Buffalo Rumblings
It’s the Buffalo Bills bye week, and we have been complaining about some crappy play over the last two weeks. It’s time for a much brighter topic and one sure to get y’all going over the weekend. Let’s have the Jim Kelly and Josh Allen conversation.
You might think this is crazy. Josh Allen isn’t even 30 yet. He has played 117 games to Kelly’s 160. How is this even a conversation Matt!?
Well, I was going through Pro Football Reference’s Hall of Fame Monitor this week for some background on Joe Flacco (probably not a HOFer, by the way), and noticed that Josh Allen was the player directly in front of Jim Kelly. Allen’s HOF bona fides are better than Kelly’s, at least according to this metric.
It should be noted that PFR does not think Allen is a Hall of Famer if he retired today and still has more work to do. In fact, Kelly is the lowest-ranked Hall of Fame QB in the Super Bowl era according to their metric.
The Pro Football Reference Hall of Fame Monitor is a metric designed to estimate a player’s chances of making the Pro Football Hall of Fame using AV, Pro Bowls, All-Pros, championships, and various stat milestones.
It is noteworthy that MVPs aren’t listed on there.
Josh Allen does outpace Jim Kelly in several statistics worth discussing. Allen’s 63.5% completion percentage dwarfs Kelly’s 60.1% as they played in different eras. Allen has the team’s franchise record for total touchdowns at 276, well ahead of Kelly’s 244. Wins aren’t exactly a QB stat, but Allen’s winning percentage is 69% compared to Kelly’s 63%.
In the playoffs, Allen also beat Kelly in completion percentage (66% to 59%), passing touchdowns (25 to 21), interceptions (4 to 28), and QB rating (101.7 to 72.3). Yeah, Kelly threw more playoff interceptions than touchdown passes.
Kelly never won an MVP where Allen has one.
The majority of the stats still favor Kelly over Allen. He has more wins and playoff wins. He has more passing yards in the regular season and playoffs. Kelly has more regular-season passing touchdowns than Allen.
In league awards, Kelly has a first-team All-Pro on his resume and that has eluded Allen. Kelly has more Pro Bowls (5 to 4).
Obviously, Kelly has four AFC Championship rings while Allen has zero.
Here is my take and I definitely want to hear from you in the comments below. I think Jim Kelly is the best Bills quarterback of all-time as of today. If the Bills make the Super Bowl in 2025, Allen takes the top spot. They don’t even have to win it...
