I thought Thad performed better than EJ too but on one hand, Thad has several years of NFL experience. On the other, EJ missed practice with injuries and only started a handful of games.
Fair enough, I'll hold you to this prediction. It is possible that Tuel starts ahead of Manuel come week 1, but only if Tuel massively outperforms EJ. I think Tuel is great competition for EJ and could potentially overtaken him. Tuel is very efficient with his reads.
Cool. Being a Bills fan is hard enough, no need to get into it with the other prisoners
And I don't think Marrone would
ever do anything this preseason to shake EJ's confidence, which includes giving Tuel first team reps, or even fielding a question about a QB controversy. This is certainly EJ's job to lose, and they will do everything in their power to make him feel that he has an iron grip on it.
With all that being said, though,
EXCELLENT (not average) qb play is the
only way the Bills make the playoffs this year... On defense, they lost their best player (Byrd), their second best player is a train wreck (Dareus), and their third best player is out for the year (Kiko). Not to mention it's the fourth new defensive scheme in as many years, with a new coordinator... and the defense wasn't even
that great last year, it was just much better than Bills fans are used to. So, all in all, the defense has gotten worse.
On offense, we traded away our most productive receiver and are hoping that Mike Williams gets his act together and stays healthy. Our best running back is 45 years old, and our second best running back cant run between the tackles and isn't an every down back. So, the offense is either the same, or worse.
Special teams was terrible, absolutely atrocious last year, and we brought back the same coach--so that's the same.
All in all, this Bills team is,
at best, the same as last year's squad, and at worst (and more realistically) significantly worse than last years 6-10 team. The only way to mask those short comings is by lights out play from a qb.
I hope against all hope EJ can be that guy, but by all accounts, Tuel is the only player who has
improved since last season at that position. Granted, his ceiling may not be as high as EJ's... he may be improving from a C- to a C+... but if EJ stays as a B- player, the coaches are going to have an interesting decision to make.
Don't forget, Brady came into the league as an afterthought, out of shape, and threw like, 4 passes his rookie year.
I don't care if we resign Brad Smith and make him the starter, I just want to win the goddamn division and end the Pats reign... if that means rooting for Tuel instead of the golden boy, so be it. But make no mistake, this preseason is the most important preseason for the Bills in a long time. This front office doesn't have time to be cute and baby some project along while protecting his feelings. If Tuel is playing well, he will be the week 1 starter.
It's business, not football.
As long as yall defense doesn't fall off dramatically without Byrd the GM could just go defense next draft. Yall got a nice Dline already.