If he succeeds he wasn't a reach, a good starting QB is worth much more than a mid first. And if he fails the damage will be more from the waste of 4 years than the round he was picked. I get that you like to play the critic but are you like this on all subjects with your friends? It must get old.Originally Posted by Fletch
Just make sure you separate the ones that are merely calling a spade a spade from those that slam him for no good reason.
Because right now there are a whole lot more indicators that are suggesting bust than ones that are suggesting that he's going to step it up this season. Pointing out the aspects of his play that are what is holding this team back while not insisting that he's going to be in the top-half of QBs this season are two different things.
No one can possibly deny that he's one significant injury away from irrelevance in the NFL.
No one can possibly claim that he's capable of stringing four good quarters of football together in the NFL, it hasn't even come close to happening.
No one can claim that he does not have quite possibly incorrectable issues with his accuracy, especially since he went through four years at FSU with the same issue.
No one can claim that he does not struggle to read defenses and has not been good at that as a rookie in the NFL or at FSU.
Those are some of the biggest things and primary ones that prevent QBs from ever becoming good. Sticking one's head in the sand while humming a tune of Don't Worry Be Happy doesn't magically make those things go away.
Wrong, he was a reach. If he succeeds he'll have justified taking that risk.
Right now we're far from that, so let's not talk about it as if it's around the corner from happening. No sane person that knows football is prepared to bet much that it happens.
im rooting for manuel, but marrone gave him a hard time yesterday. said something to the effect that you can't just put the ball down and run on 7-7 drills. and he got picked off a couple times and sailed some passes.
one school of thought is, good, getting it out of your system when it doesn't matter
the other is that this is a harbinger of bad luck to come.
i don't have an opinion yet, but it's never fun to see someone that universally everyone is saying has to have a great season struggling early.
if he needs to play preseason until game 5 to feel like he has a good grasp of it, then so be it.
BillsImpossible (07-23-2014)
Exactly to that bolded part. "Saving him" if he hasn't serves the team no purpose. Some don't get that most simple concept.
We're all rooting for him, but unfortunately this sounds like more of the same. The even more unfortunate part about it is that the biggest things that he struggles with are the ones least likely to be corrected via good coaching. They're going to have to rig something for him that who was it, the Skins maybe, rigged in one of their QBs helmets, or was it Bledsoe, some sort of timer to get him to get rid of the ball, except for Manuel they'll have to have a couple of different buzzers and bells.
This isn't promising.
Ok let's say you're right. How many times do you need to repeat the same arguments? Do you think they become more interesting as they're repeated? Serious question.
So anyone that doesn't agree with you is "sticking their head in the sand". Is that about it?Because right now there are a whole lot more indicators that are suggesting bust than ones that are suggesting that he's going to step it up this season. Pointing out the aspects of his play that are what is holding this team back while not insisting that he's going to be in the top-half of QBs this season are two different things.
No one can possibly deny that he's one significant injury away from irrelevance in the NFL.
No one can possibly claim that he's capable of stringing four good quarters of football together in the NFL, it hasn't even come close to happening.
No one can claim that he does not have quite possibly incorrectable issues with his accuracy, especially since he went through four years at FSU with the same issue.
No one can claim that he does not struggle to read defenses and has not been good at that as a rookie in the NFL or at FSU.
Those are some of the biggest things and primary ones that prevent QBs from ever becoming good. Sticking one's head in the sand while humming a tune of Don't Worry Be Happy doesn't magically make those things go away.
FACT: Manuel was only a starter at FSU for 2 years, that's not long enough to be ready for the NFL from the jump.
FACT: Manuel played 4 good quarters against the Jets. So you're wrong.
The injury issue is a concern but mostly because he really needs the work, none of the injuries he had last year some impact his performance this year. The accuracy issue is a concern but his accuracy was not terrible nor was it in college. He's a smart kid so reading defenses will improve with experience. Thanks for the rant but I've been watching the game a long time, I'll form my own opinions thanks.
That's a distinction without a difference which no one will care about except maybe you
To me the most precious thing is the season that was unexpected. The Patriots have won 3 championships but the first was by far the most sweet for them, little was expected. You seem like an unhappy person.Right now we're far from that, so let's not talk about it as if it's around the corner from happening. No sane person that knows football is prepared to bet much that it happens.
Sorry my bad, I didn't realize the preseason was already over with. You're already predicting what they are gonna do and that he's going to suck in the preseason, no bias there.
Great illustration of how misleading stats can be. Watching him down the clutch was like watching Bernhard Langer in the early 90's lining up a putt on the 18th from 3 feet to make the cut.
For his sake, I hope he figures it out and matures.
Lehner's history. He just doesn't know it yet.
Maybe, but for now he hasn't even shown that he's capable of starting well in the NFL. First things first. This camp doesn't seem to be making him any friends in that way either. But why stop there, let's say that he can be better than Kelly too. The key word is "can" but in order to get people to really believe that there has to be some evidence and there really isn't any to date.
Show us why and everyone will start believing you. It's not going to happen just because you say it can despite the presence of any other evidence. You're down on people that aren't up with Manuel, but are you that blind that you can't see that it's an uphill battle for him at this point? Sure, he can do it. He can also be the next president of the US too if you believe some people. Doesn't mean that it's going to happen or that the chances are even good that it does. As we all know, he's also one serious injury away from being relegated to bust status. If he gets his knee hurt again how much more time do you think that this team, especially under a new owner, is going to want to spend on him? That's assuming that he straightens out his play, which isn't even happening in camp now against some of the worst defenders he'll see all season.
That's one of your more sensible comments, but having said that, you don't develop that chemistry to playoff caliber levels in one season. First Manuel has to correct himself before he begins to worry about chemistry. Again, first things first.
But it sounds like you agree with me that he needs to be kept in during all preseason games until he can prove that he's capable of holding down 4 quarters by himself first. There's nothing to protect and hold out of preseason games if he can't do that. If he can't, I'll have more faith in Lewis and would rather see him play.
Last edited by Fletch; 07-23-2014 at 03:31 PM.
I suppose if you want to look at it that way, but you really didn't offer much to counter the argument.
I'll put it another way for you, a way that I've put it numerous times here but apparently that you've missed.
Right now on this team the WRs that we have have caught a grand total of 48 passes for 738 yards and only 5 TDs off of Manuel. That's it, that's the grand total. About 60% of that is by Woods. It's highly likely that one or more of those WRs is not even with the team come week 1 too. (Hogan, Easley, Graham)
Goodwin did a lot more under Lewis. Stevie and Woods were about equal under Manuel. To me, if you want any continuity, you don't throw that away for a mid-round draft pick a year later.
Otherwise you can save the lecture on Manuel for when he actually steps up. Right now he isn't even close. He's struggling in camp against a weak defense and players that aren't even going to be around soon from the sounds of it.
By the way gebobs, only someone that didn't understand football and how chemistry relates to it between a QB and his WRs would think that a team under such circumstances would go to the playoffs. I'm referring to Whaley.
Last edited by Fletch; 07-23-2014 at 03:57 PM.
Learn to read.
I said if he does. Or did I miss a few preseason games already? Out of ammo so soon?
I'll tell you what, you save your "I told you so's" for after his first good solid preseason game, OK?
And nudge me awake when he puts his first four quarters of football together in the preseason. Many QBs have done it, it's not uncommon. I don't care if they're in one game or three, just four straight good quarters of football.
I'm not the one whose logic includes taking him out of games if he sucks and stinks up the joint to "save him" for the regular season. You are. You sound about as bright as some of the real ringers that have wandered through our front office over the years.
It's pretty sad to see Bills fans with such low standards and expectations. It's no wonder this team sells tickets to our fans. 60,000 more fans like you and they'll never have to amass any talent, tell you that they're not going to, and will continually sell the place out.
Last edited by Fletch; 07-23-2014 at 03:54 PM.
best way to coach EJ i think is to focus on the run game and run blocking. when ej is confident, he throws the ball better.
if you ask him to come out and run an offense each game with no rhythm or feel of the game set up, he can be incredibly tentative. And he looks like he's pushing the ball and has a lot of inaccuracy.
so if they can give him a run game and dictate the flow of the game early, when he does start to pass, he'll look better. i don't think they are going to fix everything they need to have him change and have it be second nature in one offseason. as a result, don't make him win you games.
Coaches can deal with strategy to be successful. changing an athletes mindset takes more time. hopefully they go all in on being even better as a running team and not need great plays.
i look at that bills jets game in buffalo. geno was falling apart in that game. the bills defense was all over him and ej threw a beautiful bomb for a TD. he had a great game too. he just fed off the momentum. but in games where he didn't have it, he struggled to find rhythm. he struggled with confidence and the 3 and outs were numerous.
It's very interesting that you say this trapezeus. You've been one of my bigger critics on this topic. I've posted an article by two guys that followed him at FSU and have to date nailed Manuel to a T.
What's interesting about your statement above is that this isn't really coaching him [Manuel] per se, what it is is tailoring the offense, not around his strengths, but away from his weaknesses. It's sounding more and more like Manuel's upside, if we ever get that far, is akin to how Neil O'Donnell played for the Steelers, or Trent Dilfer tops. This is the same exact thing that those writers said happened at FSU. They said that the coaching staff finally gave up and just restructured the offense around him. Whether that is "building around his strengths" or "building to avoid highlighting his weaknesses" is just semantics after that.
The point is that they finally realized that he's not very coachable. As the writers put it, when the coaches thought that they had corrected one thing, they'd move on to another to correct, but while they were correcting that, the prior issue would pop up again. The likened it to a game of whack-a-mole where the moles are the problems.
It was a perfect analogy.
Anyway, it sounds and looks to me like this is exactly where our staff is with him at this point. He can't read Ds all that well, he's inaccurate, something that's difficult to coach in, but which is one of his biggest issues. I imagine that he's already one even remotely significant injury away from the coaching staff throwing their hands into the air out of frustration I have to imagine. Not that there weren't any signs of the potential for that or anything.
Those aren't easily coachable things, those are the things that make the top QB prospects the top QB prospects. You won't find QB prospects projected for the 1st 20 picks that have been proven to have inaccuracy and defense reading issues. Just doesn't happen. But Whaley knew better. Everyone preannointed him the next new hottest GM commodity in the NFL. He's walking a very precarious fine line that's going to have disappeared, one way or the other, but the end of October. He's either going to look like genius, or he's going to look worse than Levy and Nix. Which would you put your money on right now?
And let's keep in mind, Manuel's been working on this all offseason it's been reported, and at the OTAs. He's playing against players that aren't even NFL caliber right now. Even our starting LBs aren't good against the pass and our secondary after Gilmore is full of similar players. McKelvin has sucked for years as a CB, Williams and he benefitted by our pass-rush heavy D last season despite the fact that they helped allow the the third most passing TDs in team history.
How is this going to improve in preseason much less in the regular season. He's got 7 more practices then a game against the Giants, then two more practices and a game @ Carolina. It only gets tougher after that as players that don't belong in the NFL continue to get cut and the games take on more meaning. Do you really have hopes that the list of things that the staff has been working on trying to correct with Manuel are going to iron themselves out in the next week and a half?
Last edited by Fletch; 07-24-2014 at 07:47 AM.
The key word which is in bold is fans, a real fan doesn't base his loyalty on wins and losses, if I was that type of "fan" I would of stopped investing so much emotionally in the 70's when things were much worse than they are now.
i agree with some of this and think you are jumping to worst case scenario before we really know.
the good thing about scheming ahead is that if EJ is injured or really just looked terrible, you are putting thad or tuel into a run first office again. and if they can resist defying coaches, etc, they won't have to win games either. they can come in and try to run a run oriented offense.
the bills put themselves in a corner without taking a real qb to push fitz, and when fitz failed, they had nothing in the hopper with a weak qb class. reaching or not for EJ, he hasn't looked much worse or better than the rest of the qb's in that class. so it isn't like we missed on something better from that class yet. time will tell.
i think what i've read and seen, EJ isn't looking stellar at the start. but i'll give him all camp and the first 4 games to show us where he is. i don't expect him to be peyton, but i do expect him to be able to be more like tail end of the carolina game. where you are confident that he's got the ball and can move the chains.
Give it a rest. This is like a back and forth with OP. I looked at Manuel before the draft, after the draft and today as a raw project with some upside and some issues. Maybe he'll pan out, maybe he won't. Personally I'm going to wait and see. You want to label him a bust now that's fine we get it.
I agree Manuel needs all the reps he can get for a bunch of reasons. He's going to get a ton of playing time in preseason. I expect him to progress as the season goes along.That's one of your more sensible comments, but having said that, you don't develop that chemistry to playoff caliber levels in one season. First Manuel has to correct himself before he begins to worry about chemistry. Again, first things first.
But it sounds like you agree with me that he needs to be kept in during all preseason games until he can prove that he's capable of holding down 4 quarters by himself first. There's nothing to protect and hold out of preseason games if he can't do that. If he can't, I'll have more faith in Lewis and would rather see him play.
trapezeus (07-24-2014)
Again, it's about how we got here, not the fact that we have.
Fitz was obviously a very low-end starting QB at best. No one argued that except for the front office and a bunch of people that in Bills forums that thought that whatever the FO did was gold. He was ridiculously overpaid which did two things, it hampered us from getting a real QB and it commited the team to using him instead of getting a real QB.
Same with Manuel. This wouldn't be as big an issue if last year they had waited until round 2, said "we just weren't high on a QB in round 1," thereby putting some pressure on Manuel to not automatically think that he was god's gift to the Bills, not to mention leaving open the possiblity that they would get another QB without looking like the fools that they have, particularly Whaley now in his "he's our man" approach.
To give this another perspective, both Andy Dalton and Colin Kaepernick were drafted early in round 2 of the draft that the same offseason Fitzpatrick got his almost $60M deal.
In that same draft we picked Aaron Williams the pick just before Dalton and Kaepernick.
That's my point, the most important decisions that this team makes are poor ones that preclude much better ones.
The one's that need to give it a rest that are trying to salvage Manuel from a smoldering ash heap. I'm not guaranteeing that he's a bust, but honestly here, who's seeing that he's got better than maybe, maybe, a 10% chance that he'll even be a good starting QB much less something more here.
This isn't some sort of mental exercise that they do at Menza meetings, this is simply opening your eyes and ears to see if thus far Manuel even comes close to passing the smell test. Anyone even remotely hinting that he does is hallucinating. The best you have is "we'll have to wait and see." Yeah, great, we'll wait and see, but in the meantime we can all do without the lectures on how those of us that are merely looking at the facts before us, which have been accumulated over the last five seasons, aren't real fans and don't really know.
I'll tell you who doesn't really know, it's anyone suggesting that Manuel's going to do much of anything worth while. That's who's clueless. A good GM never would have taken him in the 1st last season. Sitting here pretending that he'll at some point turn into what a 1st rounder should be should be left for the fools that drafted him, not the rest of us. Anyone agreeing with them is equally unintelligent and foolish.
EJ has played the last 5 seasons in a Bills uniform? Last I checked he was a rookie last year and doesn't have a full season to his name. I'll start worrying around week 5 this year since there is nothing in the realm of possibilities to make this team a surefire bet. Bed made, deal with it or get out. If he sucks and we are terrible, good job, you won the Internet and can print out your predictive posts.
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