Anatomy of a Play: How throwing at the beach set up Josh Allen’s big throw to Stefon Diggs

Josh Allen worked on his game in the offseason, and throwing at the beach set up a big play to Stefon Diggs in the wild-card round.

Bills quarterback Josh Allen may have the NFL’s most amazing arm strength, but the 2020 season was the first in which Allen also displayed consistent arm talent — the specific ability to take that superhuman velocity to make downfield throws on the right side of ridiculous.

In the regular season, on throws of 20 or more air yards, Allen completed 33 of 72 passes for 948 yards, 13 touchdowns, five interceptions, and a passer rating of 103.0. That’s a considerable improvement over Allen’s deep-passing numbers in 2019 — 18 completions in 74 attempts for 589 yards, four touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 61.4.

Per Nora Princiotti of The Ringer, one thing performance coach Jordan Palmer did with Allen this off-season was to make sure his pupil was throwing with better mechanics. The solution? Throwing at the beach. Palmer’s theory was that when Allen was throwing off of sand, he couldn’t rely on a solid base every time. The best quarterbacks can complete deep throws with timing and anticipation in small windows even when they’re throwing off-platform.

“You push away, and your foot slides a little bit, and your left foot is on a hill that you didn’t really see, so every single time your feet are jacked up,” Palmer said. “What happens is you have to fix things from your hips up, in your upper body, and you have to get really consistent there. He plays with a really consistent base now.”

When Palmer watches Allen throw this season, the difference is that his upper body mechanics are consistent, even when the lower body is off-sync for whatever reason.

“Everyone saying he was going to be a bust because of his inaccuracy. They weren’t wrong that he was inaccurate, but they were wrong in projecting that he wouldn’t fix it,” Palmer concluded.

This was certainly true against the Colts in the wild-card round. With 4:53 left in the first quarter, Allen completed this 36-yard pass to receiver Stefon Diggs, flat-footed, with a flick of the wrist.

When you have this kind of arm strength, and you’re able to convert it to arm talent, it’s just another day at the beach.