How Can Joe Brady Get the Most Out of Josh Allen?
It’s a new team in Buffalo this season.
The defense has experienced considerable turnover. Safeties Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer, who have roamed the Bills’ defensive backfield for 7 years, are both gone. Linebacker Matt Milano suffered another serious injury earlier this month and is likely out until late this season at the very least.
Several other players who contributed a significant number of snaps last year, like Leonard Floyd and Dane Jackson, are gone as well.
On offense, the wide receiver room has been completely rebuilt and center Mitch Morse moved on to Jacksonville.
If you thought everything was on Josh Allen’s shoulders in years past, you haven’t seen anything yet. How he goes, the Bills will go once again.
Allen is hands-down the most physically gifted quarterback in the NFL. I had him ranked as the #2 overall quarterback on my recent Top Starting Quarterbacks List.
But he still needs to be a more consistent player. The two examples below are great illustrations of this.
On this first play, Allen showed the ability to work through his progressions and succeed from the pocket late in the down. Watch him look right initially, see that the route combo was taken away, come back to his left, move in the pocket to avoid pressure, reset his feet, and then hit his receiver in the coverage void in the middle of the field:
It doesn’t get much better than that at the quarterback position.
But Allen doesn’t always play this way. There are times where he could easily take what appears to be his first or second read, but doesn’t, and instead flees the pocket in search of something more. Despite his special play-making ability, it doesn’t always work out, as you can see on this next example.
This was a 4th-and-2 in Buffalo’s Week 18 game against the Dolphins. The first read for Allen was Dalton Kincaid’s flat route to the left underneath a pick from the point man of the trips-bunch formation:
It was open:
Allen didn’t like it, though. He still had the opportunity to drill the out-route behind it given the defender’s inside leverage and Allen’s arm strength:
He declined that completion as well. Then he went into play-maker mode, ultimately tossing up a desperation heave that resulted in an interception:
Allen can be a bull in a china shop at times. Sometimes that creates spectacular plays. Sometimes, it disrupts the offense completely.
So what can offensive coordinator Joe Brady actually do to get Allen to be more under control? We can look at how the Bills played after Brady took over as OC midway through last season to get a clue about how he might do this in 2024.