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

[Chaos]

This is probably the dumbest thread title in TBD history. 

[John from Riverside]

I love whenever players make threads look silly
 

[Alphadawg7]

On 9/16/2023 at 9:48 AM, 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.

Appreciate the data work.  But…You just can’t analyze Josh as a QB and not factor his rushing TDs and production.  Any such comparison is incomplete and presents false conclusions.  

[Mr. WEO]

no

 

Q.E.D.

 

[Warcodered]

[Beck Water]

12 hours ago, Generic_Bills_Fan said:

Think he just faced two real tough defenses in a row in cincy and NYJ 

 

How did that Jets defense look vs Dallas?  But, if that's the story (4 TO vs good D, 0 TO vs mediocre D), how's the season's chances look?

 

12 hours ago, Captain Hindsight said:

We all feeling better?

 

Can't speak for "we".  Me, of course I am, but we're 1-1 on mistake-free Josh vs "turnover machine Josh"    I'd like to see more of the former.

 

11 hours ago, Chaos said:

This is probably the dumbest thread title in TBD history. 

 

I would love to get to the end of the season and have this be true.  No cap.

 

 

Edited September 18, 2023 by Beck Water

[Beck Water]

10 hours ago, Warcodered said:

 

 

 

OP and some posters in it: "There seems to be a problem where our QB's multi-turnover games have gotten too frequent, like 1 out of 2 games"

You after 2 games, 1 good 1 bad: "This thread is obsolete, get ready for all these posters to turn tables"

 

Seriously? 

I mean we're all fans, we'd love that to be true, but one example on each side for something that looks like a 1 out of 2 pattern (and which included its share of wild-man plays) does not eliminate concern.

[Solomon Grundy]

Tim Hasselbeck calls Allen off schedule plays RECKLESS, but when Mahomes does it it's MAGIC. Make it make sense 🤷

[Beck Water]

1 hour ago, Solomon Grundy said:

Tim Hasselbeck calls Allen off schedule plays RECKLESS, but when Mahomes does it it's MAGIC. Make it make sense 🤷

 

Sorry.  Can't do. (can't make it make sense)

Edited September 18, 2023 by Beck Water

[Aussie Joe]

 

 

2 hours ago, Solomon Grundy said:

Tim Hasselbeck calls Allen off schedule plays RECKLESS, but when Mahomes does it it's MAGIC. Make it make sense 🤷

 

Mahomes has won two SBS so he gets a longer leash

[Airseven]

46 minutes ago, Aussie Joe said:

 

 

 

Mahomes has won two SBS so he gets a longer leash

+2 MVPs

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

5 hours ago, Beck Water said:

 

How did that Jets defense look vs Dallas?  But, if that's the story (4 TO vs good D, 0 TO vs mediocre D), how's the season's chances look?

 

 

Can't speak for "we".  Me, of course I am, but we're 1-1 on mistake-free Josh vs "turnover machine Josh"    I'd like to see more of the former.

 

 

I would love to get to the end of the season and have this be true.  No cap.

 

 

They didn’t look good obviously but to be fair they were on the field for 42 minutes and the jets offense turned it over 4 times.

 

I mean how many really great defenses are there left on the schedule/we might see in the playoffs?  NYJ again… Dallas? Philly maybe? Cincy hasn’t looked as good this year.  Then you get to the AFC playoffs and who could we see in there…jets won’t be making it.  Seems like a majority of the elite defenses are in the NFC
 

I certainly didn’t mean josh always plays badly against great defenses lol we have torched NE quite a few times. If you have a bad day though things are more likely to snowball and week 1 is kind of a crapshoot to begin with. 

 

 

 

[Warriorspikes51]

Allen is #2 if Burrow continues his struggles 

[ddaryl]

If Allen can keep his head in check and stay on script instead of panicing when things don't go swimmingly then Allen is a HoF QB

Allen has to maintain composure, thats his ultimate weakness. When he is composed and things are flowing as intended he is unbeatable. When he pressures himself and starts going off script that is when Allen makes his most mistakes.

[Warriorspikes51]

Just now, ddaryl said:

If Allen can keep his head in check and stay on script instead of panicing when things don't go swimmingly then Allen is a HoF QB

Allen has to maintain composure, thats his ultimate weakness. When he is composed and things are flowing as intended he is unbeatable. When he pressures himself and starts going off script that is when Allen makes his most mistakes.

 

off-script plays are a strength.....the decision making on where he throws the ball is the issue

[Low Positive]

3 hours ago, Aussie Joe said:

 

 

 

Mahomes has won two SBS so he gets a longer leash

For this week? Everybody NfL talking head watched every snap of the Monday night game. They only watched highlights of the Raiders game. You can tell Hasselbeck didn’t watch the game because he talked about the Bills lack of a running game on a day when the Bills RBs ran for 183 with 2 TDs. So now he has to go on TV and talk about a bunch of games that he didn’t watch. He looks at the stats and see no TOs. Well that doesn’t fit what he planned to talk about. Well, let’s look at the highlights and see where there “could” have been TOs. That way he doesn’t  have to change his script. You’re going to see this from every single one of them this week, because nobody except Bills and Raiders fans watched this game.

[Don Otreply]

The Raiders game is a classic example of Josh following the script, and taking what a defense gives him, and as I stated up thread, he and the team were very successful doing so, I hope he has had the message drilled into his mind, I do think it will stick this time. 
 

GO BILLS!!!

[CincyBillsFan]

6 hours ago, Beck Water said:

 

How did that Jets defense look vs Dallas?  But, if that's the story (4 TO vs good D, 0 TO vs mediocre D), how's the season's chances look?

 

You more then most should know that transitive properties don't apply in football. 

 

BTW, in the 2nd quarter Sauce dropped what would have been an easy pick six.  I got a feeling that last Monday night he wouldn't have dropped that same pass from Allen.

 

 

[ddaryl]

Just now, Warriorspikes51 said:

 

off-script plays are a strength.....the decision making on where he throws the ball is the issue

 

Not what I meant... When it happens on occasion when a play break down, yes Allen is great at making something out of nothing.

I'm talking about Allen abandoning the game plan when it isn't flowing perfectly for him and just reverting to hero ball Josh... We've seen his ugliest games when he does this. He's a won a few as well, but most of his crappy games come when he tires to do so much and his emotions take him competely off script.

[CincyBillsFan]

1 minute ago, FrenchConnection said:

For this week? Everybody NfL talking head watched every snap of the Monday night game. They only watched highlights of the Raiders game. You can tell Hasselbeck didn’t watch the game because he talked about the Bills lack of a running game on a day when the Bills RBs ran for 183 with 2 TDs. So now he has to go on TV and talk about a bunch of games that he didn’t watch. He looks at the stats and see no TOs. Well that doesn’t fit what he planned to talk about. Well, let’s look at the highlights and see where there “could” have been TOs. That way he doesn’t  have to change his script. You’re going to see this from every single one of them this week, because nobody except Bills and Raiders fans watched this game.

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.