grb

There are three answers to this : No. Even if Taylor plays to virtual perfection, he'll still be in a run-first offense. He'll never put up the bulk numbers people demand to validate QB success. At best, he'll be described as a "game-manager". The god-like quarterback of people's dreams is not - repeat not - a game-manager. No. Even if Taylor plays to virtual perfection, Beane and McDermott are already committed to drafting his replacement. Given all the assets they've dumped to stockpile picks, draft-day high drama is a locked-in requirement. You think they could get away with spending those picks on a right tackle? The mob would be after them with blazing torches and pitchforks. Also, they're aware of team history. This millennia a Bill's head coach & GM typically lasts 2.5 years before being fired. A bright & shinny new QB buys them time they may well need. Which leads us to: Yes. If Taylor plays well, Beane and McDermott may want him back one more year to shield their new first-rounder Their very careers will be tied to their QB pick. If they throw him into the pool and he doesn't learn to swim, they better just jump right in after him. Of course Peterman might perform the role of stand-in, if they're comfortable with that.

Agreed, Watkins had a poor record with injuries. No one was sure he'd ever deliver a full season's worth of games. Also, people believed the Bills wouldn't be able to sign him next year anyway. Dumping him now got a decent return. If they waited they may have gotten much less. So there were legit reasons to trade him whether you supported the deal or not. But could we please lay off the idea anyone the Bills don't want is "culturally" deficient? Yes, Watkins has a trace of wide receiver diva in him - something only glimpsed in one or two interviews a year. But just the slightest trace - and at a level which barely compares with his more egocentric peers. But aside from that, who ever heard a complaint about him as a professional or teammate? He started and ended last season playing on a broken foot. Wasn't that evidence of "culture"? This meme has now reached the point where Jonathan Williams is cut and people immediately decide it was because of his moral deficiency. Ron Darby was traded and suddenly Peter King at SI writes it was because Darby "hadn't bought into the new administration." There was no explanation of this statement; there were no examples given to illustrate it; there was no hint of this supposed problem before the trade; there wasn't a single bit of reporting on this "issue" until Darby was safely out of the state. Darby and Watkins were dumped for draft picks. Beane and McDermott are betting it all on the '18 draft. But they're big boys. They don't need us inventing reasons for their decisions.

Huh? One of those quarterbacks is in Injured Reserve after suffering a concussion. Yes, he "survived" (being still among the living), but I wouldn't claim he prospered if I were you. I'm curious : You did know that, right? Plus : the "2 other QBs" may have been playing with "even less talented O Lines", but were also facing even less talented D Lines. That's one of the eternal problem judging preseason performance.

Really? On the one side, we have slightly better positioning of a draft day asset On the other, we have the embodiment of demonic evil. Clear choice that.......

A quick survey of this thread has Taylor benched by Game : Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven An enthusiast on this topic (not me, alas) should start an exclusive thread - something easier to bump later......

It'll be Yuge !!!

I think Peterman is very much like Taylor. Both were written-off by the scouts with all their reams of analytics. Both have flaws which make that judgment understandable. But both seem determined to push the talents they do have farther than any of the skeptics wants to credit possible. The Buffalo News had a thing today saying Taylor is the latest drafted quarterback (sixth round, 180th overall) with at least 3,000 yards passing and 500 yards rushing in a season—which he has done it twice. Peterman can also be a guy like that, and I think that's pretty admirable. Both Peterman and Taylor are easy players to root for.

You want stupid? There was a poster in some recent thread (I forgot which) who said Taylor was a horrible QB because ...... wait for it ...... his showing in the Pro Bowl two years ago !! Yep; that was his "evidence". Another person "proved" Taylor would never be a credible quarterback by statistical analysis of long-term backups over three decades of NFL history. The Great Mind behind that gem treated us to dozens of posts on the topic. Now, it's pretty obvious why those two efforts were WTF pathetic : You don't bother with such idiotic nonsense when you have two years of starter's play to look at. Or maybe you do bother with such idiotic nonsense to avoid discussing two years of starter's play. Either way, Taylor has a substantial record (good, bad & ugly) playing real games that count against first string defenses. Now, maybe Peterman will develop into a fine NFL starter. He does show promise & I'd be the last person in the world to write him off. But right now all we've seen is a middling training camp & preseason play that can't remotely be described as great. Not even within shouting distance of great. And - lest we forget - against second & third string vanilla defenses. But that is Peterman's only record to compare against Taylor's. Judged on that basis alone, Taylor would be the starter. Of course the coaches consider much more than preseason play (they're not fools) and they have Taylor the starter as well. But by performances in the can alone? TT, easily. It's not even close.

Three points : The "better passing ability" you saw in Peterman's up&down preseason (and training camp) must involve a hefty amount of wishful thinking. I also note this "better passing ability" somehow doesn't make Peterman the out&out starter and barely compensates for Taylor's rushing yards - which TT's detractors have always insisted were irrelevant anyway. You'd think "better passing ability" would count for more, particularly given the NFL is a passing league (as we're reminded so many times). My opinion? Peterman's best chance at being a long-term starter is to sit awhile - just like Taylor did. Indeed, the two are very similar : Both likeable and very easy to root for, both trying to prove the draft-day naysayers wrong, both wanting to show there are intangibles to playing QB beyond all those scouting reports and cliches. If you put Peterman out there now (with this team) I think it's likely he'll implode, and his career will effectively be over before it barely gets started. Which brings me to my third point : After ten minutes of Peterman starting, a sizable percentage of Bills' fans will write him off with stone-cold contempt, moving on to fantasies of their '18 draft dreamboat. Why not stick with TT? You're already used to despising him.

Unless you're trying to lose, it seems to me you start the better player. I think that's what's expected in the locker room, whether the position is right tackle, middle linebacker, or quarterback. Speaking of fudging, I see you don't hold that starting the better player should be automatic, yet assume the same wins regardless. Your position would be clearer if you didn't use such a convenient dodge.

Seems to me you'd start the better player - unless you're trying to lose

Who'da thunk KellyToughII would be so dewy-eyed & softhearted in his womanly concern over Tyrod's health ?!? What a sensitive guy !!!

I think there are two factors at work. First, this season is not management's priority. No matter how much they spin, they're happy to dump talent at bargain-basement prices to build cap & draft choice capital for next season. That may be defensible, but is a bitter pill to swallow if (a) the firesale prices seem too low, (b) you actually had hope for this season, and ( c) you're put-off by the transparent double-talk from coach and GM. The second factor is there seems to be a trace of Chip Kelly-ism at work here, with the new regime determine to obliterate all trace of the old. If so, that's a problem because (a) it's petty, (b) it's a sign of insecurity, and ( c) it results in just more double-talk. I'd just like it if every personnel move wasn't magically a question of "buying into the system", or "not being high character guys", or "not a fit with the scheme".......

Taylor's performance last season didn't justify a long-term commitment. That's true without question. But once the long-term option was off the table, I think Taylor & the Bills negotiated a deal which worked pretty good for both sides. That wouldn't be a very notable point to make, but some people aren't happy unless a contract is seen as one side ravaging the other.

They did before the 2015 season, for sure. I don't know if Denver ever signaled a serious interest in Taylor this off-season. If they had, TT might have been tempted - as the Broncos are a winning organization. But to leave the Bills and end up with, say, the Browns must have been a nightmare scenario. The Bills have seemed close the last two years : tighten-up the defense, fill a few holes, pull out some close games and they're at ten wins and a wildcard. That might still be the case - both the offense & defense might well perform significantly better or worse than last year's team - it could go either way. People stew over strength of schedule, but they did so last year with Arizona and Cincinnati.

Try looking at it in terms of negotiation : Old Contract : The Bills wanted to place a simultaneous bet on Taylor either as a spectacular success or bust. With the former, they had him locked up very long term at a pretty cheap rate. If the latter, they could dump him after one year. Taylor gave up all leverage with this trade-off, but received one major thing : His first real paycheck of starter QB money. New Contract : The Bills still want maximum flexibility to keep or drop Taylor. This reflects the fact TT was neither a spectacular success or bust. The one outcome not covered by the old contract was the result. Meanwhile, Taylor gets a one year compensation slightly more than the old deal, but this time he gets flexibility afterwards. Given Taylor is known for an aggressive belief in himself, this puts him out on the open market, still young, with the chance to earn significantly more than the old contract numbers. Options, Taylor : No one knows what Taylor might have got on the open markets. Probably nowhere near the guaranteed money of the old deal. Probably as good (or a little better) than the short term money of the new deal. But Taylor's future lies in a prove-me year. Not disparaging his team spirit, but I suspect he looked at likely landing spots like the Browns or Jets and thought Buffalo was the best vehicle for his career. If that's the case, then joke's on him, huh? He must have banged his head on the wall when the Bills dumped Watkins in a firesale. His prove-me year is now on a team that doesn't have this season as their primary focus

I don't think that's the point. No one is denying running backs are a buyers market, and no one thinks JW is a hidden superstar. But he is a young player with promise on a very inexpensive contract. And he was cut to retain older players who seemed to perform no better or worse. Alone that wouldn't be a big deal, but it comes after a string of decisions where the Bills dumped talent for questionable compensation. There are reasons they traded their best corner and receiver for inferior replacements. There are reasons why they dumped last year's second round draft pick who was just recovering from a knee injury. There are reasons why they traded a corner who had once shown promise for a receiver on his fifth team without a single regular season catch. And there are reasons they dumped Williams - I believe special teams is the operative spin. But for all the reasons, the "process" seems to be dumping players in a firesale, with players from the former regime having a big bullseye on their back.

The guy who started the "Is Jonathan Williams Next" thread was told to get a grip too. I'm not sure we can rationally predict what this management might or might not do.........

Which is why they traded their one true wide-out / deep threat / talent at receiver. Maybe the first FO/regime that doesn't value offense as much as the previous ones.

This is close to the top in entertaining threads : The OP gets hammered for twenty-odd pages, then oops.......... As for the move itself, it makes no sense except that the new guy is determined to rip apart everything his predecessor did. Now that's a process we can all understand and trust, right?

Two points : First, "every article he writes is good about Taylor" usually means said articles had positive things to say about the man. That's the red flag to anti-Taylor bulls. Personally, I've seen almost no articles on Taylor completely free of criticism. There was something posted on another site where the guy noted TT was sacked the most number of times in the NFL in 2016 (very bad), but that his yards-lost number was in the middle of the pack (less bad). How did the Anti-types respond? They raged, raged, raged against the inclusion of the yards-lost number. The very mention of that apparently was a conspiracy to hide the hideous truth. Also, the concept of "excuses" seems pretty elastic re Taylor. People seem to think it normal when Derek Carr's production improves with a better supporting cast. They think it normal when Kirk Cousins goes from mess to pretty good QB as the team around him gels. They think it normal when Matt Ryan's numbers increase or Andy Dalton's dip with the return / loss of prime targets. But Taylor plays a season with dumpster-fire receivers, and it's an "excuse" to think that's a factor in his "regression"? Second, the website you referenced "doesn't analyze"? If you're referring to the uncatchable balls / dropped passes stats, I assure you they do. Ask twenty people to come up with those stats and you'll get twenty different numbers, even with all watching the same games. Not that there's anything wrong with that - and it's an interesting metric. I found it fascinating that Taylor's "uncatchable ball" rate in 2015 was just above Tom Brady's - suggesting maybe that stat isn't the end-all number on QB performance.

Yeah. We're all impressed. Two points : (1) We've never seen any trace of a drop-off in Taylor's performance stats with higher passing attempt numbers in games. I can say that with assurance because the subject has come up several times and been examined in detail. (2) I would expect a "regression" from a second year starter dealing with a dumpster-fire of a receiving corps - an accurate description of all of last year. Unless of course you're talking about a one-game preseason "regression"? What are you talking about?

200 is easily within reach. But is there a record to shoot for?

Just to keep things in perspective : In 2015, Taylor's 17.63% put him just in front of ....... (wait for it) ....... Tom Brady!

Well, you clearly "see the difference", regardless of completion percentage, yards per attempt, touchdown percentage, interception percentage, and quarterback rating. You "see the difference" despite the success of the Bills offense in scoring and it's improvement in red zone performance and third down conversion I suspect you'll continue to "see the difference" even if Taylor has an excellent season - even if the Bills get into the playoffs. Hell, if Tyrod was to suddenly walk on water, I bet you'd still "see the difference". That other guy did it so much better........