RADIO
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen was a fantasy football savior as a QB streamer in his rookie season. Antonio Losada examines Allen's statistical profile to decide whether he can do it again in 2019.
Not long ago, Josh Allen was an untested newbie. Allen was drafted in 2018 by the Buffalo Bills and had quite a disappointing start to his career, suffering an injury in Week 7. This came after a rough six-game stretch that whiffed of mediocre quarterback play.
His time off the field, however, seemed to bolster Allen's performance when he returned to action. A previously middling quarterback turned into a supernova for the home stretch of last season.
Where does Allen stand now that he has more than a year of experience under his belt? Can we expect a similar midseason resurgence this year? Is he about to strap on the jet pack once again and rocket up fantasy quarterback rankings for the last few games of the season? We take a look at Allen's upside during the final six weeks of the season and its potential fantasy impact.
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The Story of Rookie Josh Allen
You already know what happened last season. That's the benefit of living in the present: You can always look back and see how it all developed.
Allen was drafted with the 12th pick of the 2018 NFL draft by the Bills even with a lot of folks in the industry criticizing his ability to transition to a professional level of play. The Bills took the risk, and if you ask me, they won the day.
Don't get me wrong, that wasn't my opinion at first. In fact, Allen did almost nothing until he returned from injury in Week 12 against Jacksonville. This is how his first season in the league developed from start to finish (notice the four-week gap due to the aforementioned injury):
That graphic is incredible.
Allen wasn't even a QB3 for most of his first six games. He only had one Top 12 performance and the rest of them fell into the QB3 threshold. That means Allen was worse than at least 24 other quarterbacks for the first third of the season, and it wasn't even close. In fact, this is the fantasy QB leaderboard from Weeks 1 to 6:
Allen was the QB28 through six weeks last year and was averaging a ridiculously low 12.2 fantasy points per game. Remember: Josh Allen was the No. 12 pick in the 2018 draft. Ugh.
Now, take a look at what happened from Weeks 12 (Allen's comeback week from injury) to 17:
Allen's incredible fantasy performances were only outmatched by an impossibly good run by Deshaun Watson. He bested the likes of Dak Prescott and even fantasy-darling Pat Mahomes (yes, even in points per game). Allen became a go-to play in fantasy football during the second half of last year. Full stop. No discussion.
Allen's Jekyll and Hyde-esque season led to a year-end finish as only the QB22. His horrid start combined with his four-game absence didn't help his numbers, and that is probably what made him a sleeper in this year's fantasy drafts.
Congratulations to those believing in him and getting him in the later rounds of your draft. You definitely scored yourself a winner.
The (Ongoing) Story of Sophomore Josh Allen
So here we are. New season, new hopes, same Josh Allen. Same Josh Allen, if we only take his 2018's second half into account, that is. I have plotted his current season next to last year's so you can properly compare both. Josh Allen's evolution was indeed incredible at the end of last season, but even more mind-blowing is how he's been able to sustain that level of production in 2019:
Rounding the edges, we could say that 2019 Josh Allen has been, virtually, as good as 2018 second-half Josh Allen. 2018 second-half Josh Allen averaged 26.6 points per game while 2019 full-season Josh Allen is currently averaging 22.6 fantasy points. Even if his average score is lower, he has been able to sustain it for 10 games and counting in comparison to last year's six.
But the most incredible thing of all, though, is that he seems to keep improving his outings. Through Week 11 Josh Allen has played 10 games, split perfectly into two halves of five games each due to Buffalo's bye in Week 6. Here is how those two splits compare:
In his first five games, Josh Allen finished with a QB1-level score just once and even dropped out of the Top 24 in Week 4 against the Patriots. In the past five weeks, though, Allen has been a fantasy football machine. He has scored more than 20 points in four of those five games and finished the other one with 19.2. He has been this close to being a constant QB1 in that span. And his last two outings are even more promising, as he's gone from 19.2 to 28.1 points (+8.9) to 36.4 (+8.3).
His splits tell pretty much the same story:
Allen has been able to improve on his previous improvements. During the first five weeks of the season, he was already averaging a respectable 20.2 fantasy points, but he has raised that mark all the way up to 26.8 in the last five games. He's turned down his volume of throws and completions a bit, but he's removed any sight of interceptions from his stat-lines and has bumped up his touchdown rate considerably.
I would have said that Allen had peaked (at least given his experience) at the end of 2018. Turns out I was totally wrong.
Fantasy Impact of Josh Allen's Evolution
If you have Josh Allen on your roster, congratulations. You have had a monster QB thus far and it looks as if he'll only keep improving.
To put a final note to this article, and to make you Allen's owners even happier, here is how he ranks in multiple statistical categories this season among all quarterbacks:
I omitted the rushing side of his game until now on purpose because Josh Allen is a quarterback, and we typically grade quarterbacks on their passing first and foremost. But Allen is not a normal quarterback. As you can see, his passing profile is not that great. He ranks outside of the top-15 passers in all major categories and is plain bad in some areas such as completion rate and QBR. But look at his rushing profile!
Allen is third in rushing yards among quarterbacks (only Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray have rushed for more yards), but he leads all players at the position in touchdowns on the ground with seven.
Allen is a must-have player in any type of league. He's not a streamer, but rather a weekly starter no matter the matchup. But best of all, he has massive upside thanks to his running prowess and the fact that he's still only in his second year and has plenty of room to grow as a passer. Even if he only improves slightly in that area, Allen has the potential to become a true fantasy gold mine. Much of the talk this season has gone Lamar Jackson's way, same as Patrick Mahomes attracted most of the praises in 2018.
Josh Allen might not be in the spotlight as much as other, more coveted players, but he's indeed on the way to stardom and if he was still flying under your radar, then you better re-calibrate it. Allen is a league winner.
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