^ was my point.  From hate to exuberance. 

 

There are literally a dozen Josh threads going you and Trans are welcome to partake on them you know.

 

There really isn't anything to prove. Josh is good. Period.  Anyone that says he isn't is being a tool.  

 

I don't know if you actually felt this way and felt you were the only person who felt this way, but Thurm is right for once.

 

Pretty well documented on here that I loathed the Josh Allen pick on draft day and quickly jumped on the pick after we drafted him.

 

I get that it all has to be about you.  But you definitely weren't the only one who went from "hate to exuberance."

[transplantbillsfan]

8 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

You can kid yourself as you often do - remember how you loooooooooooooooooooooved Tyrod, Trans? Remember "near-elite"? - but the idea catchable and uncatchable, no matter how you set up your criteria, is subjective. The fact that we regularly have arguments on here about dozens of catches a year makes that very clear. It's subjective as hell. Arguing otherwise is kidding yourself.

 

I remember.  I was wrong about my evaluation about Taylor on the whole.

 

We all have our misses.

 

None of our exercises with Taylor were broken down by the simple measures here.  We were playing around with ball placement, which was certainly more subjective.

 

Quote

 

And again, catchable and uncatchable doesn't particularly address accuracy. It's a much easier bar to get over. Sure, uncatchable balls are inaccurate. But Drew Brees, as an example of a really accurate guy, would call tons of catchable balls inaccurate failures. And he'd be right. A ball that forces a guy with a chance to get YAC to stop is inaccurate. A ball that forces a guy to reach back on a play when nobody's ahead is inaccurate even if it's caught.

 

Catchable vs. Uncatchable measuring accuracy is an entire debate you'll  find in that thread.

 

But once again, an UNCATCHABLE ball is obviously inaccurate.  And those are pretty easy to measure.

 

Quote

 

In many cases a catchable ball just has to get into a target that's maybe 8 - 10 feet wide and 10 feet high. Not always. If the coverage is extremely tight it can be smaller but very often we're talking a huge target, so big that hitting it doesn't begin to show accuracy.

 

But measuring all those passes more than 8-10 feet wide and over 10 feet wide does.

 

Measuring those really bad passes  equals those "wildly inaccurate" throws Josh Allen was supposedly so much more prone to than all those other rookie QBs.

 

And even you can go and look for just those throws and I'm confident even you will notice that Allen is not any more consistently "wildly inaccurate" than other QBs.

 

As for those other passes that are "catchable," all I can say is: try the exercise rather than pursuing your Ad Hominem attack.

 

Quote

 

And yeah, you provided examples, but that proves nothing. When I did my studies, I annotated every play. It's the way to show you're working hard at avoiding confirmation bias. And a guy convinced for three years that Tyrod was a franchise QB is no stranger to confirmation bias. You give a few examples, but we don't know on how many others you let your biases take over. There's no way to know. I'd been riding you on that years before you began this study. You weren't willing to make it bulletproof. The reason why is what observers have to look at.

 

I have my plays mostly annotated and noted.   I did that largely in loving memory of you. Do you want to ask me about an individual play?  

 

Quote

 

It's why what you have there is a wonderful collection of your opinion. And again, nothing wrong with that. Opinions are fine, whether they make sense or not. Well, you've said much the same thing your past few posts. Fair enough, nothing wrong with that either, but anyone who's watched you talk Buffalo QBs knows that you will never not get the last word even if it means a thread drags on till it's necrotized.

 

Me, I used to crack myself up by urging you on. But I'm over that.

 

 

Ahhhhh....  showing your stripes I see.

 

Always thought you were a bit of a troll whose primary goal was to obfuscate.... glad you finally admit it.  

 

Don't know if you celebrate Thanksgiving as a transplant in Japan, but have a good one if you do. 

Edited November 25, 2020 by transplantbillsfan

[foreboding]

I remember he and Romo talking about how critical it was that Josh move his torso properly as well. The torso needs to follow the head, even when he cannot step into his throws or get the feet in the right spot, the  head and torso are now connected and it makes every single throw better.

 

Also, you guys mentioned flicking the ball. To me Aaron Rogers is the prototype for that. Seems like at least half his throws are those tight little flicks and he ends up with his hand pointing toward the target, like playing darts. Josh has certainly developed that throw.