Josh Allen Can Sling It!

The Buffalo Bills beat the Jacksonville Jaguars today, 24-21.  Despite a couple 3-7 teams getting together in late November, fans did have reason to cheer today.  Late in the second quarter, the Bills faced 1st & 10 from their own 25-yard line.  Rookie quarterback Josh Allen (#17) was under center when the ball was snapped (click on image for a larger view).

Rookie wide receiver Robert Foster (#16) was lined up on the far left side of the line.  The screen capture I got from the replay shows a better view of Foster, the lone wide receiver on the left side of the line (click on image for a larger view).

Foster was only put on the active roster 15 days ago, but he was about to be a part of something special.

Look at the pile surrounding Allen when he threw the football (click on image for a larger view).

He's about to be clobbered by the Jacksonville rush.  But Allen's strong arm made the play.  The main part of the ball's acceleration took about 0.15 seconds, leading to an average force from Allen on the ball of roughly 15 pounds.  The peak force could have reached 30 pounds.  That's a quick release with a lot of force!  The power Allen outputted during a very brief instant of time reached 1.5 kW, which beats a lot of microwave ovens!  The ball left Allen's hand at about 53.5 mph and at angle of 25.3 degrees above the horizontal.

Fleet-footed Robert Foster hit a top speed of over 21 mph in crossing the field to catch the ball near the Jacksonville 38-yard line (click on image for a larger view).

Replay gave a slightly better view (click on image for a larger view).

The football was rotating at about 600 rpm and landed in Foster's hands at a speed of roughly 47.3 mph, about 2.0 seconds after it left's Allen's right hand.  Nobody was going to catch the rookie as he scored his first NFL touchdown (click on image for a larger view).

To get all the numbers for the trajectory of the ball, I had to solve Newton's second law equation numerically.  The trajectory is shown below (click on image for a larger view).

How great was it that two rookies got to be involved in such an amazing play?  The Bills might just keep Foster on the active roster a little while longer.  As for Allen, who played his college ball at Wyoming, that Cowboy can sure sling it!  Despite getting hit from a few Jaguars, I think Allen will take the play (click on image for a larger view).

Chuck Nice of Playing with Science joined me on TuneIn's 1st & Goal to discuss the play for their Check Down segment.  Click here for the audio link.