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The not-so-sudden success of Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills will spawn many imitators in the NFL. But as plagiarists copy and paste their articles on Wikipedia, league copiers are likely to get the facts right, but miss the point. main. .
Allen’s rise is one of the biggest stories of the 2020 season. He was practically the caricature of a talented but awkward rookie as the Buffalo Bills’ first-round pick in 2018 (seventh overall). He improved modestly last season, though he still looked like a team mascot all too often on inline skates firing a T-shirt cannon.
But he has blossomed this season, totaling 4,544 yards and 37 touchdowns, running eight touchdowns, earning a Pro Bowl berth and leading the Bills to a 13-3 regular season record and playoff victory of the week. last on the Indianapolis Colts, the first in the franchise. playoff victory since the 1995 season.
Gradual, broad development like Allen’s is surprisingly rare: Most young quarterbacks have immediate potential (like the Kansas City Chiefs ‘Patrick Mahomes or the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson, whom the Bills face on Saturday night in a playoff game. the division round) or stagger through long seasons of a few ups and downs (like any Jets quarterback of the past 44 years). So NFL coaches and general managers are sure to try and slide the Alchemist Stone that turned Allen from a rolling dispensary into a contender for the Most Valuable Player award.
Unfortunately, the league is likely to learn all the wrong lessons from Allen’s success, as the teams seek out the “next Josh Allen” in future drafts.
Many NFL makers covet height and arm strength to be a flaw when assessing young passers-by. Some would draft a quarterback whose passes land in the coach parking lot as long as he’s over 6ft 5in and cracking a few windshields. A few would draft a baseball pitcher on stilts if he looked them in the eye and offered a firm handshake.
Allen’s college stats were miserable, and his game movie felt like the blooper reel at the end of a Jackie Chan movie. But he’s 6ft 5in tall and is actually rifle-armed, even by NFL standards.
Allen’s success will not only give scouts and coaches more leeway to indulge their arm fetish, but the many drawbacks of his varsity scouting report will create an unfalsifiable argument in favor of every prospect who throws down 40 meter sharp spirals to receivers 30 meters away. Of course, Lanky McRocketarm threw three interceptions and screened a defenseman’s face mask against Directional State on Saturday. But that does mean he could be the next Josh Allen!
Flailing hopes already in the league can immediately benefit from Allen’s extended larval stage. Don’t give up on Giants quarterback Daniel Jones just yet, for example: he just needs to cut his turnover dramatically, produce more big plays, become more consistent, avoid persistent injuries and learn not to. fall on his own feet 10 yards from the goal line to enjoy a breakthrough just like Allen!
A Jones-style Allen-style leap, better than ever, would also justify GM Dave Gettleman’s decision to recruit him. The most popular trends in the NFL are the ones that cover up mistakes, because the most powerful motivator in the league is not the desire to win, but the desire to stay employed.
Coaches will also benefit if Allen inspires a renaissance of delayed gratification. Any team building model with two years without consequences will be enthusiastically adopted by the self-preservation specialists of the league. It will be a refreshing change of pace from the rationale for lost seasons as a result of a much-needed “crop change”.
Some teams will try to copy the wording of the bills more directly. The team’s offensive coordinator, Brian Daboll, has become a highly sought-after candidate as teams seek a head coach who can slow their prospects as an incoming or internal quarterback. Developing Allen over three seasons, Daboll appears to have cut the line past Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, who helped Mahomes become the league’s MVP in the quarterback’s second season.
Meanwhile, Anthony Lynn was fired as head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers despite a 31-touchdown rookie season by Justin Herbert. The NFL never lets consistent logic (or anything else) get in the way of its hiring preferences.
Ultimately, Allen’s emergence is likely to encourage coaches and executives to do whatever they already love to do, but in a more sassy way. Among other things, they like to overestimate their favorite flavor of prospect; disguise risk-free procrastination as prudent empire-building; promote from within the buddy system; and congratulate yourself when a plan that has failed a dozen times finally succeeds once.
Some nuance is inevitably lost whenever NFL teams attempt to copy each other’s success. Allen was truly a unique prospect, and the Bills invested heavily in his supporting cast (particularly the trade picks in the 2020 and 2021 plans to land Allen a No.1 wide receiver in Stefon Diggs). The signs of Allen’s growth were undeniable in the second half of last season.
The Bills’ success in 2020 is a testament to the talent and hard work of Allen, his teammates and coaches, but also a lot of patience, a little innovation and inspiration and a good dose of luck. This is not the result of a secret recipe, but of a long process that most NFL decision-makers pay tribute to but few are able to execute.
In fact, Allen’s success is the result of so many factors that it essentially cannot be repeated. But that won’t stop the rest of the NFL from trying.
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