N ow that the season is over and everyone in Buffalo has regained the mental fortitude to move on with life and start anew I thought “hey, actually let’s reopen that wound and find SOMETHING Josh Allen can take into the offseason to improve upon”. I know everyone is saying he basically played a perfect game, and postseason for that matter, but there has to be at least one facet of his game he could sharpen. Something to drive the motivation and focus of the offseason. Something to give hope to Bills Mafia.
OK. Here we go. Let’s start by looking at touchdown rates. Everyone knows that in order to beat the Chiefs, you can’t settle for field goals. You have to score touchdowns. The Bills took this to heart and scored touchdowns on five out of nine drives (55.5%) against the Chiefs in the playoffs – a percentage good enough to make the top-100 out of any game since 1999. Then again, maybe TD per drive percentage is just one of those splashy misleading stats that doesn’t necessarily lead to winning games?
Let’s check in on Josh:
Please be respectful and do NOT tweet that graph to the Bills fans in your circle. Bills Mafia knows how to jump off of high places and we want to make sure that when they do there is a table waiting for them. And definitely no need to point out that both of the Bills playoff games this year made the list with the Wild Card matchup vs the Patriots ranked number… *checks notes* one. What makes all this more depressing for Josh Allen is that he didn’t even turn the ball over on any of the four non-touchdown drives in KC and one was even a three-and-out on three handoffs. Honestly the worst thing that happened to the Bills was Devin Singletary gaining seven rushing yards on a first down making the Bills think they could get the first on two more Singletary rushes.
OK touchdown efficiency was pretty spot on but what about overall QB efficiency? Expected Points Added (EPA) is an advanced stat that pretty much tells the difference in how many points a team is likely to score from before and after a play. Josh Allen’s total EPA (passing and rushing) was 26.2 vs the Chiefs. Good enough for 6th highest of any QB in all of 2021, yet only the second highest in that game. But Allen was even better the week before vs New England which got me wondering where he stood in total EPA for a QB’s first two playoff games combined in any year since 1999:
Let’s take a moment to fully comprehend that out of 687 quarterbacks who played in at least two playoff games in a given year since my data goes back (1999), the worst QB in total EPA who took the field in the Chiefs vs Bills Divisional showdown (Mahomes) ranked #2 on this list. And from a historical perspective, Josh Allen could not have been more efficient because no one has done better. How do you tell someone who climbed Everest to improve? Allen set the standard for efficiency in his two 2021 playoff games with an out of this world 55.5 total EPA. He was the king of efficiency. Nine touchdowns. Zero turnovers. One L.
So overall QB efficiency clearly wasn’t the issue here either. The only other facet of the game Allen would have control over would be the clutch factor. And I think we all know that wasn’t an issue with how plain stupid things played out in the final moments in Kansas City. The Bills executed the rare two-minute game winning touchdown drive right after executing a prior two-minute game winning touchdown drive only to end up not winning the game.
For those scoring at home, the only other back-to-back game “winning” touchdown drives that did not to win happened to the Vikings in 2013. The first 58 minutes of this game started exactly as you’d expect a Joe Flacco vs Matt Cassel showdown to go before going bonkers insane in the final two and change:
Vikings vs Ravens (Week 14, 2013)
All Scores in First 58 Minutes
All Scores in Final 2:05 Minutes
Two 2-minute lead-taking touchdowns just wasn’t good enough for the Vikings either as they got Flacco’d hard, but at least this was just a random Week 14 and not a playoff game.
So quick recap. Josh Allen made the top-100 touchdowns per drive list in which the other 99 quarterbacks won their game, was the most efficient playoffs QB by advanced analytics, and proved to rise up in the clutch to take the lead in the waning minutes right after rising up in the clutch to take the lead in the waning minutes. All for naught. This was an all time bad beat and it’s not even close. Josh played a king high straight flush playoffs and somehow managed to lose without even an envy bonus. Just a straight up KO to the soul. I have no words of solace to offer nor anything to suggest for improvement. I can’t even try. This is just the chaos of the NFL. Nothing makes sense. I mean, the Bills didn’t even lose to the Super Bowl champion. They lost to the team that lost to the team that lost the Super Bowl. What the fuck is that?
I know this is depressing Bills Mafia, but hold your head up because the Bills will be back. Keep in good spirit. Don’t jump unstable, use a table.
