Should Miami really want Josh Allen?

With Senior Bowl week kicking off in earnest on Tuesday there are reports that the Dolphins will speak with Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen.  When looking at him objectively I don’t see much of an upgrade.

As the Super Bowl approaches, teams not located in Philadelphia and Foxboro are beginning to shift their focus to free agency and the draft.  Over the next four months, it will become quite apparent to readers that I believe Miami needs to draft a quarterback early in the 2018 NFL Draft.  However, at this time, I do not believe that Josh Allen is the right player.

"“You have to look beyond the stats.  Stats are for losers, in my opinion. The guy won.” – Mel Kiper Jr."

Mr. Kiper is correct that winning does matter but I disagree that stats don’t matter.  Sure Josh Allen’s lifetime record of 16-9 shows that Allen won while at Wyoming but what if I told you that in 6 of those victories Allen threw less than 20 passes?    Sounds to me like his team won those games in spite of him, not because of him.

When you are a quarterback being considered as a top ten pick, and the majority of your schedule is spent facing ‘middling’ competition, you should complete more than 56.2% of your passes and possess a TD/INT ratio that is better than 44/21.

During his press conference on Monday, Josh Allen addressed his completion percentage:

"“The key to my accuracy is making sure my feet are set right and trying to have a more polished throwing motion, a more polished stroke, you can say.”"

It certainly sounds like the right thing to say, doesn’t it?  The problem is that, in the NFL, a quarterback rarely has a chance to ‘set his feet’ and throw with a ‘polished stroke’ because defenses have a thing called a ‘pass rush’ that is designed to disrupt the quarterbacks timing.

In the final analysis, Josh Allen is a big-armed quarterback that can make all the throws but suffers from accuracy and footwork issues.  Guess who else fits that description…Jay Cutler.

Will Josh Allen turn out better than Cutler in the NFL?  Maybe.

If you were the Miami Dolphins, would you risk a top 11 draft pick on it?