Bills Have Low Percentage of First Read Pass Completion- Why?

[Kirby Jackson]

Lack of separation…

[BarleyNY]

13 hours ago, MJS said:

That's Josh Allen. That's his preferred way to play. He likes to let routes develop. He seems to only take the quick stuff when that is the weekly game plan. We've seen him do it before, but his default mode is not that way.

I don’t think it’s preference, I think it’s necessity. 

[zow2]

14 hours ago, Mikie2times said:

I have thought Josh is more of a see it guy for a long time. Usually people shred my a$$ for saying such things. But I still feel that way. I used to think it put a ceiling on him, maybe it does, but it’s not an easy equation. He bails from the pocket so quickly which prevents sacks and leads to the defense breaking down. Then he’s one of the best of all time taking advantage of it. Josh is just not normal. He truly is a one of kind type QB and MVP level player. So I’ve tried not to hyper analyze how he makes that happen. 

 

I've always thought Josh is super special because he runs around and creates plays on the fly...whether by running or passing.  But i've always said he's not a great stand in the pocket like a statue and scan the field...  He's gotten better at it but he's not elite level accurate from the pocket in my opinion and I've also been shredded for this take.

[BillsVet]

13 hours ago, DaVinci said:

we lost by 3 pts.

 

And that result only took going 4 for 6 on 4th down in the 2nd half to get close.   

 

[QB Bills]

20 hours ago, Mikie2times said:

100%. Which is why I called Josh out as a reason. Which is so contested on this site. Which I get because we would have no chance of being here without Josh. On a macro level I don’t think you could ask for a better QB. He will get more wins by himself than just about anybody who has ever played the game.
 

But no OT wins in his career. Two gotta have it drives in B2B seasons and nothing to show for it. Which tends to get offset here by the critical drops, and that is true. It could have went the other way and his teammates did let him down. 
 

But on a micro level I don’t think his game translates at the level it does otherwise. Micro, singular drives, is when efficiency is everything. I just don’t see that in his game. He is not inevitable in the ways the greats were. What Josh does is hard, what the all timers did was easy. It was the exact same way for Favre and he got one, but he got 3x as many MVP’s and failed countless times in the postseason. 
 

So many other issues exist to talk about outside of this. It’s like blaming a piece of friend chicken for a heart attack with a life long smoker.
But is it part of the conversation? Sure, but good luck having anybody here acknowledge it. 

It's contested because it's wrong. 

 

Look at how easy they game was for mahomes on Sunday. He didn't have to freelance at all. Guys were getting schemed open 5 yards from the line of scrimmage all game long. You need to have either receivers who can separate or a scheme that gets them open. Allen has neither of these things consistently.

 

All this nonsense about how he won't throw unless a guy is open doesn't hold water if you actually watch the games. The TD pass to Hollins Sunday, the one to ty johnson against the Broncos in the wild card game are two recent examples of him fitting the ball into the tightest of windows to guys who were covered well.

 

The guy would break every passing record out there if he was in the right situation. He's that good.

[Mikie2times]

1 hour ago, QB Bills said:

It's contested because it's wrong. 

 

Look at how easy they game was for mahomes on Sunday. He didn't have to freelance at all. Guys were getting schemed open 5 yards from the line of scrimmage all game long. You need to have either receivers who can separate or a scheme that gets them open. Allen has neither of these things consistently.

 

All this nonsense about how he won't throw unless a guy is open doesn't hold water if you actually watch the games. The TD pass to Hollins Sunday, the one to ty johnson against the Broncos in the wild card game are two recent examples of him fitting the ball into the tightest of windows to guys who were covered well.

 

The guy would break every passing record out there if he was in the right situation. He's that good.

He will throw one on one all the time. As he did with Hollins. It’s not the same thing as hitting your back foot in the drop on time and ripping it because you trusted your pre snap read. 
 

If you read the post I said he was the best QB in football. 

Edited January 31 by Mikie2times

[jethro_tull]

On 1/30/2025 at 5:01 PM, QB Bills said:

It's contested because it's wrong. 

 

Look at how easy they game was for mahomes on Sunday. He didn't have to freelance at all. Guys were getting schemed open 5 yards from the line of scrimmage all game long. You need to have either receivers who can separate or a scheme that gets them open. Allen has neither of these things consistently.

 

All this nonsense about how he won't throw unless a guy is open doesn't hold water if you actually watch the games. The TD pass to Hollins Sunday, the one to ty johnson against the Broncos in the wild card game are two recent examples of him fitting the ball into the tightest of windows to guys who were covered well.

 

The guy would break every passing record out there if he was in the right situation. He's that good.

I left the Chief's passing performance out of the original post hoping someone would fill it in, thanks.  The Chiefs were running roughshod on the Bills in completing quick pass plays.   Protecting against the big play maybe but it became death by 1000 small cuts after a while.  

In addition to receiver separation and play design scheme I would also add to the list quality defensive schemes and execution as to why the Bills cannot execute first read quickly developing precision shorter passes.  

[Big Turk]

Josh prefers looking for plays down field a lot of times and will pass up some of those 

[sven233]

This is what happens when you build a team that only has 1 WR that can win immediately off the line.  Shakir, is the only guy that create separation quickly.  Coleman is blanketed from the time the ball is snapped until the play is over unless there is a busted coverage.  Hollins, while he has shown the ability to make critical catches, is not the most athletic guy in the world and does not win his routes with quickness and explosion.  Samuel battled injuries all season and never was the threat we were hoping for when we signed him.  And, although Cooper was that guy at one point in his career, he is not that guy anymore.

 

So until Beane and company start taking the WR room seriously and get some guys in here with the quickness and explosion, quite honestly, the first read guy is not going to be open very often.

[harmonkillebrew]

On 1/29/2025 at 6:42 PM, Sojourner said:

I often wonder if it’s a combination of the guys he’s throwing to and the coaches he has now. 
 

Not to pound the table or wish for a Daboll reunion but during his tutelage and guidance as OC there was a considerable more amount of anticipation throws on the field Josh was making. 

it also coincided with Diggs at his prime.  He was reliably open.