Josh Allen — Week 2: Five Touchdowns, Three on Third Down

Third and 11 at the Detroit 43, three 49 left in the first quarter, Buffalo up seven to nothing. Josh Allen threw deep down the middle to Joshua Palmer for 43 yards and the touchdown. +5.5 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and 9.2 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it, the largest swing on any play in the game. It was the only one of his three throws of 20 or more air yards that came down, and it was the one that mattered.

The line: 20 completions on 31 throws, 248 yards, three touchdowns, no interception, two sacks, +15.1 expected points on 33 pass plays. 11 runs, not counting the kneel-downs, for 72 yards and two touchdowns: five scrambles for 49 yards, including 13, 12 14 on the opening drive, the 14 to the one before his own sneak, and the two-yard scramble for the touchdown late in the third; six designed runs for 23. Eight of the 11 runs picked up a first down. The touchdown passes went to Palmer, to Dawson Knox from the one on second and one, and to Dalton Kincaid for 16 on second and 13 with two 56 left in the half. Before halftime it was 12 of 19 for a hundred 64 yards; after it, eight of 12 for 84. The one interception he threw did not count — third and six at the Detroit nine, picked off at the five, wiped out by a defensive holding call, and after a second holding call on the next snap, Knox scored two plays later.

Third down was the night. Buffalo converted nine of 11, and Allen had eight of the nine: four of the six third downs he threw on, and four he ran on — third and one three times on the 15-play, eight-minute-22-second drive in the third quarter, up the middle for three, two and two, and third and three for six in the fourth. The other conversion was James Cook on third and one. The ball went eight times to Kincaid, six each to Khalil Shakir and Keon Coleman, three each to Palmer and Cook, two to Knox, and three throws were credited to no receiver. Kincaid's eight came out at +7.2 expected points, the most on the team. 20 pass plays before halftime and 13 after, against 16 17 rush plays.

Back in June the preview's case on Allen was that the floor is made of legs — passing volume plus sustained rushing as the most stable opportunity structure at the position, with the rushing touchdowns the part least likely to repeat. Week 1 in Houston was 334 yards through the air, two passing touchdowns and two rushing. Thursday was 248, three and two. Two weeks in, both halves of the case have shown up both weeks, and two games is still not a season. Buffalo is home to the Chargers on Sunday the 20-seventh.

_Data via nflverse._