No one expected the Buffalo Bills to be in the playoff chase. Sean McDermott had a quarterback plan and stuck with it, but regrets now follow.
The biggest blunder of Week 11 of the NFL season happened well before teams took the field. Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott decided to bench starting quarterback Tyrod Taylor in favor of fifth-round rookie passer Nathan Peterman. It was a bizarre and horrendous decision when he announced the move. After the fact, it was somehow even worse!
Do we credit the Buffalo Bills with sticking by their quarterback plan, or ridicule them for ignoring the actual results of the season thus far? Either way, McDermott and Buffalo now have regrets.
Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, debate the Buffalo Bills in today’s NFL Sports Debate.
Todd Salem:
One can understand the logic of a move such as this…if the situation was completely different. Buffalo is right in the thick of playoff contention. If it was worse and out of it, or better and comfortably in the postseason, you could conceivably justify a change. The Bills know what they have in Taylor: a mediocre, solid, unspectacular producer. If they were planning for the future or trying to find some hidden higher ceiling, a move could be made. A similar scenario to the latter is going on right now in Minnesota, where the team is debating about whether Teddy Bridgewater gives it a better chance at winning a title. It knows Case Keenum is getting it into the playoffs, but is that enough?
Buffalo wasn’t in that spot. To make matters worse, the quarterback in consideration for the switch was not Pro Bowler Teddy Bridgewater. It was a fifth-round rookie making his first career start. Two quarters into that first start, Peterman had thrown five interceptions and put together the single worst fantasy day in the last 40 years (that nugget courtesy of ESPN’s Bill Barnwell). It is impossibly hard to accumulate negative fantasy points for a non-defense. Peterman did it replacing a former Pro Bowl quarterback, for a team in the thick of a playoff chase.
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Watching the highlights of this Bills-Chargers game is just sad. The first play is a Peterman pick-six off a deflected pass. The second play is a horrid throw into deep coverage, throwing off his back foot as pressure collapsed the pocket. His first highlighted completion was behind the line of scrimmage, which was followed by two more duck interceptions as he was getting hit. Surely some Bills fans were tired of Taylor pulling the ball down and running when pressure got in his face, but was this preferable?
I don’t know what McDermott really expected in this spot. Obviously not five interceptions from Peterman, but would two over the course of a full game have been a “good” appearance? This team is in playoff contention consarnit! The score at halftime was 37-7, Chargers. The score not counting points off turnovers was 13-7.
Dan Salem:
Unless coach McDermott has gone rogue, completely ignoring all logic in favor of chaos theory, then there is only a single explanation for the quarterback change. McDermott decided prior to the start of the season that he was going to make a quarterback change entering Week 11. If he did not make this decision, then the general manager did and there was no going back. I would go so far as to assume that they even told the team this plan. Considering Buffalo’s winning record over the first ten weeks, it was reasonable for players to think the plan might change. It did not.
Before the 2017 NFL season got underway, the Buffalo Bills were dubbed a tanking team. They traded away star players in August and had very low expectations entering year one under McDermott. This rookie coach was being gifted a mulligan before he ever stepped foot on the sidelines. His team used the chip on its shoulder to have an excellent start to its season, winning with the running game and defense.
Tyrod Taylor continued where he left off last season, continuing to play well. But he was never part of the plan, barely making it back to Buffalo in the offseason. This team made its plan clear in August. They are rebuilding. Nothing can stop them, not even winning.
One might think that being in the thick of the playoff chase, for a team that has not been to the postseason this millennium, would be important. Perhaps we should credit Buffalo with sticking by its big picture plan to rebuild. Securing a wildcard spot and losing immediately is far worse than losing a lot more and drafting higher, especially if your plan was to lose a lot and secure a high draft pick for the 2018 NFL Draft. There’s one major problem with this line of thinking, the Bills already have a lot of draft capital and a very capable starting quarterback. Taylor is not a big name, but he’s better than two-thirds of the starting quarterbacks in this league.
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The Bills quarterback is easily second best in the AFC East. Josh McCown is having a great season, but he is not as good as Taylor. Buffalo’s passer is nearly top five in the AFC. Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Oakland definitely have better quarterbacks. Cincinnati and Tennessee might. Buffalo obviously wanted to see what they had in their fifth round pick, but all New York Jets fans know that you can figure that out off the field. Its why Christian Hackenberg is inactive every week.
Standing by a plan is admirable. Being so stubborn as to ignore facts in favor of your plan is foolish. The Bills gave up a win they desperately needed, because the playoffs are within reach. Unless the plan is to keep losing and finish 5-11, they will be 8-8 and at home in January.