Is Josh a mediocre QB right now? And does it matter?

[Low Positive]

Just now, CincyBillsFan said:

Two factors are in play here:

 

1) Social media and streaming has led to a proliferation of so called NFL "experts".  As their numbers have increased the football IQ of their discussions has plummeted.

 

2) From before the 2018 draft there has been a negative take on Allen that refuses to disappear. Allen's extraordinary play has pushed it into the shadows but it springs back after even mediocre games and explodes back into view after a rare Allen bad game.  I don't know of another QB who gets this kind of treatment.  I guess when you make your living delivering hot takes on the NFL and you get it as wrong as these guys got it with Allen you can never let it go.

 

Because TV and social media posts are recorded for posterity. We “have the receipts” as the kids like to say. So they have to die on all of their bills.

[Big Turk]

 

On 9/16/2023 at 12:48 PM, Beck Water said:

Now hear me out 😈

 

I started out 'salty' about the "Josh Allen most interceptions in last 2 years".  I said, said I, "but Josh has the most continuous starts of any player, let alone QB - so how does that play into it? And also, he throws a ton of passing TDs, so surely that compensates".   Since I'm a datageek, here's what I did:

-pulled regular season data from 2021, 2022, and 2023 out of pro-football-reference

-Excel pivot table to sum data by QB

-calculate interceptions, TD, 1D, and Yards per game, to normalize data for different numbers of starts

-multiply by 35 games to get it out of decimal form that is hard to interpret when we're used to thinking about integer numbers

 

This actually isn't what  I thought I was going to find.  I thought when normalized by starts, Josh Allen would NOT be leading in # of INT.  And he isn't - but he's one behind Davis Mills, tied with Sam Darnold, and one ahead of Matt Stafford and Andy Dalton.  Yikes!!!!!  That is not actually company you want your 6 yr vet, big-$$ QB to keep!  Or, I thought if he was still "up there", he would also be "up there" in passing TD to compensate.
 

So here are the data.  (Click to make it readable).  Sorted by TD/INT, Josh Allen is currently 17 on the list.  Now obviously, this isn't the be-all end-all of QB evaluation, since some of the QB listed above him by this metric, are literally unemployed at the moment (Trevor Siemian, Carson Wentz), are backups (Case Keenum) or are retired (Brady). 

I recall Mike Tomlin benching Mason Rudolph after a multi-interception game, saying "we just need someone who won't kill us" (with turnovers).  So as a metric for how much a QB contributes to scoring vs. how much a QB hurts the team by ending possessions with the other team in position to score, I thought this was worth looking at.  And by this metric, allen is below starting Rodgers, Purdy, Goff, Cousins. Mahomes, Geno Smith, Burrow, Herbert, WILSON (!!!!!), Hurts, Prescott, and Tua.

 

Thoughts?  (I can sort it by other parameters if anyone cares).

 

FWIW, my thoughts are that Josh's offensive contributions are still strong enough to allow a team to win with him provided they have a good run game and top defense.  But if we're taking Josh out of the run game, and with aging safeties and a new MLB, I'm not sure we have enough of those last two to get there.  So if we want to win, Josh, Joe Brady, and Ken Dorsey better figure it out - and fast.

 

 

BYE FELICIA!!!