GroveDiesel said:
Probably just offseason optimistic talk, but Sammy Watkins was speaking very highly of Manuel today. Said that his footwork is "completely different" and several times said that EJ is "his guy." We shall see.
But if EJ were to take a big step forward, that would be a huge plus for the Bills.
@JoeBuscaglia: #Bills Sammy Watkins: EJ is my guy. I believe in him 100%
@JoeBuscaglia: #Bills Sammy Watkins: EJ is stepping up. He's come back and worked on his footsteps. A different guy.
Improving his footwork could go a long way to improving his accuracy. If that happens, Manuel suddenly becomes a solid NFL quarterback. The guy already has a quick release, good arm and showed a lot of improvement last year in reading through his progressions. If he eliminates the buckshot throws, then he's a whole new player.
ETA:
IF
I am not disputing he could still improve. But he was not good at reading through his progressions in year 1
and it did not improve in year 2. It was one of the reasons he was benched.
I'm not sure that's completely true. I think there were quite a few times where he went through progressions and simply made the wrong decision. That mostly occurred when he seemed too scared to throw it to a receiver downfield and instead settled for something short and very conservative. This article has several examples of that:
http://billsmafia.com/2015/04/09/an-all-22-breakdown-of-buffalo-bills-qb-ej-manuel-does-he-have-what-it-takes/
That's exactly what frustrated Bills fans over and over last year. He would see a downfield receiver with a step on his guy but move on to his next read and dump it down. So the big questions are: 1) Was that from EJ, or was it because the coaching staff scared him into being overly conservative? And 2) Can it be corrected?
For #1, I think looking at the overall gameplans, Marrone's personality, his penchant for punting inside the opponent 40 even late in the game with short yardage to go, and everything we've heard about Marrone since he left; I think the odds are pretty good that a lot of the blame for Manuel's reluctance to "let it rip" lies on Marrone.
That being said, there's no way to know if Manuel can overcome that. That whole process is about being confident and not thinking too much during a play. A QB has to trust himself and trust what he sees based off of his understanding of the offense and his film work of the defense. All of that is a combination of confidence and what is commonly referred to as "slowing the game down."
When EJ played in the 2 minute drill, that was often when you saw him at his best. Suddenly he looked confident and threw the ball with confidence. He didn't have time to overthink things, he just went out and threw the ball. If he really does improve his footwork and can play with that type of confidence all the time, I think he really could improve into a competent QB.