Maybe this shouldn’t come as a shock. Maybe it shouldn’t be considered news. Maybe its being just captain obvious over here. EJ Manuel seems to be in A LOT of trouble. If you are on social media as much as I am (Its crack at this point), you’ll know that Joe Buscaglia plugged a story about how this could be EJ’s last stand. And we aren’t talking about a game as a last stand. We are talking about Practice. Not a game, not a game. Talking about practice (Allen Iverson voice).
I have mixed feelings about this.
I am old school when it comes to QB development. I believe if you draft a guy high, you should give them about 2 seasons worth of games before you decide on whether you should cut the cord or extend it. EJ has had 14 starts. That’s it. I know his best has been average and his worse has been the drizzling shits, but that’s just an awfully small body of work to just flush someone’s career down the drain.
It really hasn’t been easy for EJ since he got here. In fact, I think a lot of the angst against EJ has been about the lack of draft exposure prior to being selected. No one really hyped EJ prior to the 2013 draft. In fact, everyone was hyping Matt Barkley and Ryan Nassib prior to it and EJ kind of came out of nowhere. During his rookie year, some fans and MSM were bringing up the question about whether they should find someone else. I have to admit, I was incredulous at the thought of this narrative after just 10 games. I had lived through so many Bills rookie QBs being touted as “The One” that I thought I had an understanding of when you’d decide to give up on them. 10 games? That was a record.
Then we had the whole Doug Marrone not being fan of him and the whole benching after just 4 games. Two of those games which EJ played decently, but then in the Texans game, I felt Marrone decided he was gonna see if his QB would stay afloat by having EJ attempt 44 passes when it was obvious the Texans were better against the pass than the run. Once EJ didn’t pass the ball with Montana like efficiency, Marrone found his smoking gun to bench him. It feels like EJ has never gotten a break or was given a clear cut path to developing. Some of it was on his play, but Marrone and the bullshit pageantry of the draft didn’t do him any favors.
Now this is where the mixed feelings come on, I’m pretty astute when it comes to figuring out why I feel this or that way. At times, I have agendas in wanting to feel this way instead of being more objective than I should with the Bills. I want to believe in EJ. I want to believe that he can be the guy because I’m so fucking desperate to have a decent QB. I know from the looks of it, its not looking good from what we’ve seen on the field. He’s been very mediocre and that’s putting it mildly. Its being the desperate single guy or girl who is trying to convince themselves they can find love and if they find someone, by God they can make that whore into a housewife even if they are still banging half the town.
On top of that, I’m NOT looking forward to the dating alternative which is watching Matt Cassel QB this team. For God sakes, we had Kyle F’N Orton last year and somehow we seem to have a worse QB situation with him retiring to his couch to smoke more blunts. And what’s worse is that the big dates are going to revolve around OTAs and training camp to see where we are at with EJ. You guys know my thoughts on preseason being a farce. I’m also not a fan of having a 3-way QB competition go deep into training camp because its counterproductive to have your possible starting QB play with backups. Having 3 football fields during practice to figure out who should be the QB is spreading yourself very thin in evaluating their progress.
If it were up to me, I’d just give it to EJ Manuel and let him sink or swim.
He has a way better supporting cast than he had at this time last year. He has better coaching and an OC who knows how to score points when the QB isn’t the most important position on the field. I also think he fits the offense better than Matt Cassel because he’s mobile and that’s what Greg Roman wants. I know the consensus is that he’s a Nix pick and Nix is eating grits somewhere while the new regime isn’t connected to EJ, but its still a Buffalo Bills investment and I think giving him every shot to succeed is what should be the goal since the other QB alternative blows. If he sucks out of the regular season gates, then go to Matt Cassel. At least we know in a “real environment” that EJ sucks and we gave him at least 16 regular season games for his career to figure it out.
In the end, its not looking great at QB. I’ll admit it. I have little faith in EJ turning it around. Yet, while EJ is a gamble and maybe a bad one, we already know that Cassel is a losing bet.
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