Josh Allen's inconsistency is a big problem for the Bills

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen is undoubtedly one of the best players in football and probably the single biggest reason his team has become a Super Bowl contender over the past four years. 

He is capable of doing things that only a small handful of others can even think of doing, and his overall production is mostly elite. 

But as he showed on Monday night against the New York Jets, he is not a perfect player. Far from it. And one of his biggest flaws should be one of the Bills' biggest concerns.

For as good as Allen is, and for as often as he can take over a game, he also has a shocking propensity to be the reason Buffalo loses games. That was 100% the case on Monday night when he turned the football over four times in a stunning 22-16 overtime loss to New York.

All Allen had to do was play a calm, controlled game where he took what the Jets gave him and allowed his defense to shut down an anemic Jets offense. 

He could not do that.

He was reckless, he took unnecessary chances and he was completely lazy with the football. 

It would be easy, and also very reasonable, to write that off as just one bad game. It happens. But games like that are not an outlier for Allen. They happen for him a lot. At a very concerning rate. 

Since the start of the 2021 season, Allen has started 37 games for the Bills, including playoffs. In 13 of those games, he has failed to record a passer rating of at least 80.0, including Monday's game. That is a high number for such a high profile quarterback, and represents over 35 percent of his starts. 

Just for comparisons sake, there were only six quarterbacks in the NFL last season that started at least six games and finished with a passer rating under 80. That list included Deshaun Watson, Kenny Pickett, Tyler Huntley, Davis Mills, Baker Mayfield and P.J. Walker. Not a great list. 

That means in 35% of the Bills' games over the past two-plus years, he was giving them a quarterback performance on par with that group. 

The flip side of that is Allen has also had 18 games with a passer rating over 100.0, which accounts for 48% of his starts since the start of 2021. That is great, and it has helped the Bills win a ton of games. 

But when you combine those two numbers to together it means is he almost as likely to be the reason the Bills lose a game, as he is to be the reason the Bills win a game. Shat is just simply not something you see with other top-tier quarterbacks. There is only a 13% difference between the below-80 starts and the over-100 starts.

That is significantly lower than players like Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, Brock Purdy, Matthew Stafford and even players like Kirk Cousins, Tua Tagovaiola and Justin Herbert, all of whom have more than a 20%-25% gap between their great and bad games. 

Meaning the great games for them far outnumber the bad games. 

It has to be a concern for Buffalo because the more bad games Allen has, the more likely it is one of them is going to come in a big moment, like a game that decides a division or home field, or worse, a playoff game. 

Allen has physical gifts that almost no other player in the league has and as such is capable of doing incredible things. But sometimes he needs to reign it all in and realize not every situation calls for him to be Superman. 

Not every game requires him to do it all on his own. The sooner he realizes that and puts it into practice, the better the Bills chances for a championship are going to be.

If he never learns it, it is going to be a big obstacle in finally getting that first Super Bowl. 

(Stats via Pro Football Reference, Stathead)