Josh Allen: It Takes a Village (Ringer article)

[Seasons1992]

https://www.theringer.com/nfl-playoffs/2021/1/12/22226307/josh-allen-bills-nfl-playoffs

[Ann]

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This season, however, Allen has the fourth-best completion percentage in the NFL while still pushing the ball downfield in coordinator Brian Daboll’s offense. Allen completed 69.2 percent of his passes in the regular season, two years after he posted a 52.8 percent completion rate as a rookie in 2018. It’s the greatest two-year improvement in NFL history, topping then-Seahawks quarterback Jim Zorn’s progress from 1977 to 1979 when he upped his own completion rate from 41.1 percent to 56.4. 
 

</snip>
 

“This offseason it was a lot on controlling the football, less about his feet and more about getting his arm to pass through the exact same spot every single time,” Palmer said. “So, what you’ll see if you pull up his 10 best throws of the year this year, his feet are kind of different each time. They’re not all in the same spot but his arm, his upper body is in the same spot every time.”
 

</snip>

[Ann]

Just now, DC Tom said:

 

I know that, even with Palmer's group's analysis, Allen still has to put in the work, and the coaches still have to coach him to do that work properly.  And their efforts have been amazing - retraining someone's biomechanics is not a trivial task.

 

But what Palmer's group has done - doing such a detailed and precise biomechanical analysis, and giving it to Allen and the coaches as a usable product - is phenomenal.  

 I take nothing away from Palmer. The work he has done on/with Josh Allen has been incredible. But, the Bills staff deserves credit, too.  And of course, Josh Allen had to want it, work for it, and deliver. 

Look at Sam Darnold, a Palmer student. Is his lack of success on Darnold or the Jets? I guess we will soon see,   

Some of Palmer's other students include Jarrett Stidham, Blake Bortles, and Tyree Jackson (now a TE!). None of them are gonna be a top 5 QB in the NFL.   
 

[Nanker]

E = MC 2

Gase: “ Sam, Sam, Sam. Focus on the “E” because that’s where the energy will be.”  
Said no one, nowhere in Berkeley Heights in any century. 

[Koko]

24 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

It's actually E²=p²c² + m²c⁴.  Because momentum and mass are a Lorentz-invariant four-vector ((p_x, p_y, p_z, m) - which basically implies that mass is "momentum through time," i.e. inertia.)  Although physicists work in units of c  - we actually set the speed of light equal to 1, so the equation is really E² = p² + m².

 

Said Adam Gase, never.  

 

[IDBillzFan]

37 minutes ago, Koko said:

 

 

 

NERDS!!!

 

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

4 hours ago, DC Tom said:

 

They all deserve credit.  

 

I just know a little bit about the analysis Palmer's group has done (going back to my computer modeling days in physics).  And while of course using the end-product to improve is to the credit of coaches and players (Darnold, for example - can you even imagine Adam Gase helping Darnold improve his biomechanics?  Can you imagine Gase even spelling "biomechanics?"), developing a usable end-product that coaches and players can apply just blows my mind.  

 

I can see how to do the modeling and analysis.  I could probably even do it myself, given a few years to develop it.  I can't even begin to think how I'd turn it into a workable "Here's what you have to do to improve" product for the coaches and players.  That's both under-appreciated (most people think "science" is experimentation.  It's not.  Science is communication.) and mind-blowing.    

Lackawana Tom in his modeling days, circa 1993

 

 

 

[Dubs]

“It takes a village” is one of my most despised phrases. 
 

 

[Alaska Darin]

10 hours ago, DC Tom said:

 

I had contacts then.  

 

Supposedly, women found me very attractive back then.  They all swore I'd be a great catch, someday, for some other woman.

Wait, so you're saying "women understood YOU?"

 

[Alaska Darin]

15 hours ago, DC Tom said:

 

I know that, even with Palmer's group's analysis, Allen still has to put in the work, and the coaches still have to coach him to do that work properly.  And their efforts have been amazing - retraining someone's biomechanics is not a trivial task.

 

But what Palmer's group has done - doing such a detailed and precise biomechanical analysis, and giving it to Allen and the coaches as a usable product - is phenomenal.  

It's funny how insulated football is to things like this - almost always the last to adopt (as a sport) new things.  Baseball and golf have been using this technology for quite awhile to fix swings and throwing mechanics.  I've probably brought it up 3847583959349 times but I was floored when Fitz publicly admitted that the QB coaching he received in Buffalo was the first he'd gotten in the NFL.

 

“Some of the issues that we had in Year 1 that Josh would never say a word about, we had receivers that didn’t always run the right routes and didn’t maybe run them to the right depth,” Beane told me in October. “We’re not going to publicly criticize those guys but there were plenty of times when people were getting onto Josh when it wasn’t Josh’s fault."  There's a reason the BILLS got rid of NINE offense starters that off season and NONE of them went on to consistent NFL success elsewhere.

 

JA might be the best overall athlete to ever play the QB position in the NFL.  He's big, strong, "football fast",  crazy competitive and has a huge arm.  He's also a diligent worker and clearly an intelligent dude.  Everything you want in a young QB.  What he wasn't was well coached and experienced.  The BILLS deserve a TON of credit for staying the course and doing everything in their power to remove the things that could derail his development.

[Boyst]

2 hours ago, Alaska Darin said:

It's funny how insulated football is to things like this - almost always the last to adopt (as a sport) new things.  Baseball and golf have been using this technology for quite awhile to fix swings and throwing mechanics.  I've probably brought it up 3847583959349 times but I was floored when Fitz publicly admitted that the QB coaching he received in Buffalo was the first he'd gotten in the NFL.

 

“Some of the issues that we had in Year 1 that Josh would never say a word about, we had receivers that didn’t always run the right routes and didn’t maybe run them to the right depth,” Beane told me in October. “We’re not going to publicly criticize those guys but there were plenty of times when people were getting onto Josh when it wasn’t Josh’s fault."  There's a reason the BILLS got rid of NINE offense starters that off season and NONE of them went on to consistent NFL success elsewhere.

 

JA might be the best overall athlete to ever play the QB position in the NFL.  He's big, strong, "football fast",  crazy competitive and has a huge arm.  He's also a diligent worker and clearly an intelligent dude.  Everything you want in a young QB.  What he wasn't was well coached and experienced.  The BILLS deserve a TON of credit for staying the course and doing everything in their power to remove the things that could derail his development.

I remember getting roasted coming out against the McCoy trade. He was dynamic early in his career. I knew the Eagles were trading dead weight with 1 maybe 2 years left on him. I knew he was also not going to be worth it. Not that Alonso was more valuable, it was just a bandaid to the bigger problems. 

 

Anyway, my point is this team has had so much "touted"  talent come in and be jettisoned by this regime that i respect any decision they make because none of those players has gone on to have a great career. 

 

The only exception was Wyatt Teller who doesn't need justification. We could not keep a developing guy on when we were pretty stacked w talent. He made the most of his time. Good for him.