Bills Aren't Worried About Josh Allen's Completion Percentage — Yet

Offensive coordinator Brian Daboll believes there's no reason to be concerned about Allen or the offense.

"I'd say you're not going to score on every drive we'd like to," offensive coordinator Brian Daboll said. "A tough league. A lot of good players on defense, good coaches. You do the best you can on each drive. You know, sometimes one thing stalls a drive. In terms of the numbers, I'm not really concerned about that. ... I'm concerned about the decision making right now and when we're throwing it away, making good decisions under stress. And he's done a good job with that.

"... I think that, No. 1, I got a lot of confidence in Josh. He's his harshest critic. You know, it's not really different than anything we do week to week. We try to not ride a roller coaster, we try to be as consistent as we can in terms of the corrections that we need to make as an offensive unit. Whether it's scheme, whether it's plays, whether it's throws, whether it's runs, whether it's blocks, you know, we kind of try to keep a level head, and this league is a tough league. It's a week-to-week league."

Sunday, despite 16 incompletions, including an interception, in 33 attempts, Allen did his job, according to Daboll.

"He's so competitive and hard on himself," he said. "He's fun to coach."

Daboll worked extensively with Allen in the 2020 offseason to improve his mechanics, change his arm slot and improve his overall grasp of the offense.

The result was an all-time great season that nearly landed Allen the NFL MVP award — 4,544 passing yards, 69.2 completion percentage, 37 touchdowns against just 10 interceptions and a 107.2 passer rating.

If anything, Allen's grasp of the offense is firmer now, and his mechanics certainly haven't deteriorated to pre-2020 form.

His offensive line hasn't been as efficient with protection, either.

So there is scant evidence to suggest that Allen is on some kind of decline that will make 2020 look like an aberration.

On the other hand, 56% is 56%. That's a shockingly low number for today's NFL, and it's doubtful the Bills will be able to duplicate or surpass last season's success if that percentage doesn't improve significantly.

Still, each week is its own entity in this league, and Buffalo on Sunday made more than enough plays on offense to win.

Coach Sean McDermott pointed to the calm adjustments Daboll made at halftime of a game they were lucky to be leading, much less be up by two touchdowns at 14-0.

So did Allen, who wasn't ready to panic over a game tape that showed just how close the Dolphins were to four interceptions instead of the one that wound up on the stat sheet.

"Hats off to them," Allen said of the Dolphins. "They got some really good players over there and they made some really good plays today. But there's some things that we need to do better, communication-wise, and it starts with me.

"There's going to be a lot of stuff to learn from on this tape. And again, winning the way we did, it felt good."