Despite the optics of switching quarterbacks in Week 11, the Buffalo Bills are not giving up the pursuit of a playoff berth this season.
A few weeks ago, the Buffalo Bills were the toast of the AFC. The team was supposed to struggle to win just a single game this year, but are now in control of the conference’s final Wild Card spot.
Entering Week 11, Buffalo couldn’t look any different than it did a handful of weeks ago. Most notably, the quarterback is different as the team announced on Tuesday that Nathan Peterman would be starting over Tyrod Taylor. This wasn’t an injury thing, this was a performance issue and it’s troubling to see happen so late in the year. More troubling is that Taylor isn’t a bad quarterback, he simply isn’t the guy Buffalo wants. That’s what this move is about more than anything else.
The switch, unsurprisingly, prompted calls that the Bills were giving up. This idea couldn’t be further from the truth. By making a bold (possibly wrong) decision to switch starting quarterbacks in Week 11, Sean McDermott is showing that the team is determined to make the playoffs by any means necessary.
Buffalo isn’t giving up on the playoffs — it’s just giving up on Taylor.
Buffalo switching to Peterman, who was able to do in half a quarter what Taylor couldn’t do in three, means McDermott thinks the team can win. He’s not interested in waiting for Taylor to figure it out, he wants a quarterback who can win now. Laugh at the notion of Peterman leading the Bills to the playoffs, but Case Keenum is quarterbacking the second-best team in the NFC right now. Take that for what it’s worth.
Taylor isn’t the answer in Buffalo, and that’s not entirely his fault. It’s not that he can’t throw the ball or has a high turnover rate, it’s that Taylor is useless in situations where the Bills need to come back. In Week 9 against the Jets, Taylor was unable to help Buffalo come from behind to win a game it needed. The same thing happened in games against the Bengals and Panthers, which should have been won if not for Taylor’s inability to make anything happen late. To his credit, though, he hasn’t had anyone to throw to all year. Charles Clay has been hurt, Zay Jones and Jordan Matthews have been the only receiving targets, and everyone else was traded or retired. LeSean McCoy is talented, but can only do so much when the offense is bottled up. For all of Taylor’s shortcomings, this one isn’t totally on him. If you have a mobile quarterback, you need to play to those strengths, which seems like something Buffalo was never willing to do. The idea that Nathan Peterman is going play better is a stiff order, but it’s not an impossible situation.
Taylor is not a bad quarterback. A team with a good offense will sign him and see what Buffalo failed to. Put Taylor in an offense where he has more than one weapon and his mobility is embraced, and that team is a playoff contender. This isn’t about whether Taylor is better than Peterman, it’s about what the Bills are doing.
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There’s nothing saying that Peterman is going to be any better, but it’s worth finding out. McDermott clearly wants a ‘system quarterback’, but that’s his bed to make. There’s a decent chance that the quarterback of the future for the Bills isn’t on the roster right now.
We don’t know who will be quarterbacking the Bills next season. What we do know is that Buffalo isn’t giving up on the playoffs — it’s just giving up on Taylor.