Popular NFL personality makes ridiculous claim about Bills QB Josh Allen

Fox Sports personality Colin Cowherd made an interesting comment about Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen on Tuesday's show.

Anthony Miller | Sep 18, 2024

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Buffalo Bills fans (and perhaps even members of the organization) are left scratching their heads after yet another questionable comment was made about star quarterback Josh Allen by a national media pundit.

Fox Sports personality Colin Cowherd ranked the NFL's top teams through two games on Tuesday's edition of The Herd with Colin Cowherd, slotting Buffalo in at No. 4. Cowherd added a comment about the Bills' signal-caller in his analysis that is... interesting, to say the least.

“If I would have told you there are two quarterbacks in the league without a turnover and one of them is Josh Allen," Cowherd said. "Again, he’s very coordinator-dependent. Mahomes isn’t. I don’t think Joe Burrow is. Allen is and he looks good there at No. 4.”

There’s no way @colincowherd just said this with a straight face on public broadcast 🤨 pic.twitter.com/DcoFrTWAGU
— Justus General (@JA17MVP) September 17, 2024

There is some confusion as to what Cowherd meant by “coordinator-dependent.” The assumption would be that he is only as good as his coordinator and necessitates strong design and play-calling to be successful, which, again, is an interesting thing to say regarding one of the NFL's top players when plays break down.

Before deep diving into Cowherd’s comments, a slight correction is that Allen has turned the ball over with a fumble in Buffalo’s Week 1 win over the Arizona Cardinals. Many can assume that he might have meant interceptions, but still something to note.

Back to Cowherd’s comment, Allen has had three different offensive coordinators in his career, working with Brian Daboll from his rookie season through 2021, Ken Dorsey in 2022 and parts of 2023, and Joe Brady from Week 11 of last season onwards. It hasn’t made a difference in his stats, as he has thrown for over 23,000 yards with 170 touchdowns to 78 interceptions since 2018. He’s also rushed for 3,652 yards and 55 touchdowns, which are simply incredible numbers for a quarterback.

Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images

The offense has had some different looks and wrinkles, but it all predicated around Allen's incredible arm and using his legs in power run situations. It isn’t a matter of the offensive coordinator complementing Allen, it’s the offense being built around Allen’s rare skillset.

To say that Patrick Mahomes isn’t coordinator-dependent is also not 100% accurate. While Mahomes has natural talent that not many quarterbacks in NFL history have had, he has been with Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid his whole career. Sure, the technical offensive coordinator has changed, at times, but Reid is still the offensive mastermind and play-caller.

Looking at quarterbacks Reid has had in his career, he has coached guys like Brett Favre, Donovan McNabb, and Alex Smith. What do all those guys have in common? They (to different extents) moved on to other teams and couldn’t replicate the success they had under Reid, with their careers ending shortly after the parting of ways.

This isn’t a knock on Mahomes, as he is trending toward being perhaps the best quarterback in league history, but Reid has developed and coached Mahomes to success. With this argument, if Allen is “coordinator-dependent,” as Cowherd elegantly put it, Mahomes needs to be in that category, too.

Both Allen and Mahomes are athletic quarterbacks with strong arms. They have benefited from good coaching, but Allen has shown that he can play at a high level with multiple different play-callers compared to Mahomes, who has had only one. Either they're both "coordinator-dependent," or neither are.

To quickly make a note on Cowherd's Burrow comment, he, too, has had the same offensive play-caller his entire career, as head coach Zac Taylor calls plays in Cincinnati.

It seems an unnecessary knock to call Allen "coordinator-dependent" while not echoing the sentiment for Mahomes and Burrow, especially when Allen is the only signal-caller of the three of which there is evidence to the contrary. Allen has been in the MVP conversation to start the season, and assuming he continues to flourish as the season progresses, that chatter won't subside anytime soon.

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