One Fan(n)’s Opinion By @RDotDeuce: Comparing Tyrod’s 1st Season to His Peers

In about a week’s time you’ve seen the BuffaloWins Internet Defense Force (tm BMFCast) jump into action to defend the departing Mario Williams and the eventual extension (hopefully? maybe?) of Stephon Gilmore. Now, my magnum Defense Force opus – why Tyrod Taylor needs to get a little more credit than he has for his first year as a starter for Buffalo.

As always, first the numbers. Tyrod is:

9th Comp
11th Att
3rd Comp %
6th Yards
3rd YPA
3rd TDs
1st Ints

Compared to the 14 (see that magic number?) other starters in their first 14 starts. So yes, Tyrod does need to step his game up and be more effective in some of those end-of-game theatrics, but a lot of those situations are the recency effect run amok. He’s good folks. I don’t know what else to say.

Finally, one more stat-line:

170 completions out of 275 attempts for 61.8% completion percentage with 1,967 yards, 10 touchdowns and 6 interceptions. That’s Brock Osweiler’s statline prior to signing his 4 year, 72 million dollar contract with 37 million guaranteed.

When you see that stat-line and you hear (or perhaps yourself think) you “need to see more out of Tyrod” while the defense falls apart and the Ryan boys play “give the analytics guy a swirlie” remember that there is someone out there that will pay Tyrod if Buffalo will not.

Which brings me to my final point that’s been sticking in my craw about the whole Taylor discussion – WHY DOES HE NEED TO PLAY FOR 10 YEARS?

Sorry…this one gets to me a bit. You have a player and he’s good at QB for 2, 3, 4 years. Heck let’s get crazy and say he’s good for 5 solid years. Is that a bad thing – especially compared to the walking drek the Bills have had lo this near 20 year drought?

Before the Ravens had Flacco they survived and got into the playoffs with Steve McNair on one leg, Anthony Wright and Elvis Grbac. Each of those QBs started essentially a 2-3 year period, got to the playoffs, burned out and then led to the next guy until Joe took the spot over for the past 8 years. Until the Bills get the sort of stability they claim they seek, that ain’t happening – so enjoy a 3-4 year spurt of success at QB and pray the rest of the team is actually competent around said QB.

I don’t wish to exonerate Tyrod from the possibility of growth, or to take his role out of some of the sputtering that the offense may have dealt with. But when you compare his season to what we were sold on – a QB essentially to stay out of the way while the defense took care of business – he outperformed every metric they set.

So when Tyrod gets paid, by the Bills or someone else, it won’t be what’s wrong with “modern football” (since players can only now be paid in FA the big bucks) it is a player that’s earned the right, even right now with 14 starts to demand to be paid accordingly.