FanPost

On Drew Lock, Josh Allen, and the Take Wars

I've been thinking about this for a little while and instead of one of my usual long-winded comments I figured a long-winded post would be more appropriate. Believe it or not I was thinking about writing this before yesterday's game (part of take culture is profound suspicion of other people's motives so I'm sure many won't). Bottom line for those who don't want to read much further: our community, like much of the rest of the world, is poisoned by the take culture that insists on having a near instant take on everything that happens and digging in your heels to defend your take. And by take, I mean a feeling you have in your gut that is varying degrees of thought out, but most certainly based on a non-thorough dive into the subject. In other words, you know just enough to be dangerous but not enough to recognize how little you know. I absolutely do not mean anyone who has an informed opinion and remains open-minded or someone who has a less-informed opinion but understands this and acts appropriately. Take culture arguments tend to be mostly fact-free and consist of absolutist statements like so-and-so is a bust after 12 games, or this one person was bad and then good so another person could be too (but in both cases, no supporting data given and frankly, no supporting data even known). One of my least favorite things on this board is when someone asserts something wrong that can easily be found via spending 5 minutes on Google. Be warned that this post will likely offend a great number of people who read it if it hasn't already.

In sports, Drew Lock is an easy way to see how this works in practice. Broncos select him in the 2019 draft. Take culture demands that you instantly not only have an opinion on how "good" the pick was (even if you haven't watched a full game of his in college), but that you are prepared to defend your opinion to the (virtual) death. This opinion is now a part of your very fiber and those who challenge your opinion are challenging you. Fast-forward to training camp and year 1. The thing about take culture is that is isn't necessarily set in stone, although the longer one's take goes on, the more likely it is that people will refuse to change it. So takes change after year 1 and after the disaster that was most of this year up until yesterday. But what doesn't change is both the certainty of your own righteousness and the certainty that those who disagree are not just wrong, but evil fools out to destroy the thing you care about. And once a take sets in stone the biggest thing that doesn't change is the refusal to accept any information that runs contrary to your take. It is either dismissed as fake, unimportant, or not actual illuminating due to a series of extenuating circumstances. It's easy to see how destructive this can be outside of the low-stakes world of professional sports.

With that out the way, let's talk about Drew Lock. Before yesterday the facts said he was one of the two worst starting QBs in the NFL. We had a huge argument about those facts and how important they were. Yesterday the fact is that he was one of the best starting QBs in the NFL, and you can already see how take culture works in processing this information.

For those who were absolutely certain that Drew Lock needed more time and anyone who believed otherwise was an inpatient fool (and perhaps not a real Broncos fan), today is a time to gloat and lord it over everyone else. They were right, the fools were wrong and (crucially) must be punished (verbally of course) for being wrong. Those who were absolutely certain that Drew Lock was already a bust and shouldn't be playing at all, today is a time to make excuses as to why what happened yesterday was not actually real (or honestly to just stay away and pout).

Let's bring in Josh Allen now, because I think he's critical to how we should be handling our takes. Because yes, we all have takes on everything, whether super well-informed or spectacularly ill-informed. Josh Allen was a polarizing NFL prospect because he wasn't very good in college. Then he was a polarizing NFL QB because he wasn't a very good passer in his first year and was not much better in year 2. Now he has become the poster-child for NFL development as he's widely regarded as one of the best passers in the NFL (I'm very deliberately using that word, he's always been acknowledged as a great runner). He has in fact become one of the great outliers in modern NFL history (https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2020/10/8/21498755/josh-allen-buffalo-bills-breakout-season-qb-scouting)

So what does Josh Allen mean for other NFL players? Here's where I'm going to suggest something that will annoy a lot of people. Do the work or don't pretend like you know. It's very simple, make some sort of effort into understanding Josh Allen and why he has succeeded where so many others have failed before you pretend like you know the answer. If you don't want to do the work, then fine, that's perfectly fine, just don't pretend like you have. In other words, don't participate in take culture and proclaim that Josh Allen proves your point. This works for either "side" by the way. If you haven't done the work, how do you know Josh Allen is a massive outlier that proves nothing? Because you heard that somewhere is not doing the work. Doesn't preclude anyone from having an opinion or hopes or fears. Just calibrate your certainty to the amount of work you've done studying the issue.

Challenging expertise is extremely valuable. We tend to hold people in exalted positions up on pedestals and it is good to challenge them sometimes. So you will never hear me say that people on this board should sit in the corner and be quiet. But you have to challenge from a position of your own earned knowledge. To use an example I think everyone would agree with: we don't go in and tell a doctor they are doing a procedure wrong if we haven't studied it. But we definitely need people who have studied the issue bringing their perspective. Outsiders frequently are less constrained by "the way we do things" and bring fresh ideas.

And for those who are open-minded, Josh Allen is a fascinating case. Personally, I was not high on Allen coming out of college (I'll stop here and note that I watch 1-2 full games of pretty much all of the major draft prospects and then use my own grading system, and have been doing so since 2014, so yes, I believe I put in the work). The reasons were similar to most people who weren't high on him. The Ringer article I linked to above goes into more detail but basically he wasn't very good in college and a good general rule is that QBs perform worse, not better, in the NFL, particularly when it comes to accuracy, which goes beyond simple completion percentage and incorporates off-target throws.

As I watched from admittedly somewhat afar, Allen seemed to prove all of the doubters correct. He had a fairly terrible playoff performance that seemed to show a definite ceiling on his NFL future.

Then this year happened. Josh Allen is quite simply a different QB. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see evidence of some improvement but the simple explanation seems to be that this offseason all of the things he had been working on finally clicked to the point where he could repeatedly replicate them in game situations instead of intermittently. So what can we learn from Josh Allen, what sets him apart? This is one of the most interesting things for me, because it helps me refine my own methods, which I am always looking to improve (Mahomes was another one of these for me, not of course because he changed so drastically but because I was wrong about him and needed to understand why).

I think the first thing to acknowledge is we don't really know for sure. He's nearly a data set of one, so drawing vast conclusions is foolish. But there are a few things that stand out about his story. First, he was not part of the QB factory that most top college prospects come out of. He didn't do all of the camps, he wasn't highly recruited, and was also a late-bloomer physically. Second, he played at a sub-par program with mostly sub-par teammates, particularly in his last year. Third, he is outstandingly physically gifted, perhaps the perfect natural gifts you could give a QB. This includes his size, arm strength, and athletic ability. And fourth, he has wholeheartedly embraced modern technology. Anyone who watched the Bills game last night got a glimpse of how he has worked to change his mechanics. Jordan Palmer probably is set for life as a QB guru. A few other tidbits that aren't necessarily unique to Allen but probably helped: he has played for the same coaching staff his entire career and he plays on a very good team with an excellent supporting cast that featured a huge upgrade at the receiver position this year. Oh and he's obviously a hard worker, but for QB in the NFL that is sort of a baseline requirement for any success at all.

Let's go back to Lock. I should start with my own journey here, because I think it helps establish come credibility. I had Drew Lock as my 2nd best QB prospect last year, just behind Kyler Murray (who got massively dinged for durability issues I think will crop up). He had a 2nd round grade and that's right where he was taken, so I liked the pick. I liked what I saw last year, and in particular liked that it seemed (and still does seem) that he has a good work ethic.

I was high enough on the expected growth coming into this year that I put some money (just a few bucks but that's all I bet on anything, it's just for fun) on Lock's over for passing yards and the Broncos over for wins. And then Lock not only seemed to have not improved, he actually seemed to be playing worse, pretty much right up until yesterday in my book. Now there are, as many have pointed out, potential reasons for us to in essence discard this season and pretend that Lock is still a rookie. He had no structured off-season (not the same thing as no off-season by the way), he has an entirely new offensive system run by a coordinator that does not inspire confidence, he lost his clear #1 target (who he had a great relationship with), and he got hurt (again). But even with all of those caveats, I have soured pretty hard on Lock. Statistically there is little evidence that someone who has been as bad as he has flips it around, again save Josh Allen. And visually, he was consistently not finding the open receiver (and it wasn't always because it was the checkdown). My takes, though I believe they are still informed, shifted pretty drastically.

So could Lock be the next Josh Allen? He does not check many of those same boxes I noted above. Lock was very much a part of the QB camp circuit (he was a counselor at the Manning passing camp). He went to an SEC school, but his teammates were middling, so that's a least a bit closer. He is physically gifted, but not in the same league as Allen (few are). And I have no idea if he's using technology to try to fix his mechanical issues. I do think they are improving, and I thought so last year too. I think they weren't as bad as Allen's coming out of school and so should be easier to fix (part of why I liked him more coming out of college and why I was high on him coming into this year). He seems to be improving his pocket presence too.

The final part of the Josh Allen experience worth discussing was the flashes. Even if you remove his running ability, he had games as a passer that showed great capability (those he did not believe in him dismissed these as aberrations you can find in almost any QBs game logs if they get an extended run of playing time, see Blake Bortles below). Two games with a rating over 100 as a rookie and then six more last year. Yesterday was Lock's second in 14 games. That roughly adds up to Allen (although I will never tire of pointing out that true rookies are different from guys in their second year who just didn't play much in year 1).

I've previously described our view of Lock's potential future as a funnel (really this is true for anyone). Every additional bit of information we gets changes the size of the funnel, both the up and downside of where he ends up. If Lock is truly going to go down the Josh Allen path, we should expect, absolutely expect, him to start having 100+ passer rating games much more often in the next 16 games, even if we still get the absolute stink bombs mixed in. But have a gander at Blake Bortles' PFF page if you want to see the danger in investing in intermittent flashes (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/B/BortBl00/gamelog/). Bortles of course became the king of garbage time, piling up statistics when the game was functionally over so that he always looked better than he actually was (and was great for fantasy purposes for that reason). I think we've probably seen enough to say that Lock's worst cast is probably Bortles (before yesterday I don't know that I would have gone that far). I'm not so sure his best case is Allen, but you can make an argument for it. Certainly it is absolutely fair to say that Lock has bought himself more time. There are three games left, two of them against bad defenses. Lock can certainly cement his case to be given another year or at least a chunk of one to test the theory that 2020 was just the perfect storm of misery and set back his development timetable. No blank checks (and we really need to bring in a true veteran QB backup), but more opportunity for sure. This team isn't winning a Super Bowl next year anyway without a truly elite QB at the helm so giving Lock another few games when you aren't going to be able to draft Trevor Lawrence or likely even Fields or some of the other top of first round options isn't going to kill the team's future.

If I had to guess, I'd still say we are going to end up on the lower side of the funnel. I don't know that it'll be Bortles levels, but perhaps more like Cutler: just good enough to get the coach fired. If I had to pick, that's what I'd pick today. But, and this is really important, I'd LOVE to be wrong. Being wrong means we have a franchise QB here for the next 15 years. And if that happens I will happily admit it, and we can start to think about what Josh Allen and Drew Lock had in common and what that may mean for other QB prospects down the road and for the NFL in general when it comes to drafting quarterbacks with mechanical and accuracy issues. But please, let's do all of this from a position of either informed theorizing or admittedly less informed guessing and hoping (or fearing). Do and show your work or acknowledge that the dog ate it.

This is a Fan-Created Comment on MileHighReport.com. The opinion here is not necessarily shared by the editorial staff of MHR.