I'm just throwing this out there: EJ Manuel's stats through his first 14 games are very similar to Joe Flacco's. Flacco was a guy who really struggled his first several years and many Raven fans wanted him gone. Great defense that was held back by a QB learning the pro game. Guy criticized for having lots of arm strength but not enough accuracy.
And here we are today. The truth is that QB development really can take several years and mediocre/sometimes bad QBs can develop into top QBs.
I'm not saying Manuel will, but it still feels like too much dirt has been shoveled on Manuel this early in his career.
I agree with this, and this is coming from someone who thought Manuel was a massive reach where Buffalo drafted him.I think Maronne et al really screwed this guy. They didn't play to his strengths or even, minimally, put him in a position to succeed. I've posted this before, but I didn't understand why they had him throwing so much early in the season while ignoring the run game (even their dysfunctional run game). Manuel is not a gunslinger by any means. He's a semi athletic QB with questionable accuracy who has some mobility. So he shouldn't be throwing 30 times a game necessarily.
I hope he gets a little more time in a more QB friendly scheme.
Huh? He only threw the ball 22 and 26 times in the first two games vs. 33 rushing attempts in each game. The next two weeks the ratio changed, but that makes sense because they were losing. They gave him a very conservative game plan with a lot of short passes as well.
Ok, I stand corrected. My perception was they threw more than that, selective memory maybe. Without going back and looking at game logs (which I'm not remotely motivated to do) I can't comment on weeks 3 and 4, other than to say it doesn't "necessarily" "make sense" to throw more just because you're losing. There are obviously all kinds of situational variables.I'm curious what the breakdown is over the 4 games.
I know from listening to morning Buffalo radio every morning when Reuben Brown called in to Shred and Ragan, he emphatically believed the Bills were not running enough and putting too much on Manuel's shoulders. And he reiterated this over a few weeks. This paralleled what I thought at the time, and still think.
When you say they had a conservative game plan with a lot of short passes, where are you getting that from? Did you go back and look at game logs? I'm just curious if that is just your perception or if you actually checked, though I don't necessarily doubt you are right.
Regardless, it makes no sense to me that you don't give a 2nd year QB more development before throwing in the towel on him, particularly a QB who was universally regarded as a bit of a project to begin with (which was the point I was responding to). With the Bills defense Manuel should have been just a game manager utilizing a run heavy attack.
I think-and I'm hardly the first to say this as it's been said in the media-that Marrone sacrificed the long term for the short term based on the need to show results with the impending ownership change. And then when it didn't work, he books. Sucks for Bills fans.
I'd be shocked if that's all he signed for (never mind asked for).
