Are you a Josh Allen/Buffalo Bills fan? You might want to stick around because some people think that the Bills quarterback is gaslighting the whole league. The Buffalo gunslinger is often dubbed a turnover machine and that might be one of the reasons why analysts like Nick Wright think that he’s overrated.

Recently, an anonymous NFL exec went on a tangent about Josh Allen saying he’s overrated, underdeveloped, and erroneous. Of course, the Bills had to defend their Mandalorian, so their general manager, Brandon Beane, called such execs “idiots” for tarnishing Josh Allen’s name. So that makes us think whether Josh Allen is really all that or not.

“I think he’s been given more of a margin of error than any other great player and now there’s a tiny bit of criticism and his GM is acting like it’s unfair and it’s not unfair. It’s warranted. He’s a great player but a flawed player,” said Nick Wright on First Things First. As great as the Buffalo Bills are, some people might compare them to the Dallas Cowboys in the sense that they’ve done slightly better in the playoffs, but never went to a Super Bowl.

In fact, the Buffalo Bills have never even won a Super Bowl, but thanks to Jim Kelly, they’ve appeared in 4 Super Bowls in the ‘90s. But this is about today and Josh Allen needs to step up and slay the only QB standing in his way, Patrick Mahomes. The Kansas City Chiefs have always been a thorn in Josh Allen’s way to glory. But coming back to being “flawed” and “overrated,” there are indeed some things that need to be addressed about Allen.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: Allen’s turnovers. Forget about his career turnovers. Let’s just look at the last season. Allen threw 18 interceptions in the last season alone! Except for 4 games throughout the season, He has turned the ball over again and again. We can look back to the Bills’ season opener against the Jets last year when Rodgers tore his Achilles. The Buffalo QB threw 3 interceptions in that game and lost against the Jets in over time.

But why make a fuss about it when legends like Brett Favre threw 29 interceptions in the 2005 season?. Wouldn’t getting intercepted be a common phenomenon in the league? Well, at least he won a Super Bowl in 1997. Even his storied rival Patrick Mahomes threw career high 14 interceptions last season. If Allen had a Super Bowl win in his career, would people still point out his turnover issues? Will he be absolved of all the drama if he brings the Lombardi home?

Nick Wright pointed out something else to make his case against Allen and how he’s “gaslighting” the league. “Since Josh Allen came into the league, there’s been one player to receive any MVP votes. First place MVP votes without having his team win at least 12 games,” said Wright, pointing out Josh Allen’s career trajectory. “In the last two years, there have been 100 first place MVP votes given out. 98 of them went to the number one seeds in either conference. Two went to someone who was not on the number one seed. Any guess who got both of those? It was Josh Allen. Last year, one guy other than Lamar Jackson got a first place MVP vote. It was Josh Allen.” Wright then mistakenly called Allen “underrated,” when he meant to say “overrated.”

There are no qualms about his talent. He goes head-to-head with phenoms like Patrick Mahomes and there’s one thing to note here. Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes have a 3-3 record against each other. While Allen is 3-1 in regular season against the Chiefs QB, the 3x Super Bowl winner takes the trophy home when it matters, i.e., in the playoff games. Patrick Mahomes is 2-0 against Allen in the postseason.

But Allen comes with good things too. Since the last 4 seasons, Allen averaged 4,385 yards and 34 touchdowns in a season. He’s constantly improving, his passer ratings are good, and his rush game is on par with people like Lamar Jackson. Despite this, the Buffalo Bills OC Joe Brady decided to make some changes and Allen’s passing stats took some hit in the last season.

Kevin Wildes of the show pointed out how Allen’s passing percentage has declined since last year.

Are the Buffalo Bills finding other alternatives to win games?

Before we talk any further about the 2x Pro Bowler Allen, let’s establish the fact that the Bills promoted Joe Brady to become an interim offensive coordinator, finally upgrading him from the quarterbacks coach. As soon as the OC settled in, he decided to take drastic steps to the improve Buffalo Bills. Bills’ passing percentage before Joe Brady took the interim OC was 58.8% (13 in the NFL), which plummeted down to 48.4% which is lowest in the league.

Last season, the Bills doubled down on James Cook to make explosive plays and the running back’s numbers exploded, at least in terms of rushing yards. Cook recorded 1,122 rush yards last season whereas the year before that, he had just 507 yards. He is a hell of a running back and the Bills might have been right to use the strategy.

There’s something else that might be the cause of this decline in passing numbers. Josh’s relationship with the star receiver Stefon Diggs has been shaky at times. So that’s also something that has affected both of their numbers. There were instances where Stefon Diggs dropped the easiest of catches. That’s not the only problem with him, though. Diggs brought out his inner “diva” mid game and argued with Allen on live television, traded cryptic messages about the Bills and his situation and eventually got traded to the Texans.

Remember that all this is surfacing because an anonymous NFL executive decided to badmouth Josh Allen when he said, “One of the more overrated players in the NFL. 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 a precision passer, forces throws in traffic.”

Brandon Beane was fuming when he heard the jabs coming at his quarterback and decided to retaliate in a presser saying, “I wish the writer wouldn’t include a comment like that. I don’t think Josh deserves that. And again I’m biased, but I’m tired of hearing it… there’s idiots everywhere,” Beane said.

The point is, people are biased and they look for faults. They often find out ways to paint others in a bad light and this is simply the case for NFL exec’s comments against Allen. Some were good takes and others were just opinions. Allen is ranked third behind his AFC counterparts, like Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow, and that says something about him. In all honesty, it feels like he’s a victim of recency bias and all the good he’s done just fades away as soon as he throws an interception because simply, sports fanatics are passionate people.

Putting up 4k yard seasons for 4 years straight is a daunting task and Allen is doing it in the daunting jungle that is the AFC with worthy competitors. That says something about him.