The criticism of Josh Allen

[FireChans]

17 hours ago, Mikie2times said:

Josh and Lamar are both stone cold killers when it comes to division titles, rushing TD's, and wild card playoff games.  

Lamar hilariously enough has 1 WC win in his career. He’s gotten clowned by the Titans, the Bills and now the Chiefs. 
 

If he wasn’t a 2 time MVP, and there weren’t so many weird racial overtones in his commentary for good and for ill, he would be fighting the “fraud” allegations far more than just about any QB in the league. 
 

As much as I like to watch Lamar and think he’s special, he might be legit like the 12th QB I’d want for a playoff run. 

[Mister Defense]

6 hours ago, 78thealltimegreat said:

No he legit believes it you should see him in game threads 

 

 Thanks!

 

Yikes...

[transplantbillsfan]

10 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

This is completely off the subject.  This thread started out about Josh and whether he's being fairly or unfairly criticized.  It evolved, a bit, into whether Josh does his job as well as he should.   You're talking about who should bear the responsibility when the team underperforms.   That is a completely different subject. 

 

Your bolded language makes the point.  Who ever has had a job where their job performance is measured relative to how some other employee did their job?  No one, that's who.  "Well, General Custer, it is unfortunate about that battle, but you outperformed your soldiers that day, so you get an A for the Little Bighorn."

 

Josh, like every quarterback, must be evaluated on objective performance criteria.  Fans to a great extent, and coaches to some extent, do it based on common data, like completion percentage, yards per completion, etc.  But I think that teams and coaches also use far more sophisticated criteria, objective and subjective.  Each play is evaluated by what Josh was supposed to do, and what he actually did.  In a perfect world, your QB does what he is supposed to do 100% of the time.   That's executing the offense.  

 

What fans tend to do with Josh is overemphasize what he accomplishes off script, and particularly overemphasize the WOW! off-script plays.  Nobody claims that Josh is better than Tom Brady, but Josh's off-script percentage is almost certainly better than Brady's.  Brady gave up on plays all the time - when it went off script, particularly if he had pressure on him, he went down. 

 

Josh's off-script plays are good and important, but more important is to get a very high percentage on the on-script plays.  One measure of success on on-script plays is whether you got positive yardage.  I've said often that choosing the 30-yard throw with a 50% completion probability is not as good a decision as the 8-yard throw with an 85% completion probability.   Stringing together positive plays is vey important in a league where the defenses are designed to deny big plays.  And, in 2023, particularly early in the season, we saw Josh doing just that - he had a very high completion percentage in the first five or six games of the season, taking the easy, short throw over and over.  The yards piled up, and the Bills rolled over opponents.  

 

None of that has anything to do with how well the linebackers played, or even how well the offensive line played.   Even when the line sucks, Josh's performance is graded on what he's supposed to do under the circumstances.   When someone misses a block and Josh throws the ball away to avoid a sack, the coaches don't just ignore that play for evaluation purposes.  He's evaluated on whether he should have seen something presnap, he's evaluated on whether he looked soon enough to the side where the rush was coming from, he's evaluated on whether he had a hot read that he should have gone to instead of just throwing it away.   

 

I believe that in that kind of evaluation scheme, detailed, critical evaluation of every aspect of the QB's decision making and physical performance, Josh's grades are good but not yet great.  I also believe that he's made steady progress toward great.  I think he's improved virtually every season.  2023 was his best so far, and he isn't done yet.  

 

Shaw, all of this neglects to consider the fact that his off-script plays might be part of the script in the first place if you can acknowledge that going beyond read #1 is still part of the script.

 

Does anyone really think that his coaches are stressing the point to him that he needs to always get to his 3rd or 4th read? His coaches have obviously understood his athleticism throughout his whole career and have incorporated running as part of the progressions, so to speak.

 

You really think there's never been a point where his OC has said "OK Josh, if it's man coverage and your 1st read is covered and it's a 2 high shell, RUN!!!!"?

 

I think 2023 was evidence itself that Josh scrambling has been part of the coaching. Look at his rushes for the first half of 2023 with Dorsey vs the 2nd half with Brady. Heck, just look at the "low positive" attitude Dorsey was clearly coaching into him. Just note the fact that during the time Dorsey was coaching in 2023, Allen ran less than 5 times per game. When Brady took over, that number doubled and he ran almost 10 times a game.

 

As for all the "in-structure" stuff, Josh is actually pretty good and getting better. When Josh does pass the ball in under 3 seconds he has the 2nd fastest release of any QB in the NFL. When he does get the ball out in under 2 1/2 seconds (which is 47 percent of his passes), he completes 78% of his passes. That's #1 in the NFL.

 

And Josh had the lowest turnover worthy play percentage of his entire career at 3%. He was just really unlucky.

 

(EDIT: All the stats above are courtesy of Joe Marino in his QB roster evaluation he did a month or so ago. He's said in the past he pays for subscriptions to various sites like PFF for thier Advanced metrics, so that's probably what they're from)

 

Saying Josh can improve is fine because every NFL player can improve, Including Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes. Positing that Josh has more ground to make up as a QB than especially Burrow is, I think, silly.

Edited April 1 by transplantbillsfan

[CincyBillsFan]

7 hours ago, oldmanfan said:

Find one single person on this board saying Josh is the sole reason we haven’t one a Super Bowl.  I’ll save you time; no one has.  What has happened is that people state correctly that he can continue to improve.  And that you and others then go into hyperbole and claim things that have not been said.

 

I don’t know of a single fan either personally or on this board that is not happy we have Josh as our QB.

Judas Priest now the criteria is SOLE REASON? I don't have time to play games.  There are plenty of posters who call out Allen as a problem keeping the Bills from advancing further then they have.  None of them are saying he's the sole reason but time after time they claim or insinuate that Allen's play is limiting the Bills.  And every time I see this I call out BS, because that is exactly what it is.

 

If you're truly happy Allen is the Bills QB then why do you insist he has to improve for us to reach the next level?  On any rational list of what the Bills must do to get over the hump Allen playing better is #99. 

 

And please enough with the "everyone can improve" shtick.  It's true but completely irrelevant to Allen and the Bills.  IMO even if Allen improves as much as he can it won't matter to the Bills getting over the hump if they don't significantly improve other areas of the team.  In other words we homers believe that Allen has played more then well enough to win multiple Super Bowls if other parts of the Bills team & coaches improved their game. That's where the focus and discussion needs to be.

 

 

 

 

[Mikie2times]

1 hour ago, FireChans said:

Lamar hilariously enough has 1 WC win in his career. He’s gotten clowned by the Titans, the Bills and now the Chiefs. 
 

If he wasn’t a 2 time MVP, and there weren’t so many weird racial overtones in his commentary for good and for ill, he would be fighting the “fraud” allegations far more than just about any QB in the league. 
 

As much as I like to watch Lamar and think he’s special, he might be legit like the 12th QB I’d want for a playoff run. 

The not so funny part is we have been to the same amount of AFC championship games as he has. So what does that say?

[Shaw66]

1 hour ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

Shaw, all of this neglects to consider the fact that his off-script plays might be part of the script in the first place if you can acknowledge that going beyond read #1 is still part of the script.

 

Does anyone really think that his coaches are stressing the point to him that he needs to always get to his 3rd or 4th read? His coaches have obviously understood his athleticism throughout his whole career and have incorporated running as part of the progressions, so to speak.

 

You really think there's never been a point where his OC has said "OK Josh, if it's man coverage and your 1st read is covered and it's a 2 high shell, RUN!!!!"?

 

I think 2023 was evidence itself that Josh scrambling has been part of the coaching. Look at his rushes for the first half of 2023 with Dorsey vs the 2nd half with Brady. Heck, just look at the "low positive" attitude Dorsey was clearly coaching into him. Just note the fact that during the time Dorsey was coaching in 2023, Allen ran less than 5 times per game. When Brady took over, that number doubled and he ran almost 10 times a game.

 

As for all the "in-structure" stuff, Josh is actually pretty good and getting better. When Josh does pass the ball in under 3 seconds he has the 2nd fastest release of any QB in the NFL. When he does get the ball out in under 2 1/2 seconds (which is 47 percent of his passes), he completes 78% of his passes. That's #1 in the NFL.

 

And Josh had the lowest turnover worthy play percentage of his entire career at 3%. He was just really unlucky.

 

(EDIT: All the stats above are courtesy of Joe Marino in his QB roster evaluation he did a month or so ago. He's said in the past he pays for subscriptions to various sites like PFF for thier Advanced metrics, so that's probably what they're from)

 

Saying Josh can improve is fine because every NFL player can improve, Including Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes. Positing that Josh has more ground to make up as a QB than especially Burrow is, I think, silly.

Cool data.  Thanks.

 

I think you're wrong.  I don't believe 31 coaches in the league tell their QB look at youth 3rd and fourth option and Brady tells Josh to tuck it and run.  Don't believe it for a.minute. McDermott is much too buttoned down for that.  

 

Josh has assignments like everyone else, and he's still learning to execute them properly.  He gets graded on his execution. 

 

The Bills offense is not predicated in Josh being Josh.  I'm sure of it.  

[oldmanfan]

19 minutes ago, CincyBillsFan said:

Judas Priest now the criteria is SOLE REASON? I don't have time to play games.  There are plenty of posters who call out Allen as a problem keeping the Bills from advancing further then they have.  None of them are saying he's the sole reason but time after time they claim or insinuate that Allen's play is limiting the Bills.  And every time I see this I call out BS, because that is exactly what it is.

 

If you're truly happy Allen is the Bills QB then why do you insist he has to improve for us to reach the next level?  On any rational list of what the Bills must do to get over the hump Allen playing better is #99. 

 

And please enough with the "everyone can improve" shtick.  It's true but completely irrelevant to Allen and the Bills.  IMO even if Allen improves as much as he can it won't matter to the Bills getting over the hump if they don't significantly improve other areas of the team.  In other words we homers believe that Allen has played more then well enough to win multiple Super Bowls if other parts of the Bills team & coaches improved their game. That's where the focus and discussion needs to be.

 

 

 

 

No one is claiming Josh alone is holding the team back, only that he like EVERY OTHER ATHLETE IN RECORDED HISTORY can improve.  Does our D need to improve a helluva lot more than Josh for us to win?  Absolutely.  Coaching?  A helluva lot more, absolutely.  O line?  Yep, absolutely.

 

Quit with your hero worship and read what people are actually saying.

Expand  

Actually quite a few posters over the last couple of months have been saying exactly that.  And then when some of us get pissed off and call them out for it you and others accuse us of "hero worship".

 

This was our earlier exchange.  I said no one is claiming Josh alone is holding the team back.  You highlighted that, and responded “Actually quite a few posters over the last couple of months have been saying exactly that”.  Those are your words.

 

And now it’s now the criteria is sole reason and I’m playing games?  You’re the one who denies your own words.  Or to put it another way, playing games.  Like ignoring what I wrote about all aspects of the team needing to improve.  Just more of your game playing.

 

The issue here is when you deny the words you used, it is impossible to have a reasonable discussion.  

[oldmanfan]

27 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

Cool data.  Thanks.

 

I think you're wrong.  I don't believe 31 coaches in the league tell their QB look at youth 3rd and fourth option and Brady tells Josh to tuck it and run.  Don't believe it for a.minute. McDermott is much too buttoned down for that.  

 

Josh has assignments like everyone else, and he's still learning to execute them properly.  He gets graded on his execution. 

 

The Bills offense is not predicated in Josh being Josh.  I'm sure of it.  

I agree with you Shaw.  Love Josh, delighted he’s our QB, and look

forward to his continually making himself better.

 

I think the difference between you and I and some other folks here is in the comparisons to other QBs.  Some say Favre and are happy for that.  But I think one can argue Favre cost his team championships with his gunslinger approach.  Great QB to be sure but could have been even more accomplished.  You and I admire a guy like Brady or Montana who were much more surgical in approach.  Maybe not the same physical skills as a Favre, but ultimately more successful.

 

I think if Josh could take his insanely great physical skills and approach the management skills of say a Montana he would be unstoppable.  And I think he can do so.  

[Mister Defense]

Hey, are you almost done with the information I and others requested to back up your original post?

 

Seems like it should be extremely easy for you to find, as you actually quoted some of it.

 

Looking forward to you providing the details, evidence, you mention, so that we can more realistically and adequately answer the questions you pose in your OP.

 

Thanks in advance, once again, for getting that information out asap, info that was clearly needed in the original post. But, better late than never!

 

Otherwise you merely smear our quarterback with BS nonsense, when you propose to be defending him...

 

[Mikie2times]

47 minutes ago, Mister Defense said:

Hey, are you almost done with the information I and others requested to back up your original post?

 

Seems like it should be extremely easy for you to find, as you actually quoted some of it.

 

Looking forward to you providing the details, evidence, you mention, so that we can more realistically and adequately answer the questions you pose in your OP.

 

Thanks in advance, once again, for getting that information out asap, info that was clearly needed in the original post. But, better late than never!

 

Otherwise you merely smear our quarterback with BS nonsense, when you propose to be defending him...

 

[transplantbillsfan]

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

Cool data.  Thanks.

 

I think you're wrong.  I don't believe 31 coaches in the league tell their QB look at youth 3rd and fourth option and Brady tells Josh to tuck it and run.  Don't believe it for a.minute. McDermott is much too buttoned down for that.  

 

Josh has assignments like everyone else, and he's still learning to execute them properly.  He gets graded on his execution. 

 

The Bills offense is not predicated in Josh being Josh.  I'm sure of it.  

 

Then how do you explain that the guy McDermott fired at OC had Josh running via designed runs and scrambles 4.2 times per game while the guy he hired as Interim OC and then retained permanently in that position had Josh running 9.7 times a game?

 

Brady doesn't sound like he had the offense very "buttoned up," at least based on your definition.

 

Also, I don't think 31 other coaches say that, either. Lamar falls into a similar bucket as Allen. Maybe Hurts, to a lesser extent.

 

I'm a little mystified that you think every QB needs to be judged and evaluated as QBs by the same set of standards.

 

A good coach knows the talent he has at specific positions and uses it. However buttoned up McDermott might be, he understands the stallion he has at QB and chose the OC that had him running almost 10 times a game.

[bills11]

Josh's playoff numbers are historical it's a team game..he has 21 tds and 4 int in his playoff careers ..for reference Roethlisberger had 36 tds 28int peyton 40-25.. he's a historic level qb the only reason he hasn't won a superbowl is the defence. People forget how the pats defence carried brady at the beggining of his career 

[oldmanfan]

6 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

Then how do you explain that the guy McDermott fired at OC had Josh running via designed runs and scrambles 4.2 times per game while the guy he hired as Interim OC and then retained permanently in that position had Josh running 9.7 times a game?

 

Brady doesn't sound like he had the offense very "buttoned up," at least based on your definition.

 

Also, I don't think 31 other coaches say that, either. Lamar falls into a similar bucket as Allen. Maybe Hurts, to a lesser extent.

 

I'm a little mystified that you think every QB needs to be judged and evaluated as QBs by the same set of standards.

 

A good coach knows the talent he has at specific positions and uses it. However buttoned up McDermott might be, he understands the stallion he has at QB and chose the OC that had him running almost 10 times a game.

Calling specific runs is different than going through progressions on a called pass play. 

[Sweats]

If you watch JA in college, you'll see he plays the exact same way in the NFL.......and i believe the fans all love him for it.

[Shaw66]

8 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

Then how do you explain that the guy McDermott fired at OC had Josh running via designed runs and scrambles 4.2 times per game while the guy he hired as Interim OC and then retained permanently in that position had Josh running 9.7 times a game?

 

Brady doesn't sound like he had the offense very "buttoned up," at least based on your definition.

 

Also, I don't think 31 other coaches say that, either. Lamar falls into a similar bucket as Allen. Maybe Hurts, to a lesser extent.

 

I'm a little mystified that you think every QB needs to be judged and evaluated as QBs by the same set of standards.

 

A good coach knows the talent he has at specific positions and uses it. However buttoned up McDermott might be, he understands the stallion he has at QB and chose the OC that had him running almost 10 times a game.

It seems you've missed the point entirely.  I am not talking about how often Josh carries the ball.  I'm talking about how effectively Josh executes the offense he's given to operate.  

 

The question isn't how many times Josh ran the ball.  The question is how effectively he executed the offense as designed.   If he had an option to pass or run, did he choose the right option?   Did he execute the fake properly?  If it was a designed run, did he make the right cut.   In the passing game, which is what most of us have been talking about, did he make the right read?  Did throw to the guy he was supposed to?   Was he too late coming to a receiver?   It has nothing whatsoever with how many times he carried the ball.

 

How a QB executes the offense is the QB's most important job.   He's the coach on the field.   He's the leader.  He's the decision maker. 

 

Josh's physical skills are important, of course, but if physical skills determined who's the best QB, Michael Vick would have been the MFP five years in a row and won four Super Bowls.  There never has been a QB with his physical skills.   And Cam Newton was not too far behind.  

 

Brock Purdy was in the MVP discussion in 2023, and his physical skills make him look like a high school kid when he's compared to Josh.  He was in the MVP discussion because he ran their offense with tremendous precision and effectiveness. 

 

The simplest measure, at least one of them, is passer rating.  He's 34 on the all-time passer rating list, behind 13 QBs who are still active, and behind retired guys like Brees, Brady, Romo, Manning.  When a guy has a high passer rating, he's completing a high percentage of passes and his TD to INT ratio is low, like 3-1.  Josh has been 3-1 once, in 2020.  Mahomes, Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Tom Brady all are better than 3-1 for their careers.  That's a tell-tale sign that Josh hasn't made decisions, hasn't executed the offense, as well as he's supposed to.  When he's throwing for 29 TDs and I8 INTs, as he did in 2023, he ain't there yet.   And don't tell me about his running.  To get up to 3-1 in 2023, Josh would have needed 25 rushing touchdowns - which would put him in the top five all-time.  That ain't happening. 

 

Josh needs his extraordinary physical abilities just to overcome his deficiencies in the execution of the offense.   He's not bad at executing the offense, just not great.  He's not a bad quarterback, but this isn't a discussion about bad quarterbacks.   It's a discussion about great quarterbacks.  I've been saying for years that when Josh masters the mental part of the game, and he's making good progress, we will see perhaps the greatest QB of all time. 

[FireChans]

12 hours ago, Mikie2times said:

The not so funny part is we have been to the same amount of AFC championship games as he has. So what does that say?

Um we lose to Patrick Mahomes. He loses to Ryan Tannehill as the 1 seed and throws a 99 yard pick six vs us. 
 

At this point in their careers, Allen has better playoff numbers and far more playoff wins.

 

If you polled random NFL fans that weren’t Bills or Ravens fans about who was a better playoff performer, Allen would win a landslide. It’s actually not close. 

[Professor Worthington]

Any criticism of Josh Allen or acknowledgement of such has got to stop.  Those who do it look uninformed and clownish, or they are desperate for attention and clicks.  
 

He is an elite QB with generational talent who will be enshrined in Canton one day.  Can he improve?  Sure, we all have opportunities to improve, but his performances are not behind the Bills’ failure to reach the SB.

 

Against the Texans we had a special teams TD reversed and a defensive meltdown in OT.  13 seconds is on the defense and coaching.  This year, thank you Tyler Bass and Stefon Diggs.  17 isn’t the problem.  It’s the 54 other players and coaches that deserve the criticism.

[oldmanfan]

5 minutes ago, Professor Worthington said:

Any criticism of Josh Allen or acknowledgement of such has got to stop.  Those who do it look uninformed and clownish, or they are desperate for attention and clicks.  
 

He is an elite QB with generational talent who will be enshrined in Canton one day.  Can he improve?  Sure, we all have opportunities to improve, but his performances are not behind the Bills’ failure to reach the SB.

 

Against the Texans we had a special teams TD reversed and a defensive meltdown in OT.  13 seconds is on the defense and coaching.  This year, thank you Tyler Bass and Stefon Diggs.  17 isn’t the problem.  It’s the 54 other players and coaches that deserve the criticism.

So as Shaw and I have said, he is a great QB that can continue to improve on the mental side of his game.  Is that kind of commentary allowed or do we have to stop because you say we must?

[Beck Water]

9 hours ago, transplantbillsfan said:

 

Then how do you explain that the guy McDermott fired at OC had Josh running via designed runs and scrambles 4.2 times per game while the guy he hired as Interim OC and then retained permanently in that position had Josh running 9.7 times a game?

 

Brady doesn't sound like he had the offense very "buttoned up," at least based on your definition.

 

Also, I don't think 31 other coaches say that, either. Lamar falls into a similar bucket as Allen. Maybe Hurts, to a lesser extent.

 

I'm a little mystified that you think every QB needs to be judged and evaluated as QBs by the same set of standards.

 

A good coach knows the talent he has at specific positions and uses it. However buttoned up McDermott might be, he understands the stallion he has at QB and chose the OC that had him running almost 10 times a game.

 

Well, for one thing, at the point where Dorsey was fired on November 14th, the Bills pretty much had to win all but 1 of their remaining games to make the playoffs.

 

I think that McDermott's risk-tolerance for Josh running changes depending on how much is on the line.

 

Can you explain what "designed runs and scrambles" means to you?  Scrambles, to my understanding, are by definition when the structure of the play breaks down and the QB chooses to run.

[oldmanfan]

1 minute ago, Beck Water said:

 

Well, for one thing, at the point where Dorsey was fired on November 14th, the Bills pretty much had to win all but 1 of their remaining games to make the playoffs.

 

I think that McDermott's risk-tolerance for Josh running changes depending on how much is on the line.

 

Can you explain what "designed runs and scrambles" means to you?  Scrambles, to my understanding, are by definition when the structure of the play breaks down and the QB chooses to run.

Designed scramble would be an oxymoron one would think.