Matthew Stafford and Josh Allen’s passing charts show similarly conservative plan in Week 1

Fans were anxious to see whether Matthew Stafford would look like his usual self in Week 1 against the Bills after an offseason of rest and recovery from an elbow injection. He threw for 240 yards and a touchdown, but he also tossed three picks in the Rams’ 31-10 loss.

As poorly as he played, he still threw the ball down the field a couple of times, showing that his elbow appears to be just fine. Because of the pressure the Bills applied and the lack of time Stafford had in the pocket, it was a relatively conservative approach from the Rams quarterback.

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But it wasn’t due to a lingering elbow injury or any ill effects from the injection he had this offseason. If you simply compare his passing chart to Josh Allen’s, you’ll see both quarterbacks opted for short, quick passes in the opener, getting the ball out quickly.

Stafford threw 20-plus yards down the field five times, completing two of those passes with one interception – a ball that sailed on him over the middle when targeting Cooper Kupp.

As you can see, most of his 41 attempts came within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage, with only 13 going beyond 10 yards. It’s similar to the types of charts we saw during Jared Goff’s tenure, but there wasn’t much Stafford could do.

Allen actually threw downfield even less than Stafford did. Only two of his 31 attempts were at least 15 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Granted, he completed both of them for a total of 100 yards, but there weren’t many deep shots by Allen.

The Rams forced him to dink and dunk his way down the field, and the Bills were happy to do so, putting up 31 points despite turning it over three times.