Bills Mathia: Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Josh Allen Throw

Hey everyone! With it being preseason and all, I’m taking the “Ah, heck with it” nature of this time of year and doing a math video rather than my usual video analysis feature. Yay! This episode of Bills Mathia (the only best darn Buffalo Bills/Math series there is) looks to calculate the average velocity of a Josh Allen throw in the Bills’ thrilling preseason victory over the Chicago Bears. Let’s take a look at the very short video you should all watch.

Because this is such a short video there’s almost no way to describe it without completely spoiling things. Ah, heck with it. Let’s completely spoil things. In past videos, I’ve shown how I use the Pythagorean theorem and a handy field diagram to calculate the actual distance covered by throws — rather than the vertical distance down the field.

In another video, I showed off how I validate the GIF software to make sure I have accurate time calculations. That allows me to take distance and add time, which of course means I’m able to calculate average velocity.

By now you’ve taken longer to read this than the video actually is but if you prefer reading, the throw I take a look at had an average velocity of 45 mph. That’s not incredible by any stretch of the imagination by itself. Based on Josh Allen’s throwing motion at the time of this exact throw though, it’s pretty damn good.

Last but not least, I tease a project I’ve been holding back on for a while now. It’s the nerdiest of the nerdy calculations when it comes to an NFL pass. It’s so nerdy it makes the Next Gen Stats site look like... whatever the opposite of nerdy is I guess.