By Nick Wojton / Billswire.usatoday.com
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen said during organized team activities on Tuesday that his focus this offseason is going to be on the most critiqued area of his game, his accuracy.
While Allen’s rookie season did provide some positives, such as his dual-threat abilities and 5-5 overall record in games he started and finished, naysayers will continue to point to one major flaw on Allen’s stat sheet. His completion percent was a brutal 52.8 percent. The aim is to improve there.
“Consistently, delivering the ball where it needs to be. Ball placement is huge, especially in this league,” Allen said. “That is something that will never change, you always want to try to work on ball placement. Every day you come out, it’s kind of a new thing and sometimes the ball comes out of your hand a little bit differently. You have to make adjustments and understand what your body is trying to tell you and try to go with it.”
“Just trying to get the ball to the playmakers because we can’t do anything if they don’t have the ball in their hands,” he added.
Throughout his rookie season, Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott pushed aside the notion that his QB’s completion percentage was worrisome. While McDermott fell short of addressing Allen’s accuracy on Tuesday, he did say he believes Allen knows where he needs to improve upon in his game.
“Yeah, first day. I’ve been impressed with his methodical work ethic and approach. It seems like he understands the work that he has to and that we have to do this offseason to get us to where we’re trying to get to as a football team,” McDermott said.
But there is a bit of a silver lining. As a rookie last season, Allen had a whirlwind of a time at this point of the offseason. As a rookie, everything was new, let alone being the highest-ever drafted quarterback in a team’s history. No pressure, right?
Now things are just different. Completely different, in fact, per Allen.
“As far as knowing the playbook, I would say I’m leaps and bounds ahead,” Allen said. “Having that year under my belt in the same system is huge, for a young quarterback especially.”
“It’s a complete 180 feeling from last year to this year,” the QB added.
With plenty of new weapons and pieces on offseason, and just with the nature of the beast, things will be different from year-to-year and there will still be things that have to be learned for a QB. However, every extra second Allen can spend improving his accuracy before next season could be crucial for him and the franchise.