Another Spectacular Performance by Josh Allen Ends the Patriots' Season
Sometimes football just isn’t that complicated. Sometimes, one team is just more talented than another and plays to that talent level. That’s exactly what happened on Saturday night in Buffalo.
The Bills are a better team than the Patriots. Plain and simple. Josh Allen is arguably the most talented quarterback in the NFL. And he used each of his attributes to help lay a 47-17 whooping on New England.
There are so many areas of his game I could focus on. But Allen’s patience and ability to attack downfield from the pocket late in the play are two of the traits that makes him so difficult to defend. Just about every square inch of the field needs to be accounted for. There were several examples to look at in this one.
On the below play during the Bills’ second drive, Allen was able to take advantage of tight end Dawson Knox being matched up on linebacker Ja’Whaun Bentley. With New England rushing 5 and playing man-free, safety Devin McCourty in the deep middle of the field was the only defender who could potentially provide any help on Knox’s deep-over route. But he had to gain depth after the snap to honor Buffalo’s downfield threats and Allen’s arm:
You can also see that McCourty couldn’t get a beat on where Allen wanted to go with the ball because Allen was working the entire field. He looked left initially, then right, then back to the left to find Knox. There was no panic to his scanning as he calmly moved from one receiver to the next, reducing McCourty to a non-factor as a help defender. That left Bentley with way too much ground to cover for a linebacker in 1-on-1 coverage. Then Allen flicked the ball 30 yards downfield with ease in the same way that other quarterbacks might dump the ball off to the flat.
On this next play, the Bills had a play called with two deep crossers in the middle of the field. With the Patriots again rushing 5 and playing man-free, the only help defender was McCourty in the deep middle. Again, he gained depth. Again, Allen scanned the field and was able to hit a deep crosser late:
It’s hard to use words to describe how difficult of a throw that was. Allen actually moved left and looked that way mid play, getting McCourty to move in that direction as well:
But then he saw Gabriel Davis separating on his crosser in the opposite direction and quickly delivered a strike across the field to him:
What a ridiculous throw. Allen can target just about any area of the field at any moment, and that keeps help defenders from being able to read his eyes and get a jump on where he wants to go with the ball. That creates 1-on-1’s where defenders have to cover lots of ground for long periods of time, as you could see there.
Those last two plays were against man coverage, but it really didn’t matter what New England did on Saturday. They tried mixing both man and zone, but to no avail.
On this play, the Patriots were playing quarters zone coverage to the top of the screen. Keep your eyes focused on cornerback JoeJuan Williams on the outside. When Allen looked down the middle of the field initially, Williams seemed to slow down in response. He probably wasn’t expecting a late throw downfield to the outside. That hesitation created all the separation Allen needed: