So I heard about the Bills GM responding to the comment that Josh Allen is overrated. It was on one of the morning sports shows, and they quoted him saying something to the effect that “there’s idiots everywhere” which I thought was a great comeback.

But it got me thinking about Josh Allen and the criticisms he’s experienced throughout his career. When he came out of college he was considered very raw as a passer and more of an athlete/running quarterback. He’s proven that over the years. But he has developed a lot in the passing game too.

I decided to see if I could find any more information about him being “overrated” and came across this article on bleacher report:

To Quote:

“Immense talent but he makes a lot of mistakes. He’s underdeveloped at winning at the line of scrimmage, tends to lock on to targets, more of a thrower than precision passer, forces throws into traffic.”

You’d think he was a below average quarterback based on that. Barely capable of winning a game. The truth is he does all of those things. But he’s still a top 5 quarterback in this league. Pick a quarterback playing right now, and there’s film of them doing every single thing this executive is accusing Josh Allen of doing.

The point being missed here is that Allen is still growing as a quarterback. Look at the AFC. Allen has led the Bills to playoffs every year since 2019. Don’t think that’s a feat? Who are the quarterbacks in the AFC? This year he is facing Mahomes, Jackson, and Burrow – the top tier of quarterback play int he NFL. The next tier is Lawrence, Stroud, Tua. There’s Watson, R. Wilson, and Rodgers. What do they have in the NFC, Dak, Stafford, and Jared Goff? If Josh Allen was in the NFC he would absolutely be considered the best quarterback in the conference.

So back to the original question, Is he overrated? Right now, he’s a top five quarterback in the league. If someone rates him as number one, then yes that’s too much. But he’s a winner and he has the chance to become the best quarterback in the league – yes even better than Mahomes.

This year is going to be an important growth step for Allen. Having Diggs on the field for the past few years has helped him develop his passing game. Diggs forced the defense to adjust, and that allowed Allen time to learn how to read the defenses and move through his progressions. Now that Diggs has moved on, there is more balance in his downfield weapons. He’s going to have to prove that he can read the defense and exploit the weaknesses knowing that he doesn’t have a true #1 option in the passing game. He’s either going to become more efficient or he’s going to revert to being a running quarterback.

I think after this year, we’ll finally have a good idea of what kind of quarterback Josh Allen is and whether or not he’s going to be the guy to lead the Bills back to the Super Bowl.