Will DJ Moore's arrival unlock Josh Allen's arm this season?
Yahoo Sports NFL analyst Nate Tice and Yahoo Sports fantasy analyst Matt Harmon discuss how Buffalo's new offensive weapon could unleash their quarterback's downfield attack - which has been declining over the last couple of seasons. Check out the full conversation on "Football 301" - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
This is kind of similar to what I talked about with the Bengals.
You have a good O-line and you have a quarterback that can chuck it, and now you got a nice little vertical threat in D.J.
Moore.
Are you gonna push the ball a little bit that's non-play action?
Are you just gonna get under center, drop back, and chuck it?
Or are you gonna get under center and actually have, like, a full field passing game?
That's part of the Sean Payton DNA, you know, that Joe Brady could tap into.
I think Josh Allen can handle it, mentally.
And I bring this up 'cause there's proof in the pudding.
It's not just eye test that.
I think- they become a little safer a- as passing, you know, Josh Allen has, and there's good and bad with that, but I think sometimes you want Josh Allen to be Josh Allen and just let him go.
But air yards dr- on under center pass plays on early downs, I know that sounds niche, but they have a good amount of them.
The air yards in 2025 for Josh Allen was 8.8.
From 2020 to 2022, it was 10.5.
Yeah, we made a graph.
Way to go, producers.
Yeah.
You guys killing it.
In 2023, that went up all the way up to 12.6.
Like, it, it's really, really cut down.
This is just the overall one that you see right here, air yards.
But when under center, it's gone down from 12.6 to 8.8 last year.
Overall, in 2022, it got up to 9.2 yards.
Last year, 7.3, almost two yards shorter.
And now some of the defenses, while they play, they play that, the, how they're playing right now is a part of that, but the Bills face the least amount of cloud coverage, or one of the lowest amounts of cloud coverage because of all those big personnel groupings they use, and probably the lack of receiver threat as well.
But then the other stat here is sacks per drop back has dropped up.
Josh Allen-- Or, popped up.
Josh Allen has been kinda top five consistently of not taking sacks, you know, when he's been good the last kinda like four or five years.
Last year, it shot through the roof.
It went from 2.2% in 2024 to 5.8%.
And I do per drop back here, 'cause he scrambles a ton, so I wanna include those as opposed to just atte- you know, just attempts.
And explosive drop backs from under center, dropped down, too.
It went from s- 29.2% to 17.9%.
And I bring this all up, and it sounds niche.
They wanna be a run game that can go under center and pound the rock, and then go off of that.
Where's the go off of that, is basically what I'm saying.
I wanna see more of the kinda next steps from their, their fastballs, which to me is, you know, we joke about the mesh, but the shotgun bubble game, the under center run game with, with James Cook, whe- whether it's zone or duo, get-- What's the next step from that?
Because right now it feels a little bit too tight, and that's why mesh- Yeah doesn't work great, because safeties can just plow down and, you know, nail the crossers because they're not threatened over the top.
So, long-winded way to say is, what else you got, is basically what I wanna see.
I wanna see a little bit more aggression, and maybe D.J.
Moore allows that
