Predicting the Buffalo Bills 2020 Depth Chart: Quarterbacks

Starter: Josh Allen

Coming in at starter for the Buffalo Bills to no ones surprise is Josh Allen. The 2018 first round selection and expected “franchise quarterback” has shown tremendous improvement since his days at Wyoming.

Leading the Bills to a playoff berth last season and a 10-6 record, Allen has proven that he can win football games for the Bills. However, he still has more to prove if he wants to take his team to the next level.

Last season Allen was solid, but at times left some to be desired. There was no doubting the improvement he made between his rookie and sophomore seasons. His second year in the league, Allen completed 58.8% of his passes, throwing for 3,089 yards, 20 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. Seeing improvements across the board, he took the step the Bills were hoping for.

The 2018 first-round selection has rare athleticism led by his great scrambling ability, a great asset which keeps opposing defenses on their toes. Last season, Allen had 510 yards on the ground and scored nine rushing touchdowns. Allen is in elite company in terms of scores on the ground, tied with Saquon Barkley with 17 rushing touchdowns over the last two seasons.

Allen also ranks eight in the whole league in terms of rushing touchdowns during that stretch and leads all quarterbacks.

For the Buffalo Bills to get to the next level, the former Wyoming Cowboy has to connect on more deep passes to add a new dynamic aspect to the Bills offense.

PFF ranked all quarterbacks by their deep passing with Allen coming in last with woeful numbers:

"24.1% completion percentage, 8.7 yards per attempt, 64.4 Passer Rating The player with arguably the league’s strongest arm is arguably the league’s worst deep passer. If that doesn’t put into context how we evaluate quarterbacks at draft time, nothing will. Allen can get the ball as deep as he wants it pretty much any time he wants to, and though he dialed it back in Year 2, he still went deep at the sixth-highest rate in the league. However, his adjusted completion rate was one of the worst figures in all of football, and he had the highest rate of uncatchable, inaccurate passes on those targets. Allen needs to find the touch to go with that cannon because it’s frankly inexcusable that a player with his kind of arm talent is this bad at passing deep."

While the numbers aren’t appealing, Allen didn’t have an abundance of deep threats at his disposal. While John Brown has blazing speed, nobody on the Bills roster is great at tracking the deep ball. The addition of Stefon Diggs should be a large improvement, and should help Allen improve on that mark.