Josh Allen pulls a Drake Maye, the worthless stat that is passer rating

Monday 10/5/26

The Patriots got a big win yesterday in Buffalo by a 29-26 score and their fans are stomping around again. Drake Maye is "back" and all that. I'd go easy here. Improvement and the kind of play you need out of someone can be two different things. Maye made some plays. He was also much abetted by Efton Chism making the catch of his lifetime on the go-ahead score late.

Maye started out completing a high percentage of his passes, with that falling off as the game went on, leading to a sub-60% completion percentage. That's become a pattern for him. Worse, he threw another interception and fumbled yet again. To me, that's not a good game. He hasn't been able to get his turnovers under control.

Josh Allen had nearly as big a role in making that win possible for New England. I watch this guy and I see physical gifts that few quarterbacks have ever had, total package-wise. Arm strength, touch, accuracy, legs. I also understand, though, why he hasn't won a title yet and why he may never. He makes these decisions that will give the other team the game. Not always, but enough of the time is more than enough.

If that happens in a key spot--like a playoff game--then that's the difference between a championship and an ouster. Timing matters. Sometimes things sync up your way and you go through a gauntlet of important games without making a killer of a mistake (or that mistake hitting the cornerback in the hands and falling harmless to the carpet), but the possibility is always there with Allen. Flip a coin five times, and it may come up heads five times. But that'll only hold for so long. It's been his fatal flaw.

He was on the verge of being dropped for a safety with his back to the line of scrimmage when he flipped the ball up into the air blindly. He got lucky on that play. There wasn't even a penalty called for intentional grounding. He had the game in his hands on what proved to be the Bills' last drive of the game. A player of Allen's caliber should, at the least, be able to get his team into field goal position, which takes so little in today's NFL with these kickers.

He eluded what appeared to be a sure sack, making him all pumped up in the moment, like, "It's highlight play time, baby!" and you knew he was about to attempt something he didn't need to. This entailed chucking the ball down field with a bunch of Patriots players right there. Easy interception. If Josh Allen didn't make the decision, all drunk on adrenaline, I don't think the Patriots win the game.

Josh Allen had himself a Drake Maye moment.

Ballgame, Patriots. They need it, and they'll more than take it and feel good about it.

Why is it the Patriots never have a back who runs well? Maye was their leading rusher in that game with 54 yards. Rhamondre Stevenson had 47 yards on 13 carries. TreVeyon Henderson had 42 yards on 14 carries. That's typical. It's the line? It's these guys? It's both? It's the line and the backs can't make anything happen on their own?

Passer rating is a misleading stat. Maye netted a 97.7 for yesterday's game. He was 22-for-37. He started out something like 8-for-9. Here's another example: Geno Smith was 8-for-15 yesterday for the Jets, a 53.3 completion percentage, for 119 yards, with a TD...for a rating of 101.8. (He was also sacked 3 times, which doesn't count towards passer rating.)

What? So that's an outstanding game of throwing the football? He didn't leave the game either. Because that looks like the stat line of someone who exited with an injury in the second quarter and wasn't doing very well up until then. But a rating of 101.8?

Why bother to have this stat? While we're at it, why bother to play if you're the Jets? Why have a team? The Jets had a single ball carrier (note how I used that word, people of today's illiterate society, and not "singular"; I know you like to go with the latter word these days because you're trying to sound smart, but the opposite is what ends up happening; "single" means one, "singular" means unique or something/someone that stands out; feel free to make note/use of that, too, you people who are paid large amounts of money to appear on television and broadcast and/or talk about football games despite not having command over the rudiments of the English language when you can just say, "Hey! I'm not an uneducated dumbass who got hooked up, language is fluid donchaknow!") in that contest yesterday with the Bears. One back attempted all their runs. The quarterback didn't have a run. So it isn't like they had the ground attack going. That ball carrier had 14 rushing attempts for 59 yards, with ten of those yards coming on a single carry.

How is it possible for your offense to be this anemic in 2026? That's an offensive stat line befitting a game in 1929 played in a blizzard. It's as if the Jets had only three possessions for the entire afternoon. They are a fascinating study in extended futility. How can you always be that bad? I know there are answers to this question, but there should still be the occasional year, despite those longstanding factors, where you somehow, with luck involved, get to a decent record. The Jets are amazing in their way. There really isn't another North American sports franchise like them.

The Chiefs beat the Raiders--who were surprisingly undefeated up until then--yesterday 30-27, so you'd think Patrick Mahomes had a big game, right? Let's look at the numbers. He was 15-for-30 for 225 yards, with 2 TDs. Not good. 50% completion rate. Passer rating: 97.2.

Borderline useless stat.

NFL people always want to tell you how good Justin Herbert is, which should tell you something about NFL people because Justin Herbert plainly isn't that good to someone who can observe, process, think. The Chargers fell to 0-4 yesterday. Herbert was 19-for-31 for 189 yards with a TD and two interceptions.

People evaluate players as if they played in a perfect vacuum. The conditions are ideal. They remove the human component. Chaos component, bad bounce component, adversity component. Sure, in this vacuum Justin Herbert is good, I guess. You know, not in reality, but this other thing. Which is irrelevant.

Subjected myself to some Boston College football on Saturday. They played SMU on the road. That's how you should say it--you don't watch BC football, you subject yourself to it. They could have won, same as the week before at Alumni when they led by 8 in the fourth quarter against Virginia Tech. SMU puts up big yardage totals, but they didn't do much against BC's defense and BC's offense out-gained SMU's by a decent amount.

BC's motto is "Ever to excel," and what their football team excels at is finding ways to lose. Penalties, dropped passes, false starts. The Eagles don't stint on these things. They're bad at the basics. That's Bill O'Brien. In large enough part, anyway.

We've come to a period in Boston College's football history where 6-6 and a bowl bid is starting to feel like it'd be a big season. They're 2-3 now. Miami and Notre Dame are on the schedule, so that's two losses by a combined 60 points.