metzelaars_lives

That's certainly fair. Sal had it at 10. I'm sure he'd bump it up a bit now. So if someone had it at 7, that's not that far off.

Why would I cry? You guys are taking this way too seriously. I can't even imagine what's gonna happen on this board when they name the actual starter. This means way less than you think it does.

Me personally, I would say this nudges his chances from 10% to 15%. What do you think this does for his chances? Do you think it's 33% a piece?

Your response was worse than his. When EJ is named the starter for week 1 you can have your day in the sunshine. It's still very unlikely to happen.

I haven't read through this thread at all as I was at lunch and was chomping at the bit to get home and get on here but from what I saw, as per usual, Kirby Jackson is a pretty good voice of reason. I'm suspecting that there is a lot of "Ha ha! Take that EJ haters! What are you gonna do now WGR? Told ya so!" I will be the first to admit that this surprises me a little bit but I would be shocked- unless EJ plays better than we've ever seen him play AND Cassel AND Taylor implode- that he has any reasonable shot to start week 1. This move by no means unsubstantiates every last reporter associated with the Bills saying that EJ has looked the third best throughout the entirety of camp. This does not undermine Joe B's or anyone else's reporting as much as you want to think it does. My now famous source said himself that EJ was not part of the equation prior to the Browns game. That being said, let's see what he does with the opportunity. Go Bills!

Oh I agree that the United States is way over-saturated with all things NFL and has been for a while now. That's why I do not read an article in May ranking the best offensive line coaches and then participate in a discussion on here about how the Bills guy was disrespected and should've been ranked higher.

Yup, ESPN is a joke, WGR is a joke, the Buffalo News sucks, everybody sucks, everybody's a hack. Who do we like, guys? We liked Sal until he was honest about EJ. I can't think of anyone else that anyone likes around here. Me personally, I like everybody on WGR. The only two local sports guys I have an issue with are Jerry Sullivan and Bucky Gleason. He knows they're different but he was trying to say that when he sees "QBR" written, he still thinks of what you and I call passer rating. My contention was that I've never even heard of passer rating called QBR. ESPN wouldn't have called it QBR if that's what people already called passer rating.

OK but in fairness, have you ever looked at the back of a football card in the 80's or even on a website prior to ESPN's QBR coming out and seen the column listed as "QBR?" I haven't. It would always say "rating" or "RAT" or you'd see "passer efficiency rating." And plenty of outlets, including the NFL Network, acknowledge QBR. I'm going to maintain that in 2015 when someone says "QBR," they're talking about what you call "ESPN's QBR." If John Clayton was on WGR and alluded to Matt Cassel's QBR, you'd know exactly what he was talking about. Otherwise, he would say "passer rating." Actually, to put an end to this debate, just google "QBR" right now and tell me what comes up.

No not really. In 2015, when someone says QBR, any real football fan would interpret that to mean ESPN's QBR, which is on a scale of 0-100- the idea being that a QB with a QBR of 50 is exactly average. Passer rating, or what was once also known as quarterback rating (but never, at least to my knowledge, abbreviated as "QBR"), is your traditional passer rating that has been around since, what? The 70's? And I believe has a perfect score of like 158 or something? Often times on this website people will say a guy had a QBR of 80 and that could mean two totally different things and it's clear that a lot of you do not know the difference. A QBR of 80 could maybe lead the league but a passer rating of 80 is like what EJ Manuel gets. And understand too, that passer ratings are now incredibly inflated vs. 20, even 10 years ago and another thing people do on here, which is really annoying, is compare a QB's passer rating vs. a guy's from 1987 (eg. comparing a guy like Manuel to Bernie Kosar's first couple seasons or something). But I digress.

I'm not looking for an "I told you so." I just want you to know that where EJ stands today doesn't surprise me one bit; I'm just surprised that it surprises so many of you.

Passer rating. I'm beginning to think the majority of you don't understand the difference. But you are correct, he is really good. And we got a Bills fan "LOL'ing" at Romo. Of course. I happen to agree with you. Sounds to me like there's a pretty clear cut 14 guys and he went out of his way to omit the three you mentioned to stir up some controversy. In what world is Eli not at least considered "good?" I'm going with 14 good QB's.

Yeah but my point is that it's still such a small sample size. As mentioned, Dan Orlovsky had a great rating this past week. Does that necessarily mean he is a super accurate QB? Clearly EJ hasn't been accurate enough throughout camp to move up on the depth chart. We'll see what happens on Saturday but again, they're practicing all week and what happens in practice counts in the coaches eyes as well.

When it comes to persuasive writing, it's not about how many fancy words you can squeeze into a sentence to try and show everyone how smart you are but rather to effectively convey a point to your audience by capturing and maintaining their attention, even if it means dumbing it down sometimes. I have no idea what he's talking about myself. I couldn't make it through half of his post. It sounds like he doesn't like WGR and thinks there is a media bias against EJ Manuel.

Did you see what Dan Orlovsky did last game? Actually I think Chase Daniel could be good.

That's fair. I did not mean to insinuate that preseason games mean nothing at all, I do not believe that. I just think people pointing out EJ's passer rating from 9 possessions or whatever fail to understand that according to literally (yes, I know what literally means) every reporter, analyst, etc., EJ dug a hole for himself in camp and was a clear cut third- at least prior to the preseason games.

You are correct sir. QBR only goes to 100. This madness has to stop though. Why don't you guys look up Dan Orlovsky's QBR or passer rating so far this preseason. He's been lights out. What no one seems to understand and what no one wants to talk about was articulated perfectly yesterday by Sean Salsbury (of course someone will say he's a hack) yesterday on Denver's sports talk drive show (Denver's Schopp and the Bulldog except they're not as good)- he said that practices are HUGE in the coaches' determination of who is going to start for them and that the preseason games are not nearly as important as the fans think and that essentially, the coaches already have their minds made up in terms of who they want to start going into the preseason games. So giving me a QB's passer rating from the third quarter of a preseason game means next to nothing. The coaches see these guys all day every day and know exactly what they're capable of. Carry on...

Nope. I would love to eat my words on EJ. My stake lies simply in rooting for the Bills. That's it. I'm not flying from Denver to Buffalo for three home games this year to root against EJ.

I obviously don't use "Meh" unless I'm quoting others. I was at the forefront of the anti-"Meh" campaign. Not because it offends me, just because it's dorky. The same way it's dorky every single time there is a thread where someone refers to there being "a chance" of something, inevitably someone will post a meme of Lloyd Christmas saying "so you're saying there's a chance," which is a) lame and predictable and b) not the quote from the movie. Sorry got off track there.

OK but why is this a thread in the first place? And why is EJ such a polarizing figure? He's not controversial, he's actually a rather bland dude. Honest question, I have no idea.

Alright man, I thought we were cool. I actually like you. You were one of three posters that was willing to go on record as saying you thought there was a better than 50% chance that EJ would develop into a franchise QB for the Bills*. I clearly cannot help myself and you can throw that oath out the window. Again, you can call me the Brett Favre of TBD. *franchise QB defined as he will be our clear cut starter week 1 2017

It's funny how the narrative on here amongst the EJ fanatics back in the Spring was "Meh Cassel, what a joke, EJ will have no problem beating him out- hey I'll tell ya what, if EJ can't beat out Matt Cassel then I'll even admit it's not happening for him" and now the narrative has shifted to "it's not fair... there's a conspiracy by the media against him... my friend Gus went to camp one day and said EJ looked great... the coaches never gave him a fair shot... Mike Schopp is a meanie... poor coaching from the last regime is still to blame... look at Andy Dalton, he sucks too... I'd still rather have him than Ryan Tannehill (WHAT!?!)" I mean, where does this end guys? I hope you realize that this is turning EXACTLY into a Tim Tebow situation in terms of how those who still believe in him are perceived by rational, objective football fans. And may I remind everyone that the very guy who started this thread said just a few short weeks ago, in black and white, for everyone to see, that Doug Marrone intentionally sabotaged EJ Manuel's career. STOP TRYING TO MAKE EJ HAPPEN. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Haven't read every response on this thread but last night Sal hosted the John Murphy Show and he had on the guy from Bills Digest and Sal and him were in adamant agreement that although EJ looked decent in both preseason games, he dug way too big a hole for himself in camp, that every last reporter and spectator that has attended camp would agree that EJ is a distant third in the QB competition and that barring something totally unforeseen, he has no chance of starting week one. Not my opinion, just telling you what Sal himself said. And as I've stated on here several times, John Murphy, who was the biggest EJ advocate of them all, said after the scrimmage but before the preseason games that the other two QB's have really shown progress and seem to be picking up the offense nicely and that he's just not seeing it with EJ. Again, I have no stake in this, I'm just telling you what John Murphy said. So is there just a massive conspiracy here to undermine EJ Manuel? Could be, I don't know. Not sure why or who that would benefit but I don't know. I will insert my first opinion in this post and say that I actually don't mind Schopp at all and that if EJ Manuel fails it definitely will not be Mike Schopp's fault.

Bottom ten perhaps, not bottom five. But there's 32 starting jobs in the world and he's still good enough to hold one of them. If he wasn't, he wouldn't be a starting qb. It's really the ultimate meritocracy. It appears that way, yeah. Believe me, I wouldn't have brought him up if other people didn't first.

As if there was or ever will be a time when every team in the league has a great QB. There will always be Andy Dalton's. He's a top 20-25 QB in the world and will probably end up as a backup or retread sooner than later. He's also had a couple really good seasons. But of course, after going back and reading this thread, all the usual suspects are mocking Dalton and telling us that EJ would be/already is (!?!) just as good as Dalton. Then win a job and do it. This is getting so tiresome.