STRENGTHS
Josh has John Elway type talent. He has as strong an arm as John had and has that same type of swagger to his game and confidence in his athletic ability. Josh can throw the ball on a rope 70 yards down the field but also has the arm talent to throw all the touch passes needed to move the ball in any style of offense. He has the size, strength, quick feet and overall excellent athletic talent to extend plays out of the pocket and throw with accuracy on the run. He does a good job playing from the pocket standing tall in the face of pressure. The truth is that Josh has franchise quarterback potential. That means he has the arm talent to make both safeties play deep and that is what opens up a team’s running game. But there is one issue that will stop him from being a successful starting quarterback at the next level until he fixes it… and I have no doubt that he will.

CONCERNS
My biggest concern in profiling Josh is he plays dumb at inopportune times of games. He doesn’t throw the ball away, tries to do too much and loses site of down and distance situations. His production was down this year and the ability for him to impact against tough competition is questionable. Most of this was because he just wasn’t playing smart football. His accuracy stats are not where most teams would like to see them but that can attributed to two issues, lack of talent to throw to and the fact he throws a hard ball in some very cold weather situations. I’m not saying that he is not the smartest tool in the shed, but I am saying that under pressure and with a less that stellar support system that Josh does not play smart. His talent is franchise like but his play on the field at times can be more… backup quarterback like. There will be some growing pains to go through with selecting Josh but once he grows into the game the impact will be franchise novena.

BOTTOM LINE
Do you put the concerns aside and draft Josh Allen anyway? The truth is, when you look on film and watch him play I think you will see the similarity in his play to John Elway’s also. So… if you want to pass on selecting the next potential John Elway, be my guest. I can tell you for me personally, I wouldn’t pass on him. Josh’s size, athletic talent and overall arm talent is unique and although he has struggled this year he has way too much natural talent (similar to John Elway) to pass on him if a team is looking for a “potential” franchise quarterback. Sometimes you just have to roll the dice and no doubt there may be a big learning curve with selecting Josh but… isn’t there a learning curve with every quarterback coming out in the draft and most of them don’t have near as much natural talent as Josh has. That’s the difference…“Natural Talent”. But that’s just me, “Talking to Myself™”. Get ready to move up in this draft if you want this kid because before it’s all said and done Josh could be selected as early as any quarterback has even been selected in a draft. In some countries trading 3 goats and a cow to a father for the privilege to marry one of his daughters is an acceptable practice. To trade up for this quarterback, I’d go to 5 goats and 2 cows because your fan base will fall in love with Josh forever making it a marriage made in football heaven.


Drew Boylhart   DEC 2017