Updated: categorization of Josh Allen fumbles

[WhoTom]

5 minutes ago, LongTermBuffalonian said:

 

To be fair, that's part of the way he keeps defenses honest behind the line of scrimmage.

 

How many times have we seen him wrist flick it like 10 yards to an open receiver as he approaches the line?

If he pulls it in and tucks it, the Defense KNOWS he is going to run. If he has his arm ready to throw - the defense has to allow for a last minute throw, so it keeps them honest.

 

And how many times has he gained a first down by stretching the ball across the line?

 

I'm just saying - part of what makes him SO dangerous is the ease that he transiitons from throwing threat to running threat...

 

 

I agree in those two cases, but he often does it past the LOS and in the middle of the field, not extending for the first down. 

 

[JESSEFEFFER]

My take is that getting the ball out quick and being quick to check it down are the preferred moves for QBs that can't be trusted, are incapable of extending plays and/or of creating anything special.  As a raw score, the TO# seems high but on a per play or per "time of possession" basis, I would guess that it would look different. 

 

Josh does expose the ball too much in a calculated way, usually while under threat of tackle (a blindside hit and a chop on an arm ready to throw is rarely not the cause of a fumble for any QB.)  He has to be near the top in broken/missed tackles.  That pump fake move he makes is one example and the stiff arm move is another.  When he does the former he might lose the grip on the ball or maybe get splattered by a defender whom ignored the fake and with the latter, he will extend the ball away from the defender in one hand and use the other for the stiff arm attempt.  These are almost reflex reaction moves that defy game situations and seeing the ball flailing around scares the curse words right out of my mouth.  Josh is often the master of controlled chaos but sometimes it goes wrong.  I am trying to force my fandom to accept it, if not embrace it.  Just remember what the alternatives have been and it makes it easier.

 

Insert Russell Crowe "Are we you entertained!" gif here:

 

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by JESSEFEFFER

[RoyBatty is alive]

2 hours ago, eball said:

 

Who said they don't exist?  Who said Josh is perfect?  There is a wide chasm between saying Josh and the Bills need to cut down on turnovers, and saying Josh is "careless" or "bumbling" with the football.  The tape doesn't support the latter, and I don't care how many picks he has thrown.

 

Yep.  Totally objective,

[Drew21PA]

1 hour ago, Beck Water said:

 

Shouldn't that be DPI since he was hindering the receiver after the ball was in the air but before it arrived?

 

I struggle with understanding these distinctions, so I could be mistaken.

 

 

You're welcome, and when I was doing the breakdown I was cooking right along and it didn't register to me that the lateral had actually been scored as an "aborted snap".  So thanks in return for getting me to take a 2nd look at that.

 

 

There's probably this kind of distinction in one of those NFL stats services one must subscribe to and I've been too cheap to shell out for.  But I'm not sure that's entirely fair to the WR since a number of times when there's a tip from the WR, the WR is trying kinda desperately to make a play on a ball that's too high.

 

Also, look at the Diggs 1D catch where the ball went right over Shakir's outstretched finger tips.  If Shakir had jumped, he might well have tipped it for a pick - and is that on him, or on a route design that created confusion by putting him in front of Diggs at the same time, with spacing that created ambiguity?

It’s way too much of a judgment call.  Brad Allen’s crew is horrible imo

[clearwater cadet]

In order to have the Boom! you need to have a few bust.  I will take Josh every time.

[Teddy KGB]

2 hours ago, Beck Water said:

 

Just so we're clear, that's INTs and fumbles, not INTs.  And a bunch of those are weird - for example, all the aborted snaps this season.

 

If you look at number of INTs, strangely enough there are a bunch of top QB who are in the playoffs right up there. 

Prescott, Allen, Cousins, Burrow, Mahomes.

 

Strangely enough, a lot of these are also the guys with the most passing attempts - Mahomes, Burrow, Cousins, Allen

 

If we look at Int % to normalize for attempts, it gives a slightly different picture.  Prescott is right up there with 3.5%.

Cousins, Rodgers, Burrow, and Mahomes are lower, around 2 - 2.2%.

 

Allen is a bit higher, at 2.5%

 

Basically, if you're gonna run a relatively high risk passing attack, you're gonna have a few more INTs.

cool, let’s try not leading the league in turnovers though 

[eball]

2 hours ago, RoyBatty is alive said:

Yep.  Totally objective,

 

Do you know why I don't care?  Because they haven't cost the Bills games.  In case you didn't notice, Buffalo has won eight games in a row.

 

[RoyBatty is alive]

15 minutes ago, eball said:

 

Do you know why I don't care?  Because they haven't cost the Bills games.  In case you didn't notice, Buffalo has won eight games in a row.

 

Josh's interceptions absolutely cost us the Minnesota and the NYJet game #1.  

 

Yes I know Buffalo has won eight games in a row, why did you add that?  Thanks for stating the obvious.

Edited January 19, 2023 by RoyBatty is alive

[eball]

5 minutes ago, RoyBatty is alive said:

Josh's interceptions absolutely cost us the Minnesota and the NYJet game #1.  

 

Yes I know Buffalo has won eight games in a row, why did you add that?  Thanks for stating the obvious.

 

If you think that Josh is playing right now the way he played in those two games, I don't know what to tell you.  You're simply being obtuse.

 

[BuffaloBills1998]

I love how there’s posts for Allen’s turnovers. Imagine if this board existed back when Kelly was playing lol. Now there’s a guy that had a worse turnover problem than Allen

[CincyBillsFan]

22 minutes ago, BuffaloBills1998 said:

I love how there’s posts for Allen’s turnovers. Imagine if this board existed back when Kelly was playing lol. Now there’s a guy that had a worse turnover problem than Allen

Remember when Kelly threw THREE INT's at home against the Bengals in the FIRST FREAKING QUARTER!  He went on to cut the Bengals up and the Bills won by a couple of scores but if Allen did that all the "experts" would focus on were the 3 INT's in one quarter.

 

Today on Cowherd he had Greg Cosell on (great analysis as always) and when jumping to Trevor Lawrence Cowherd said something along the lines of "moving past the 4 INT's in the first half wasn't Trevor amazing".  I laughed out loud!  The same guy obsessing over Allen's TWO picks just causally shrugs off Lawrence's FOUR INT's.  You just can't take any of these people seriously.

 

 

 

 

[Beck Water]

31 minutes ago, BuffaloBills1998 said:

I love how there’s posts for Allen’s turnovers. Imagine if this board existed back when Kelly was playing lol. Now there’s a guy that had a worse turnover problem than Allen

 

Do you think it's not an appropriate topic for discussion?

 

Oddly enough I started this thread because a couple of posters referred to Josh as a "Fumble machine when he runs" or something of the sort, and I wanted to provide data showing that was, at this point, incorrect.

Edited January 19, 2023 by Beck Water

[BuffaloBills1998]

1 minute ago, Beck Water said:

 

Do you think it's not an appropriate topic for discussion?

No I’m just making a point. You guys can talk about whatever you want. I just find the Hypocrisy at times on this board and most posts about everyone’s overreaction Allen’s turnovers is a bit hypocritical. 

[Matt_In_NH]

1 hour ago, eball said:

 

Do you know why I don't care?  Because they haven't cost the Bills games.  In case you didn't notice, Buffalo has won eight games in a row.

 

 

Minnesota game...........

[Beck Water]

5 minutes ago, BuffaloBills1998 said:

No I’m just making a point. You guys can talk about whatever you want. I just find the Hypocrisy at times on this board and most posts about everyone’s overreaction Allen’s turnovers is a bit hypocritical. 

 

Do you disbelieve or disagree with McDermott's expressed view that it's proven in the NFL, you can't win long term against the best teams while you're turning the ball over that much?

 

I also don't understand what is hypocritical about people's negative reactions to Allen's INTs.  I'm not saying you're wrong, but not understanding the use of the word "hypocritical" to describe it.

[Scott7975]

5 hours ago, Beck Water said:

 

Actually "fumbles lost" is harder than one might think, or maybe I just don't know the right source for it.

 

I was able to pull the cause of the fumble from box scores, so that wasn't too bad

It's enough time and work I'm not inclined to do it for 8 or 10 guys, Sorry!

 

So we'd need to look at overall sacks, then at strip sacks, and I'm sure there are data services that report this but I don't subscribe.  It's on my list to look at my sports subscriptions and get more "bang for my buck" in terms of my personal enjoyment, so maybe I'll look into one of those since NFL+ seems to have no desire to fix their all-22.

 

We can say a couple things though, using regular season stats.

 

The 15 players with the most fumbles are all QB, and they're not all running guys, so I think it's a good guess that strip sacks are a common cause of QB fumbles.  First is Justin Fields (16), second is Matt Ryan (15), Allen is 3rd (13 reg season), Trevor Lawrence 4th (12), Jalen Hurts 5th (9).  Geno Smith, Justin Herbert, Aaron Rodgers all tied with 8, Kirk Cousins one back with 7.

Of those, Fields took a league leading 55 sacks, Cousins and Smith 46, Hurts and Herbert 38, Allen 33, Rodgers 32.  I'm going to guess that most of Cousins, Smith, Herbert, and Rodgers fumbles were on sacks, since it's a problem to have as many fumbles on QB/C exchange as Allen had this year and they rarely run.  Fields and Hurts, can't say anything without diving into the details since they run, A Lot.

 

That would put Herbert 8/38, Rodgers 8/32 (assuming most of their fumbles are on sacks)  Allen 7 reg. season strip sack fumbles/33 sacks.  So maybe around the same rate as a handful of pretty good QB.  Tua 6 fumbles on 21 sacks.  Basically, one fumble on every 4-ish sacks.

 

That said, it isn't inevitable. Daniel Jones has 6 fumbles on 44 sacks (probably less, since he ran a lot this year), Burrow 6 on 41 sacks, Cousins 7 fumbles/46 sacks, Geno Smith 8/46 - around 15%, or 1 fumble every 7 sacks.

 

Mahomes is in between, 5 fumbles, 26 sacks - 0 lost which is pretty incredible for something that's supposed to be a 50/50 proposition.

 

My bottom line, Allen's rate of fumbling on strip sacks is probably at the high end of a number of good QB, so there would be room for improvement with ball security there.

 

In the previous 2 years, Allen has fumbled less - 2020 9x (6), 2021 8x (3).  I think it would be a fairly good guess that a lot of the difference would be issues on the QB/C exchange, since without, say, 4 of those 5 fumbles he would be at 9 which would be in line with the previous 2 years.

 

He took more sacks this year, 33 vs 26 in '20 and '21.  Not sure if that reflects a trend away from taking off when he's pressured (I don't think so, but can't say for sure)/better defense at containing him, OR, if our OL is just giving up more pressures and sacks because Saffold and Brown just aren't very good in the pass pro.

 

Hope this interests someone. 

 

Obviously, a change in procedure to maybe sneak in a little more QB/C exchange work with the 2nd and 3rd string guys could help, but it would have to be against a defender because I'm sure they're fine when they just practice against air.  I think the main thing is if we want Josh to stand in the pocket and throw, we got to get him a better OL that can protect him and enable more of a run game.

 

 

Fumbles lost: https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/player-stat/fumbles-lost

[BuffaloBills1998]

16 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

Do you disbelieve or disagree with McDermott's expressed view that it's proven in the NFL, you can't win long term against the best teams while you're turning the ball over that much?

 

I also don't understand what is hypocritical about people's negative reactions to Allen's INTs.  I'm not saying you're wrong, but not understanding the use of the word "hypocritical" to describe it.

No I don’t disagree but it’s amusing how most of the fans on this board overreact/fall apart if Allen makes any mistake/turnover. My point Kelly was much more worse with his turnovers and was 1,000 times more reckless with the ball than Allen’s ever been since playing here. I want to know if this board would react the same if this board existed back then or if we would’ve given Kelly a pass because most on here view Kelly as a god in Buffalo for some reason. 

[RoyBatty is alive]

1 hour ago, eball said:

 

If you think that Josh is playing right now the way he played in those two games, I don't know what to tell you.  You're simply being obtuse.

 

I dont think that way.   I never said or intimated that.  But the reality is he certainly "capable" of playing that way, I know it's a bummer and sometimes reality hurts.

 

No, I am not being "obtuse" unless if posting here is not 100% positive rah rah rah, reality be damned, then maybe I am, in your opinion. 

 

You make statements you cant back them up and continually qualify them as if your original comment was correct.  Now you move the goal posts to "how he is playing right now".  You wrote that Josh interceptions haven't "cost us any games".  Incorrect. Of our 3 losses, two are directly attributable to his ints.

[LABILLBACKER]

He continues to hold the ball out and away from his body like a cantaloupe.  But I have yet to see someone knock it loose in the last couple seasons. The biggest problem are the blindside strip sacks.  With a better OL these can be minimized. 

[RoyBatty is alive]

1 minute ago, LABILLBACKER said:

He continues to hold the ball out and away from his body like a cantaloupe.  But I have yet to see someone knock it loose in the last couple seasons. The biggest problem are the blindside strip sacks.  With a better OL these can be minimized. 

He really does, with his big hands you would think he could hold on better.  Maybe he should deflate the ball a la Brady.  It has to be tempting for any defender to swat the ball away with a serious tomahawk chop.

 

Lets not forget, his leg knocked the ball loose versus Miami, we got lucky as he fumbled it out of bounds.