Josh Allen hits crossbar from 50 yards out while on knees
Josh Allen may be a top-10 pick in April, and as he prepares for the combine he showed off his arm strength.
Josh Allen emerged on the college football scene in 2016, with over 3,200 passing yards (8.6 yards per attempt) and 35 total touchdowns (28 passing, seven rushing) as Wyoming won eight games. Add that emergence to his prototypical size (6-foot-5, 237 pounds, as measured at the Senior Bowl), and Allen immediately became a top NFL draft prospect looking toward the 2017 college season and the 2018 draft.
Now we’re here, getting closer to the draft, with Allen being deemed a top-10 pick in a lot of mock drafts. The upcoming NFL Combine will be an opportunity for him to be seen alongside his fellow top quarterback prospects, who all come from bigger schools.
After poor reviews of his practice performance during Senior Bowl week, Allen went 9-for-13 for 158 yards and two touchdowns in the game and showed why NFL scouts are so intrigued by him.
On Tuesday, video surfaced showing Allen throwing from the 50-yard line on his knees.
this is exactly the type of thing that's gonna get him drafted entirely too high, but damn it, it's cool to see Josh Allen hit the crossbar from the 50 on his knees pic.twitter.com/plMnG8oVDM
— Jordan Zirm (@JordanZirm) February 20, 2018
Allen hit the crossbar on the 60-yard throw, which was purely and simply an exhibition of arm strength. There’s no good football application to it, but it will (and did) garner attention.
Allen carries concerns about the level of competition he faced in college, and he looked notably bad when he played against Power 5 conference teams. His numbers also fell off last season, with 1,812 yards (6.7 yards per attempt) and 16 passing touchdowns (21 total touchdowns). He did miss two games and part of another with an injury to his throwing shoulder, but he played in Wyoming’s bowl game and it does not seem to be an issue now.
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Among casual displays of sheer arm strength by a quarterback slated to go early in a draft, Allen’s showing belongs alongside JaMarcus Russell and Kyle Boller’s similar tricks in terms of real value. It’s too early to put Allen in that group of busts until we see what he does on an NFL field, but the immediate and wide correlation to Boller in particular is a bad sign.