Wyoming's Josh Allen keeps NFL Draft analysts guessing to the end

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After months of film study, years of being dissected on the field and impressive showings in pre-draft workouts - including the Senior Bowl, the combine and his pro day - Josh Allen remains an enigma.

Some draft analysts peg the former Wyoming quarterback No. 1 overall to the Cleveland Browns. Leading the way is ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr., who has had Allen as his top guy the whole way. USC’s Sam Darnold, Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield, UCLA’s Josh Rosen and Louisville’s Lamar Jackson are all expected to be first-round selections as well, but Kiper prefers the 6-foot-5 quarterback who was a two-star out of Reedley (Calif.) Reedley Community College before signing with the Cowboys.

“He’s a great kid, he takes to coaching and he has elite, super-elite, rare talent in terms of size, arm strength, athleticism, all that working together,” Kiper said. “You coach him properly and he can be spectacular. I compare him to Matthew Stafford, Brett Favre. The Matthew Stafford comparison I started with three or four months ago and people started to use that as well. Stafford had his critics, too, because he was only 57 percent coming out of Georgia. People said he should be a second-round pick, he’s a thrower, not a pitcher.

“I heard the same things about Matthew Stafford when he went No. 1 and he should have gone No. 1, he’s had a heck of pro career and he’s been at 66 percent the last three years in the NFL. (Critics say) ‘If you don’t complete 60 percent in college, you can’t in the NFL.’ I can give you tons of examples of guys, even back in the day.”

The biggest criticism of Allen is that he completed just about 56 percent of his passes during his time at Wyoming. He threw only 16 touchdowns and six interceptions this past season. No one is worried about his arm strength. Instead, they point to how he performs against high-level competition.

“He has the biggest arm I’ve seen since JaMarcus Russell, and JaMarcus Russell was a bust,” NFL Network’s Mike Mayock said. “What I think differentiates this kid is his football IQ, passion, work ethic, and I see a difference between 2016 and 2017 and I can see a difference between 2017 and the combine and then again to the pro day. With tall quarterbacks especially, footwork is critical and most tall quarterbacks struggle early accelerating everything.

“What he has to do is learn how to anticipate and throw with timing even more than the whole accuracy conversation, because he’s more accurate than people think. I can give you a bunch of examples on very difficult, small-window throws where this kid fits it in where five quarterbacks in the world wouldn’t even try to make the throw. He has to get his eyes and his feet connected and he needs about 1,000 reps and he needs to sit in a room behind Eli Manning or Drew Brees or Tom Brady and he needs a year behind those guys learning how to be a professional. I love his intangibles. The kid loves the game, he’s willing to work, he’s really athletic - which gives me hope for his footwork. I’m kind of buying into the kid, as is a lot of the league.”

Others are not so certain. ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit said Allen is difficult to evaluate because he played at Wyoming, not against a lot of major competition and it’s just hard to know how that translates to the pros.

Allen has shown special qualities especially in the pre-draft process, but is he a gamer? In a 24-3 loss in the season opener to Iowa last season, Allen completed 23 of 40 passes for 174 yards and two picks. When the Cowboys lost, 49-13, to Oregon a few weeks later, Allen was 9 of 24 passing for 64 yards and a pick.

One reason Kiper likes Allen so much is because of his bounceback performance in Wyoming’s 37-14 bowl-game victory over Central Michigan, in which he completed 11 of 19 balls for 154 yards and three scores. Another argument in Allen’s favor is that he’s incredibly talented but lacked elite players around him.

“Josh Allen could be a superstar,” Herbstreit said. “He could be the Carson Wentz of this draft. No one really knows. But he’s a hard one to personally evaluate because he’s coming out of Wyoming and the Mountain West. He lost a lot of his better players after the '16 season, he was working with some new personnel and offensive line and I think it affected him. Especially when they went up against some of the bigger schools, they were overmatched and I think it really had a negative impact on him. I know a lot of people who were impressed with his personal workouts, his arm strength. He can make plays on the run. There is a lot to like about him, it’s just a little bit more of a roll of the dice because of the unknown coming from a small school.”

ESPN analyst Louis Riddick is more concerned about what the Browns are looking for with the No. 1 pick rather than which quarterback is the most talented. He points to general manager John Dorsey for some important clues and insight. And it could lead Cleveland right to Allen.

“It’s going to be important for the Browns to identify what they want out of their quarterback more so than which quarterback is the best one here, because we can sit here and argue about which one is the best until we’re blue in the face,” Riddick said.

“If you know anything about John Dorsey and how they did things down in Kansas City, they like measurables, they like ideal, they like people who look the part. So who does that lead you to automatically? It leads you to Josh Allen, because he’s big, he’s got big hands, he’s played in bad weather, he’s got the biggest arm. He can drive it through the AFC North’s bad weather in December. That makes sense. But he’s the guy from an accuracy standpoint who will look like a Hall of Famer one play and then look like he’s going to break your heart and can’t hit the broad side of a barn the next play. So you tell me what you’re going to get out of Josh Allen. Has he improved during the pre-draft process? Yeah, he has. We’ll see.”

Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell is not sold on Allen. He was not through the season, and he has not been through the pre-draft process - even though the former Wyoming star has done some impressive things.

Against FBS competition Allen has struggled, and to Farrell that means a ton.

“He’ll struggle,” Farrell said. “He’s a talented kid, he’s a big kid, he can move, he has a strong arm. He could be Ben Roethlisberger, but more likely than not, I see Ryan Mallett. I just see a guy who’s probably not going to be a front-line starter, maybe a long-term backup. It really worries me with his accuracy, worries me he wasn’t able to compete against top competition and just how poor he played against FBS competition. I’m not sold.”

The Cleveland Browns might be though.