Mel Kiper Compared Josh Allen to Baseball Hall of Famer Randy Johnson
By Henry McKenna
Josh Allen sounds like he’d be one heck of an MLB prospect.
ESPN’s Mel Kiper compared the Wyoming quarterback to a Hall of Fame baseball player in an exercise on ESPN’s broadcast where Kiper explained why Allen had the best arm talent among the 2018 NFL Draft’s quarterback prospects.
“I’ve compared him to Matthew Stafford, Brett Favre,” ESPN’s Mel Kiper said of Allen on TV. “You want a baseball comparison to Josh Allen?”
No.
“It would be former great Randy Johnson with that 100 mile-per-hour fastball,” Kiper said. “He had some walks. Got better. I think you see Josh Allen already improving during this process to the point where the guy is much more accurate in addition to having a howitzer of an arm.”
These comparisons have been a problem all along for Allen. He’s not asking for them. He probably doesn’t want them. This sort of hyperbole is what invites comparisons to busts like Kyle Boller or JaMarcus Russell.
While Allen has the prototypical arm to be an ace for MLB teams, he won’t have the luxury of violating the pitch clock 100 times per game. Instead, he’ll have around 30 opportunities to throw the ball with three to six of the world’s most athletic behemoths trying to tackle him. After he failed to complete 60 percent of his passes in a season at Wyoming, his (in)ability to do that is what worries teams. That’s what likely will be what pushes him out of contention for the No. 1 overall pick.
As Kiper said, Allen is a unique talent. He just seems like the type of player who comes with too many developmental risks for a Cleveland Browns team, which has forced their players to realize every means of busting possible. Allen deserves better than the Browns. He needs a better team than the Browns, if he wants to be an All-Star and a 300-strikeout pitcher.
Oh wait. Well, close enough.