The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

This shouldn't bother me, but I can't help but find it irritating when these general national-media analysts don't know the people they're covering.

Josh Allen is a great QB.  He's big, he's tough, he's strong, he can make throws, etc.  But the hole in his game is that he doesn't play well in crunch time.  He's known for throwing the easy ball in the dirt when the game is on the line.  He's not clutch and gets rattled when things aren't going well.  He's never won an overtime game in his entire career.  Fair or not, that's the knock on the guy.  He's kind of notorious for being bad under pressure.

Last night, Chris Collinsworth kept saying "Josh Allen is at his best with the game on the line".  He kept saying it again and again.  And it's not only NOT true, it's the opposite of true.  He plays his worst with the game on the line.

It's just annoying to have to hear it.



As much as I love Tua, it would be malpractice to say, "Tua is really at his best when he's using his arm-strength to hit deep balls over the top". 

Tua has thrown some lame ducks with too much arch and air under them, mainly due to his foot position or body positioning. He has absolutely dropped some very accurate deep balls on a dime this year. While his arm strength isn't his main strength, it certainly isn't an issue or as bad as people say it is.

No, but that's not the point.  It would be foolish for an analyst to say of Tua "these deep balls are when he's at his best".

I agree with you about Allen, they're just on his nuts. But stat wise, if they said that about Tua, they would be somewhat correct. He's in the top 3 in +10, +20, +30, +40, and +50 yard receptions. That doesn't account for YAC, but then again he's also top 3 in air yards and yards per attempt. The only time you have to worry about Tua is when he gets happy feet and arches his back and and heaves the ball like he's launching that shit to the moon. Even then, some of those are complete.

Tua is great and he's been great downfield.  It's not because his arm-strength is the best part of his game, that's all i was getting at.  I didn't want to get sidetracked.

Main point: Allen is notorious for being a bad pressure player.  To say he's at his best with the game on the line is a dumb thing to say.

Early on, that was from the hip injury he carried from College into the NFL effecting his mechanics - a lot of people questioned his arm strength after he took over from Fitzpatrick, but it was the lingering effects of that injury before the draft.

If we get a full year of Tua this season with no injuries, it will be the first one we get seeing what he can really do. I'm pretty confident, but I guess you knew that already.

I'm a huge Tua fan and I don't think his arm strength is a big issue, but he definitely doesn't have a cannon. Unless we get some velocities on the table, it's going to be hard to be accurate, but it sure feels like he throws a softer ball than a good deal of other players and that his longer balls tend to get a lot more air. Obviously, longest completed pass as a proxy is no good (guess who has that one right now? I doubt you'd guess if you didn't know it. It's Tannehill.)

I just want to say Justin Herbert also sucks with the game on the line.  That is all.

I totally agree with the sentiment here regarding Josh Allen and Justin Herbert.   They both remind me of Tony Romo.  That guy was a very good QB as well, but you would shudder if you had to count on him to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat in the closing seconds of the game.   He just couldn't get it done.

Just FYI, Josh Allen has more game winning drives than Patrick Mahomes.

Allen has 16 game winning drives in 83 games. Mahomes has 15 in 86 games. For comparison Tua has 7 in 42. Slight advantage to Allen over both of them. Still not convinced? Allen has 12 4th quarter come from behind victories, Mahomes has 13 and Tua has 5. Allen is pretty much on par with Mahomes in this category and I think Mahomes has an incredible reputation for being clutch.

I think Collinsworth is at least partially right about Josh Allen, he's actually really good with the game on the line. Now, he's been bad in a few overtime games and I know he lost one very prominent overtime game to Mahomes when his offense never touched the field so no, he hasn't ever won in overtime, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's bad under pressure. Some of the losses were not on him. Some were, but I don't think that stat alone tells the whole story since it's a pretty small sample size. He's only played in 5 total overtime games and in at least one of them his offense never touched the field. I don't really have his overtime stats for the other losses, if someone would like to compile those, I'd be interested.

Since I'm sure some of you would be interested, Herbert has 14 game winning drives and 11 4th quarter come from behind victories in 54 games.

And yeah I know these stats don't really mean a lot, but honestly I don't think many of you watch the games that Miami isn't in all that much. Allen is pretty good with the game on the line.

The question is, how many times has Allen had an opportunity to mount a game winning drive and blown it?   How about Mahomes or Tua?   That's what you have to compare to the number of game winning drives as opposed to the number of games played.

I agree, but then just saying that Allen is 0-5 in overtime games proves that he chokes under pressure is equally flawed.

Collinsworth is the worst of all announcers and there are some bad ones. If he’s calling a game it’s on mute or Spanish.

Is it?

OT is the ultimate pressure situation.

Tallying an overall number doesn't make sense.  Mahomes was blowing people out for years, so there weren't a lot of close games to choose from.

I'm surprised to see you defend Allen being good in the crunch.  I have felt just the opposite is true, but I respect your opinion.   Allen looks rattled to me at the end of games when things are close.

Devil's advocate throwing spitballs here... but what is the difference between a QB choking in the 5 minute OT period, or choking in the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter of a tie game?


Hmmmm...

Not only that, did anyone see him crying to the refs on the very 1st play of the Giants game? Allen and Diggs get like emotional menstruating little girls when shit doesn't go their way.

And if I see anymore of those stupid "I am him" clips of Diggs on NFL network, I'm gonna set my god damn TV on fire. WTF does that even mean? Is it some kind of new hip catchphrase for idiots or something?

There isn't.  One is just more easily measurable with the data I have available to me.

I don't know Josh Allen's history in tie games with 5 minutes left.  All OTs are, by definition, tied.

Or even more pressure.... choking in the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter when your team is down one score.

Josh Allen hasn't won many games? He's 56-27 in his career and if he would have sat out as a rookie like Mahomes that stat would look even better. Not counting rookie years Allen is winning at 71.8%, Mahomes is winning at 80%. A lot of blow outs in there. I'm not saying that Allen is Mahomes, I'm just saying that 0-5 in OT could just be an anomoly. In my opinion it is. He's pretty good the rest of the time.

I don't see anyone saying anything like this at all.  Where are you getting that?

Your quote was "Mahomes was blowing people out for years, so there weren't a lot of close games to choose from". Maybe you should go look at all the game logs of Allen's games and not just his OT games and make sure you look at not just his passing stats, but his running stats which are equally as impressive. There's plenty of blowouts in there as well. I think you might be just a bit biased on your opinion of Allen. Maybe because he plays in the same division as the Dolphins? Just maybe? I have a lot of respect for Josh Allen and I watched that game that Collinsworth announced and I didn't think twice about what he was saying about Allen. Just perspective I guess.

Ok, if I must, how about we look at just those 5 OT games for Josh Allen.

His first OT loss was a playoff game at Houston. The Bills were driving for the game winning FG when the center gets called for an illegal Blindside block for a 15 yard penalty on 3rd down which made it 3rd and 24 and knocked them out of potential FG range. Buf is forced to punt and Houston wins with a FG on the next series.

His 2nd OT loss was against TB and Tom Brady. Allen had the ball 1 time and didn't make a first down and they punted to Brady who drove for a TD.

His 3nd OT loss was another playoff game at KC where his offense never saw the field.

His 4th OT loss was against the Vikings. Vikings got the ball first and kicked a FG. Allen was picked off on the next series throwing into the endzone trying to win the game when they were within easy FG range to tie it.

His 5th OT loss was against the Jets this year. Allen played bad the whole game with 3 picks. Allen had the ball in OT first and his offensive line commits a false start to back them up 1st and 15. On 3rd and 12 Allen can't find Diggs and they are forced to punt which the Jets return for a TD.

Make of that what you will.

So at least three of those 5 were directly the fault of the QB...?

- Allen had the ball 1 time and didn't make a first down = choke
- Allen was picked off on the next series throwing into the endzone = choke
- Allen played bad the whole game with 3 picks. = triple choke

I've seen lots of memes and jokes around that if Allen can't find Diggs, he runs.  Sure that's probably an exaggeration, but...
Diggs has 66 targets this season, more than Gabe Davis and Dawson Knox COMBINED.

I'd consider - the same way people give Tyreek all Tua's credit - who's the real superstar in Buffalo?

I don't think this is my analysis.  It's just the general narrative.  It might not be the full story or there might be reasons for it, but here's a link to a Buffalo newspaper defending Allen in the face of these claims that were starting to mount that he wasn't good in the crunch.

When the article was written in 2022, Allen had lost 7 one-score games in a row.  And had never won in OT.
https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2022/9/29/23377661/buffalo-bills-one-score-game-loss-streak

Also, this is just anecdotal, but I frequent the NFL subreddits for teams when I watch their games and their own fans love Josh, but definitely criticize him for not doing well when things get close.

Funny, because it was a story last week about how many games the Chargers lost by one score since Justin Herbert took over.  Apparently its most of their losses, have been by one score or less.  Which might seem good, until you consider how they seem like winnable games that they just can't close out.

Maybe it's Buffalo's defense that chokes in close games and not Allen. They did a complete choke job today after Josh Allen brought them back to take the lead. All they had to do was hold against the lowly New England offense with 2 minutes left and couldn't do it.

I think you could make the argument that all 5 of those losses are on the defense/special teams. I don't think Allen's defense has a hold in any of those OT losses.

lol, yes he is terrible.  He's great doing a game if it's for the Swiftees.  I hated Tony Romo initial, just talked too damn much, but he knows what's going on most of the time.

Josh Allen is a legit top 5ish QB.  He's not perfect he's going to have bad games.  He's still early in his career.  Announcers like Collinsworth are going to read the script to try and keep the so so fans interested in the game.

And just like that here's a column from Deadspin about how poor Collinsworth is.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/we-need-to-talk-about-cris-collinsworth/ar-AA1j6txm?ocid=hpmsn&pc=MDDR&cvid=49f48efc31614648a7cb0b52a27d9cf1&ei=29

I have to agree with Collinsworth in this game as well. Bagent looked good for a rookie QB making his first start. Sure he's going to make some rookie mistakes, Fields is in his 3rd year in the league. Bagent is a rookie. Collinsworth wasn't saying Bagent was better than Fields just that Fields should be watching Bagent throw the ball and he should. Fields is a decent enough running QB, but he's not that good passing the ball. Bagent, I dare say is already better than Fields throwing the ball.

I'm not sure what people have against Collinsworth. I don't really think he's that great of an announcer myself, but he's just calling it as he sees it. I think he's seen his fair share of QB's. Maybe there's somethings that he sees that others don't. I don't think people are really being objective and already have their mind made up on Collinsworth. Fair enough, we all have announcers we don't like, but if he was really as bad as this writer is trying to make him out to be, he wouldn't have stuck around this long. I got a feeling there's a good bit of personal bias in this opinion.

Collinsworth wore out his knee pads with Justin Herbert last Sunday.  He just couldn't get enough.  My beef with him is that he is unable to go against the narrative and ciriticize the "league heroes" that they want to be popular.  Herbert or Allen or Mahomes - could throw 4 picks and they would still be having an incredible game. 

Call it like it is, not like you want it to be.  Its just like the NFL is paying him extra to pump these guys up because it is in the league's interest to have these guys be the face of the league.

I think that we're expecting analysis and that's just not what these broadcasts provide.  They need someone to just bullshit bloviate off the cuff for 3 and a half hours straight.  Collinsworth's skillset isn't that he can say well thought out, intelligent points that add insight; it's that he can yak for an entire game's length.

Well he is considered the color commentator I do believe. Yeah, a lot of his job is to add his own personal thoughts and opinions, not really to do in depth analysis. Maybe you're just expecting more from him than I am.

Dave, you need to worry more about your own QB who's quickly developing a reputation as a choker in big games.

"Some people are saying, many people in fact, that Tua is a choker.  You hear it more and more!  Sad."

If that's the narrative, fine -- if you want to say the Dolphins have a reputation of not beating good teams, that's also fine.

But I will also rip Collinsworth when he comes on and says that the Dolphins are at their best when they're playing the elite teams of the NFL.

For the record, that's not me saying that, but it is starting to become a narrative and again I think it's unwarranted which is my point. Too much praise is placed upon the QB when the team wins and too much blame is placed on the QB when the team loses. Wins and losses are not a QB stat, they are a team stat. I just hate it when people start praising OR criticizing a QB for the team's success or lack thereof. That's not how you critique a QB.

It might not be warranted, but the opposite certainly isn't true.  You can argue that Allen's reputation for being bad in crunch time is unwarranted, but to say he's at his best is not a tenable position.

I really enjoyed Josh Allen being at his best with the game on the line yesterday.

He got the lead for his team and again the defense folds like a house of cards. Much too easy for Philly to basically walk down the field for a TD.

he failed to close out the game. 3 points is not enough.

When your D basically gives up a TD on every possession in OT you're correct. I can't put that on Josh Allen, I'm sorry. Buffalo is supposed to have a good D and they do for most of the game. When it matters the most they seem to fold much more than Allen does. Allen ran for a first down and threw for another on 3rd down. Basically he got them into FG position all by himself and the help of a bad penalty. He didn't get the TD, but it's unclear if that was a bad throw or a bad read by the WR. The WR cut out and he threw it inside. If the WR cuts inside or he throws it outside it's an easy TD, but I'm not sure who to blame on that play. Still a better D doesn't give up an easy TD to Philly. Much much much too easy.

Look, I'm not trying to say that Josh Allen is a great OT player, but his defense is one of the worst and it's pretty good defense the rest of the time. Whomever it was that was announcing the game alluded to this as well. It looked like the Bills might win in OT and one of them mentioned it would be Allens first and the other guy said that Allen had been unlucky. I think that was being kind to the Bills defense. Allen hasn't been unlucky, the defense has been downright bad and sure enough it was again.

What you can put on Josh Allen is that his offense - featuring an "MVP caliber" QB and multiple Pro Bowl weapons - can't ever seem to score a TD in overtime... unlike his opponents.

He also got the ball first and completely missed on a wide open receiver for a TD.  Maybe a miscommunication with his receiver, maybe a bad decision.  Who knows?  I do know that whatever happened wasn't his best with the game on the line, though.

He only ever gets 1 chance if that in OT. Maybe if the D got a stop just once? He's had 5 drives in 6 OT games and the results have been a FG, INT and 3 punts. Not great, but certainly not the ONLY reason for all 6 OT losses. I'd be more critical of him if he had the same lack of success in the entire 4th quarter of games, but that's not been the case at all. I think people are cherry picking his OT performance as indicative of his overall play in crunch time.

So he's scored exactly once - a field goal - in 5 OT drives and you're scrambling for reasons why he's never won an overtime game?

It would be one thing if the defense were giving up a TD on the first possession every time and he's not even touching the ball.  But that has happened exactly once.  And until Sunday, Allen had never scored at all in 4 tries!  Not even a field goal!

For someone that's supposed to be an elite franchise QB, that's terrible, no matter how you slice it.

No, it's not. You're only looking at the 5 overtime drives. 1 out of 5 is not a good ratio, but it's not enough data to tell you everything. Just 1 more FG in any of those games and that would double his success rate. 5 drives is not enough drives to determine ANYTHING. It's just not. If you looked at EVERY drive in let's say the last 5 minutes of 1 score games for his career that would probably give you a MUCH better idea of how he does with the game on the line and I'm willing to bet it's a LOT better than 20%. Just look at this game. Allen also drove his team for the go ahead TD with less than 2 minutes to play in regulation. Just looking at this game that improves his drive success rate from 1 for 1 to 2 for 2 with a TD and a FG with the game on the line. That's fantastic!!!! This game doesn't show how he fails with the game on the line it actually shows just the opposite, that he's pretty darn good with the game on the line. Too bad for him that his defense also gave up 10 points with the game on the line pretty much just like they have done in all 6 OT games that Allen has played in.

Here's an interesting fact about Josh Allen. In all 6 OT games, the Bills offense scored on their last possession in regulation often with less than 30 seconds to go to either take the lead or tie the game sending it into overtime. Without some late game heroics from Allen with the game on the line, the Bills lose all of those OT games in regulation. Looks like Collinsworth was right about Allen afterall and all 6 of the OT losses support that.

Texans/Bills 1/4/20 - Bills kicked a 47 yard FG with 5 seconds left on the clock to tie the game when Allen drove the offense 41 yards on 11 plays in 1:11.
Bucs/Bills 12/12/21- Bills kicked a 24 yard FG with 22 seconds left on the clock to tie the game when Allen drove the offense 70 yards on 14 plays in 2:43.
Chiefs/Bills 1/23/22 - Bills scored a TD with 13 seconds left on the clock to take the lead when Allen drove the offense 75 yards on 6 plays in 49 seconds with Allen hitting Gabe Davis for a go ahead 19 yard pass.
Vikings/Bills 11/13/22 - Bills kicked a 29 yard FG with 2 seconds left on the clock to tie the game when Allen drove the offense 69 yards on 5 plays in 39 seconds.
Jets/Bills 9/11/23 - Bills kicked a 50 yard FG with 2 seconds left on the clock to tie the game when Allen drove the offense 43 yards on 9 plays in 1:46.
Eagles/Bills 11/26/23 - Bills scored a TD with 1:52 left on the clock to take the lead when Allen drove the offense 74 yards on 10 plays in 5:14 with Allen hitting Gabe Davis with a go ahead 7 yard pass.

When you cherry pick the numbers like you are doing here you come up with REALLY bad conclusions most of the time. The way to prevent this type of thing is to look at the BIG picture and do analysis of ALL the relevant data you can find, not cherry pick a really small percentage of the data that you THINK might be the most relevant and base your decision around that. You're essentially ONLY looking at the data that makes him look bad and completely ignoring anything else that doesn't seem to fit with your pre-determined conclusion. Rather than do this you HAVE to strive to PREVENT this type of thinking the best you can. You're not doing that here.

https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/39004814

I'm only looking at the 5 OT drives because I'm only commenting on his performance in OT.  If you want to say Allen has been great in the 4th quarter to force OT (but then bad in OT), I have no problem with that statement.

Sure as long as you acknowledge that's different from saying that Josh Allen is bad with the game on the line.

I'm not saying that.  I just think that it's a popular sentiment and perception, whether true or not.  And it's crazy for an announcer, in the face of that, to say that he's best with the game on the line, when that's one of the biggest knocks against his game is how un-clutch he is.  This thread isn't a criticism of Josh Allen.  It's a criticism of Collinsworth.

So Collinsworth should go along with the common perception regardless of whether or not he personally believes it? Is that what you are saying?

No, but I think that there's a spectrum.

The common perception is that Josh Allen is bad in OT and a choker.  The admittedly small sample size seems to support that.  It's totally fine to say that's not fair and that the criticisms of his are not founded and that's it's not the weakness in his game that it is made out to be.

That's a far stretch from calling it a STRENGTH.

In short: saying that Josh Allen is his best with the game on the line is a clown take.  Thus, Collinsworth is a clown.

Collinsworth was not talking about OT specifically. He was talking about being good with the game on the line. You brought up Josh Allens record in OT in an attempt to discredit what Collinsworth was saying, but it's unfair to limit Allen's "game on the line" rhetoric to overtime only when there is so much additional gameplay to consider. That's my point. It's very fair for Collinsworth to talk about Josh Allens strength with the "game on the line" when considering his entire body of work and not just overtime. It's not a stretch at all. It's only a stretch for you and others because you are limiting your evaluation to OT only which is a very small subset of "game on the line".

Don't you guys get it? It is unfair to limit Allen's "game on the line" rhetoric to only when the game is on the line!
To get a full picture of Josh Allen's "game on the line" performance, a full analysis of quarters 1 THRU 4 should be reviewed. Also because he only has 6 OT games, it is too small a sample, so it should be dismissed.
With that said, his game on the line record is 58-25, one of the most elite "game on the line" performers in the history of the league.

Here are my personal favorites for elites skills displayed, when the game is on the line!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enoUCDJyH3A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Dl-5QPu3k

Josh Allen missed some nice TD throws to open receivers with the game on the line.  ...also fumbled.  I'm really glad he's so good with the game on the line.

I think it's when there's a time crunch and he cannot just scramble his way out of things and is made to evaluate his passing options, he can't find them.  He got bailed out of the narrative because of the missed FG (Stephon Diggs did, as well...he isn't a viable #1 receiver) but the Chiefs were all set to come kick a FG to win that game anyway.  Bills needed a TD to win and had open guys downfield and Allen put the ball in the dirt.  Again.  Because that's what he does.

Right. Lets blame Josh Allen because his kicker missed a chip shot FG to tie the game. By the way the TD pass was underthrown because he was getting hit while throwing the pass, a fact that I guess you missed. Yep, it's Josh Allens fault the Bills lost....again. Geez Dave it's almost as if you just don't like Josh Allen or something...wait.

I'm not blaming Josh Allen -- I'm just pushing back at the absurd statement that he's at his best with the game on the line.

I'm just pushing back on the statement that's an absurd statement.