Kevin Hoffman – USA TODAY Sports
When Tyrod Taylor was entering the NFL, he had quite a few critics. Many argued that he wasn’t good enough to be an NFL quarterback. He wasn’t a good pocket passer. He wasn’t accurate enough. He should convert to receiver, because it better suited his athleticism. Taylor didn’t listen to those people, and he stayed at the quarterback position. He was drafted in the sixth round in 2011 by the Baltimore Ravens, and they developed him for the next four years.
Taylor was never really going to be anything more than a developmental quarterback for the Ravens; the team had Joe Flacco firmly entrenched as their starter. So Taylor mostly remained on the bench during his career with the team, though he did play in some packages as a wildcat QB. In his entire NFL career, Taylor has only thrown 35 passes, completing 19 for 199 yards and two interceptions. He has also run for 136 yards on 27 career attempts. Those numbers don’t exactly jump off the page.
Taylor decided he was tired of backing up Flacco, and elected to sign with the Buffalo Bills this offseason. Taylor is fighting to be the starter against Matt Cassel and EJ Manuel, and he is being given a chance to prove himself. Supposedly, Taylor has been consistent at OTAs, but he really hasn’t been anything more than decent. Still, being decent might win the Bills’ starting quarterback job at the rate the competition is going.
The main concern with Taylor is his complete lack of experience as an NFL quarterback. He has never started a single game, and as mentioned earlier, he hasn’t seen any significant playing time in meaningful games. Sure, he has potential and athleticism, but that doesn’t translate to success. If Taylor wants to be the starter, he’ll need to establish good chemistry with Sammy Watkins and Percy Harvin, and he needs to prove that he can get the ball to them. If he can’t be accurate, he’s in trouble.
Taylor will be in the battle for the starting position, but he is facing an uphill battle to win it. Still, Taylor should be a solid backup for the team and maybe they could use him in a wildcat package to run jet sweeps with Harvin. Aside from that, I don’t see Taylor making that much of an impact on the 2015 Bills team.
Jacob Camenker is a Buffalo Bills Beat Writer for www.RantSports.com. You can “like” him on Facebook here, follow him on Twitter @jacobyhorse, or add him to your network on Google.
