Ed Reed say Bills QB Josh Allen has “proven that he can’t” handle pressure

Ed Reed had a lot to say about Josh Allen during his interview with Kay Adams

During a segment of Thursday’s edition of “Up & Adams Show with Kay Adams,” NFL Hall of Fame safety Ed Reed joined Kay Adams to discuss the NFL Divisional Round playoff game this Sunday between the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens. It’s a matchup featuring a pair of front-runners for NFL MVP in Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson — and Reed had plenty to say about the upcoming game.

As you might expect in this corner of the internet, one topic, in particular, is likely to be of great interest to Bills Mafia.

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What did Ed Reed say about Josh Allen?

Adams asked Reed about quarterback Josh Allen and whether or not a defense can stop him from running, seeing that as the attribute to worry about most regarding his play.

Kay Adams: “If I’m looking at Buffalo, and I’m looking at Baltimore, and I’m looking at it from a ‘what would I be worried about as a Ravens fan’ — Josh Allen’s legs. Can you stop Josh from running?”

Ed Reed: “Yeah, you can stop Josh from running. Just as you can stop any quarterback from running if you know what to do on defense — you’ve got the players that can stop it. Baltimore has a… you know — they both have a decent advantage. Lamar is in Baltimore and they practice against him all the time. So, they know what they’re about to face on both sides. This is playoff football, but it’s on us right now — so let’s go get it.”

Adams: “But I wanna watch the Rob Ryan YouTube video that you’re hosting telling me how you would stop Josh Allen. You’ve done it b — you’ve stopped running quarterbacks your whole life. We were looking at, a, 2013 as a Jet, you stopped Cam Newton back in 2013, you held him in check. How do you do it?”

Reed: “I mean, I guess it depends on your personnel group. We were a different personnel group and I can think about the things we did we were good at — we were good at pretty much everything. We were good at blitzing… disguising the blitz, making it look like a blitz, making it look like zone when we were blitzing. So, we would come at Josh Allen and Josh Allen would have to make throws. He would have to complete the football — show me he could complete the ball after he’s getting hit all day. And it’s proven that he can’t.”

Bills fans are likely to stumble backwards with the idea of Josh Allen’s running being the single biggest concern for the Ravens this Sunday. Anyone who’s spent time watching Josh Allen play understands that Josh Allen is not pressure-averse.

In fact, Allen tends to thrive within its confines, and you can look no further than in games against the Kansas City Chiefs where Allen has had to run for his life while making plays no other quarterback has shown capable of completing. Often, the worst situation for an NFL defense is failing to contain him out of a pressure package.

Allen under pressure typically results in moments like this:

And this:

Or this:

In discussions this week, esteemed Buffalo Rumblings writer emeritus Dan Lavoie pointed out to our team that:

“For his career, Allen has an 87.1 passer rating when in the pocket for more than 2.5 seconds. Completes 54% of passes, 99 TDs to 59 INTs, 99 sacks, out of 1711 dropbacks. He’s still good, just more of a mortal.”

Historically, teams that manage to keep Allen in the pocket while rushing four and covering his downfield options tend to find the most success defending against him. That was true of the Denver Broncos during Super Wild Card Weekend — at least the pressure part.

Instead of pressuring such that Allen escaped the pocket, they closed him in, narrowing his throwing and escape lanes — which allowed Denver’s defense to bring Allen down confined spaces multiple times last Sunday. As for the completions part? Someone should show Ed Reed the tape.

What do NFL advanced stats say about Josh Allen and pressure?

According to Pro Football Network (PFN), Week 4 at Baltimore was one of Allen’s worst games as a pro. Per their metrics, he posted a 65.6 QB+ grade (D), which was his lowest of the season and the fifth-worst number of his seven-year NFL career.

What’s more, PFN’s numbers showed that Allen’s struggles back in Week 4 were due to the Ravens’ pass rush, which brought pressure on 44% of his dropbacks (second-highest rate Allen faced all season). Against that pressure, Allen averaged -0.69 EPA per dropback, another season-worst for him.

On the surface, none this sounds encouraging given Buffalo’s next opponent — and one might tend to side with Ed Reed on the matter. But there’s plenty of reason to take exception with Reed’s comments, because it appears as though he watched one game of Allen’s. If this were a research study, the data would be thrown out if just one single specimen were used to collect data.

The truth is that, typically, Josh Allen has been tremendous against defensive pressure. His PFN numbers this season against pressure rank him third in EPA per dropback (-0.03).

It’s important to point out that nothing was going right for Buffalo that night in October. Derrick Henry could have run around the world 10 times on that first play from scrimmage before anyone caught him. That put the Bills in a hole early, and completely out of their element. Baltimore rushed for more yards (271) than Buffalo managed in total (236 combined) on offense.

To confidently claim that Josh Allen is unable to beat pressure and complete passes that decimate a defense is irresponsible on Reed’s part. If only Kay Adams had asked Ed Reed the same question about Lamar Jackson.