Buffalo Bills: Top takeaways from the 2019 season

Josh Allen took step in right direction but…

One of the biggest highlights of the season was watching the development of Josh Allen. The second year quarterback made tremendous improvements and finished the year with 3,089 passing yards, 20 touchdowns, nine interceptions. He also had 510 rushing yards and nine rushing touchdowns.

There was clear improvements Allen made from last year, particularly in completion percentage which jumped from 52.8% to 58.8%. This past season he had nine games with a completion percentage of 60%, compared to only two in his rookie season.

He also did a better job of protecting the football as the season went on with seven interceptions in his first five games. However, he only had two over the final 12, including the playoff game.

While these are all positive signs, there is still plenty of room to grow for Allen as he enters his third season in the league. The biggest thing that Allen still needs to learn is that he needs to play within the confines of the gameplan. He has to feel comfortable throwing the ball away and regrouping for another play.

This was evident in the second half against the Texans in the closing minutes of regulation. The Bills were driving and were just outside of field goal range. On third down, Allen was scrambling behind the line of scrimmage trying to make a play and by the time he tried to throw the ball, he couldn’t get it out of bounds, resulting in intentional grounding.

The coaching staff made the bad call of going for it on fourth down and the play was almost identical with Allen scrambling backwards and taking a big loss.

The organization should be very happy with the improvements Josh Allen made in Year 2 but he is far from a finished product.