Buffalo Bills: Ranking Josh Allen among the last four QB classes

A recent NFL.com article ranked all the quarterbacks from the past four draft classes. Josh Allen ended up somewhere in the middle.

Josh Allen has been good, but not great in his first season with the Buffalo Bills.

That was to be expected. The rookie was put into action in Week 1 without much warning and his “mentor” on the roster was Nathan Peterman.

Given the circumstances, the kid has done well.

Allen now has a more stable structure as he can learn from both Derek Anderson and Matt Barkley, and he will enter the offseason as the starting quarterback in 2019. No more quarterback controversy this time around.

A recent NFL.com article by Gregg Rosenthal ranked all the quarterbacks taken in the past four draft classes. A minimum of 100 pass attempts was required to make the list.

The list features 25 players, starting with Patrick Mahomes in the “future of the league” category and ending with Paxton Lynch in the “on the edge” category. In case you were curious, Peterman shows up at No. 22 overall.

Allen shows up on the list at No. 13 overall in the “I don’t know anything” category. Here is more:

"Allen is not quite like any rookie prospect in memory, which is not a bad thing. Even as a longstanding member of Team Tyrod, I find Bills games fascinating to watch lately. The team may have replaced the best pure runner at quarterback … with a better running quarterback. I don’t have a lot of confidence Allen can make sense long term, but it should at least be fun to watch."

I find a lot of the national takes on Allen to be interesting. First off, it is his first season. He is still mastering the offense and is doing so with some lackluster talent around him. Perhaps he has to run so much to make up for the lack of talent.

More experience for Allen should lead to him going through his reads longer and either making that perfect throw or simply throwing the ball away, as opposed to running so much. But the fact he is making plays with his legs shows he understands that he can still make a difference even if he can’t do it through the air just yet.

He has still shown off his big arm and needed someone like Robert Foster out there to get open deep for him to make those kinds of passes. Kelvin Benjamin certainly wasn’t doing that.

Too many people are quick to jump all over rookie quarterbacks and declare them busts, for whatever reason.

Yet after watching him all year, it is clear that Allen is not a bust. He is getting better doing the little things as time goes on and his running shouldn’t be seen as a negative, aside from the fact he opens himself up to take big hits.

Allen needs some talent at receiver, a competent running game and some more help up front in 2019 before anyone should make sweeping judgments. If he struggles with more talent around him, then there is a reason to worry.