Bills’ Josh Allen has yet to throw a pick. Is the gunslinger now a game manager?

Henry McKenna

NFL Reporter

Josh Allen has a way of upending what we know about him.

As a prospect, he had accuracy issues. As a third-year pro, he completed 69.2% of his passes. Early in 2023, he was over-reliant on Stefon Diggs. By the end of the year, the Bills had found a more reasonable balance of targets for their star quarterback — and Allen was better for it. In 2023, Allen had turnover problems, with a career-high 18 interceptions. This year, he has zero interceptions through seven games. Going back to last season, he hasn’t thrown a pick in nine straight games.

We’ve seen Allen move beyond several flaws in his game.

“The job that Josh Allen has done on being smart with the ball, throwing the ball away when he needs to, sliding when he needs to as well,” said coach Sean McDermott, who has been highly critical of Allen for his turnovers in the past. “His level of decision-making has increased this season and been very important to our team and the wins that we’ve had.”

It took McDermott three separate questions about the zero interceptions to truly praise Allen. And perhaps there’s something to that. My sense is that McDermott doesn’t want to jump the gun.

It’s not like McDermott to take a victory lap, even when baited. But it’s also the perfect opportunity for him to clap back (even subtly) at the NFL players who voted Allen as the “most overrated quarterback” in an anonymous poll on ESPN, with one player citing “too many turnovers” as the reason why. 

But maybe McDermott was hesitant to go all-in on Allen’s ball security because … this transformation isn’t quite as significant as the counting numbers show.

There have been folks heralding him as a game manager. I’m not sure that’s true. The advanced stats mostly show he’s just as much of a gunslinger this season — just much, much luckier. Now don’t get me wrong: Josh Allen deserves to be neck-and-neck for the MVP award with Lamar Jackson.

But Allen’s…

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Publish date : 2024-10-23 20:40:51

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