Buffalo Bills: Breaking down Josh Allen’s performance by down in 2019
This is a breakdown of Buffalo Bills’ quarterback Josh Allen’s performance last year by downs.
Recently, Josh Allen talked with the media and said one of the areas he needs to improve entering his third year with the Buffalo Bills his performance on early downs.
"“Making better decisions, especially on the early downs and not putting ourselves in situations where it’s third-and-long. I know that we had a lot of success in third-and-long last year, but it’s not a great way to make a living."
It was actually a little surprising to hear Josh Allen specifically mention this because when looking at his performance by downs last year, the early downs weren’t actually all that bad.
On first downs, Allen had the highest completion percentage at 63.10%, was tied with third down in passing touchdowns at eight and was sacked the least with only nine. He also finished with the highest yards per attempt at 7.4 yards however this is to be expected with an offense trying to pick up bigger chunks of yards on first down.
The biggest negative was he threw the most of his interceptions (5) on first down.
This could be the example that Josh Allen is referring to when he talks about better decisions. While interceptions at any point are not good, throwing them on first down is probably the worst time with the offense still having two more downs to work with.
The pivotal down that Josh Allen has the most room for improvement is on second down, especially when the yards to go is seven yards or more. In those situations, Allen completed only 55% of his pass attempts, averaged 5.4 yards per attempt and threw two touchdowns and two interceptions.
He was also sacked 10 times in these situations, likely due to trying to hold the ball too long in hopes of the play developing. When Josh Allen takes a sack at this time, it makes picking up a first down on third down tough. On those 10 sacks, Allen was losing an average of 5.9 yards per sack pushing the yards to a first down over 10 yards.
Josh Allen acknowledges that they had success on those third downs, and he did perform well with a 108.2 QB rating (the third highest of any down and distance situation) but this is not something the offense can rely on this coming season.
Next. 4 Bills stats that need more attention entering 2020. dark
If Josh Allen can avoid the interceptions on first down, and the sacks on second down, then the Buffalo Bills should improve on their third down conversions in 2020, which was ninth worst in the NFL last year at 35.9%.