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The results of this poll probably depend on the week you ask it. If he caught the game winning TD as he did Sunday, the horde votes he is worth the trade. I it is after his dismal showing in ame4 he ain't. This question unfortunately needs t wi until after his third year in order o produce an answer not subject to radical change due to real unavoidable change due to the reality of what happens. To this point though the impressive thing is not simply his personal accomplishments but how he helps others perform better. : 1. Whether it is EJ or Orton, Watkins has excelled in a victory QB'ed by these players neither who whom is consistently adequate in their pay. He makes our QBs better payers with he separation he produces and his stickyhands 2. The OL clearly has its problems but this makes the ability he has shown to get quick separation all the more important. 3. Hackett has been learning at best on calling working plays. Watkins gave Hackett a chance to make a good call on the last play.

It will be interesting to see what the coaches do but my sense is that Booby stays in the role he has done so well for us in doing (primarily and ST guy but a back-up to our two RB starters. Bryce Brown was acquired (at substantial cost) to give us leverage over whether we re-signed Spiller or not and to play the role of co-starter at RB with Jax or Spiller. The injuries no force Brown into the line-up as the prime starting RB and Booby as his back-up. The hit here is to ST (particularly with Easley out)) but so be it.

My sense is that any tru Bills fan has got to be happy with the performance Orton has put up as a needed plan B for EJ after he played well in the first two games and sucked in the last 2. However. it would be pretty foolish for the Bills to simply assume EJ is done for us as a starter this year. Orton is simply a .500 QB in his career with some pretty sound teams. He can be hurt and it would be foolish not to teach EJ to always be prepared to come in. Orton is our plan A and we need to ride him to competing for the playoffs this year. EJ is quite unlikely to QB us to that goal. Orton is also unlikely to lead us to this goal but he has a markedly better shot than EJ this year. EJ is and always has bee a PROJECT. He was the best bet for taking a QB in the 1st (as we had to do because of our sad addiction to finding a franchise QB) and the most reasonable alternative was Geno (As frustrating as EJis, having Geno would be worse. I like EJ as a plan to Orton and I hope someone is able to devote a little time to this because though Orton is clearly the choice or us as #1 QB, it seems unlikely he will survive the season behind our inexperienced OL ad now counting on Bryce and Booby for blitz pick-up.

As we saw with Jax and Spiller today, the HC and GM need to plan like it is the next hit which will be the one which knocks Orton out of the game. However, the great players are ones who ignor this and play with virtual certainty of their health. EJ better be ready as there is pretty clear likelihood he has not started his last game s a Bill.

Blocking and inconsistent playcalling as well.

Much controversy about the use of Brown so far seems to me to miss the point in terms of what Brown does to help the Bills. My sense of this based on a few decades of paying too much attention to the NFL (at least according to my wife) is that Brown's role for our running gam was pretty clear. 1. His production during his brief NFL career showed good POTENTIAL for him to be a solid if not very good NFL RB. He is clearly a good back-up RB now and even shown the POTENTIAL to be starter with good eyesight and breakaway speed. 2. Nevertheless, he is not at the level of either Fred Jackson or a scary threat any time he touches the ballot go all the way like Spiller. Also, while he clearly has good ST return POTENTAL his highest and bet use is not seen to be as a ST cover guy, wedge buster or any of the suicide jobs a solid ST guy is assigned to do. This being noted the Bills clearly have productive RBs to operate the 1-2 punch popular in the NFL these days and the Bills ran last year with great productivity.However, as tough and productive a runner as Jax is and as scary a dynamic as Spiller can be, it is reasonable to figure one these two is gonna get dinged and miss some games this season. Jax is the oldest RB In the league and Spiller has had history of high ankle sprains that generally have not ended his season but clearly have hobbled him. Further CJ is gonna be an FA likely in demand if only for his potential. The FO made a god move in extending ax's contract so they did not have to negotiate with CJ/Jax at the same time Further, by signing Brown they now have the leverage to let CJ walk if need be. The even better news for us s that it has turned out that Booby Dixon who was signed for his likely contributions on ST also showed a lot of grit that made him a reasonable #3 RB. The intelligent ills football move would seem to be A. Run CJ and Jax without fear. B. Use Booby in his area of demonstrated success on ST. C. Use Booby as your #3 RB when needed and praise his grit and toughness. D. Save Brown until you need him and if you and if you are luckyyou do not need him at all to play in 14, but he really gives you a lot of contract leverage in the off-season. Brown strikes me as saying just the right thing. I want a layer who at least is surprised not to play, but I not want someone who pulls what Mike Williams did of when I sit him he sends out word of demanding a trade.

Sometimes yes (the last two Manuel starts) and sometimes no (the first two EJ starts). EJ was a PROJECT when drafted and remains a PROJECT. The Bills had to raft aQB in the 1st in 2013 and only he and Geno were worth a first. It simply remains too early to have panicked. Will EJ ever be Payton Manning? No. Will h ever be Brad Johnson? Maybe yes. He cannot wi ohis own but then again both have 1 SB to their credit.

As Rodney King says, why can't we all just get along. The OP is some great work which adds a lot to trying to understand an activity which can never be fully or accurately described by mere statistical analysis. Also, Tasker's comments are right on target for ADDING to the great analysis provided in the original post. Tasker's comments simply point out the limitations of mere statistical analysis (even good thorough analysis as was done in the OP). His comments to your response suggesting you go back an re=read his post is pretty exactly accurate as I take it he says a couple of things: 1. Tasker does NOT claim that the OP analysis is wrong, he merely correctly points out that any statistical analysis which attempts to compare how on player did vs. how another player performed in a different game simply fails IF it purports to be conclusive and anything other than an indicator of reality. He suggests that the OP would be more accurate if it included some correct disclaimers which point out the limitations of any statiscal analysis. I think the main thing which is incorrect in the three way conversation consisting of the OP, Tasker's response and suggested additions (which I do not think should offend the OP at all, and your response to these suggestions is your post which falsely says the only two choices here are that the OP is correct and conclusive or one should not do anything. Tasker's comments in combination with the OP seem to suggest a third way which is that the OP is most accurate (like Joe B's work) if it states the disclaimers about the limitations of any mere stat based analysis. To me, the analysis provided in the OP as it is quite thorough and gives a much more credible indicator of what the Bills should do in thinking through the Orton/EJ to start issues. However, one needs to recognize the limitations inherent in even a sound statistical analysis like the OP. In addition to all the limitations listed in Tasker's comments such as without knowing the play calls (and the blocking assignments it really is impossible for us to know for sure what did (or was supposed to) happen and thus though good analysis is more than worth it for us to see and consider (many thanks to the OP for his great work) it would be incorrect for readers not to recognize the limitations of even good stat analysis. In the end because of what we do not know about the intent and assignments of the play our musings may be good indicators but are pretty far from conclusive. Further, the important thing is always not merely what the players did last week but what will likely happen next week. My sense is: 1. Its way to early to give up on EJ and actually I will be quite surprised to not see him start games for the Bills at QB in the 2014 season. 2. My sense is that EJ will likely start this year out of necessity if as in past years, Orton gets off to a great start but then gets hurt and cannot play through the end of the season. I think we would all benefit if the OP lent his great skills to analyzing how many hard hits Orton took on Sunday. He did well in my view as even with an older body, Orton seemed to escape any major damage from hard hits. However, Detroit had a solid DL and LBs and Orton struck me as being hit a lot. Sometimes these pressures were effective as when he got sacked early near our goalline and also he had to rush a few throws under pressure from a meltdown of our OL (or the sack when Spiller pulled an Ole on a blitz pick-up. Orton played a good enough game against a good D on the road as we won despite his pick six and failure to get us closer at the end. Fortunately Orton did not need to be great (or even good) to QB to a win he merely needed to be good enough thanks to an outstanding D performance which held the Det O down so we could overcome Orton and the O giving up a pick 6 and that Carpenter has proved to be a GREAT kicker for us nailing a 58 yarder down the middle with room to spare. Orton deserves a ton of credit for QBing this teams to a win with his good enough play on the road against a D playing very well, but if one insists on giving credit to some Bills for this W I would start with our D which repeatedly logged 3 and outs giving us a great field position advantage for the last 2/3 of the game and then to Carpenter and the ST which was the difference compared to Henry and the Det ST which missed three easier FGs than the 58 yarder pulled off by the Bills after Orton failed to lead the team to another first down or two which would have made the final kick a good play or a chip shot. Instead Orton and the O failed to even produce an adequate drive but Carpenter and the ST made a great play to win it. In addition, to the likelihood that I think we will see EJ be forced to start at QB if Orton continues to get hit like Sunday, I also think we may see the Bills braintrust attempt to actually choose to start EJ. This MIGHT happen if: A. One big advantage that Orton had was that there was no tape on him. Its only gonna take 2 or 3 games of tape for opposing DCs and DLs to begin to map out Bills O tendencies and for good DLs to begin reading tendencies in Bills OL players to make their rushed more effective. The real test of how good Orton is will be seen if he continues his good enough or even improves as he knock some of the rust off and he intelligently varies his game or adjusts well in mid-game when a good pass rusher identifies some tendency. B. How does EJ deal with being benched? I think one of the major failings of TSW commentators is that like most of us outsiders and non-professional we do not see the subtleties in the game and make the mistake Mr. Weo did of seeing this as being simply between too extreme choices. Tasker did NOT reject all of the good analysis from the OP, he merely suggested assessment of these useful stats in the OP as best understood in the light of acknowledging the limitations of any statistical analysis. If EJ learns from his benching and diligently dissects what a 10 yr. vet does differently than a player such as him who has great physical talents but has yet to start even a full 16 games, EJ will be a better player because of the benching. Further, EJ needs to toughen up a bit if he hopes to become a good QB and if he learns from this benching he MIGHT become an adequate starter at QB (probably not but Maybe). Hackett/Merrone and our QB coach need to make their primary focus winning next weeks game but in addition someone needs to take on the task (primarily EJ cause he is a big boy or he really should be cut)of using his benching as a teachable moment. Overall, the great stats in the OP are a very useful indicator of what should happen. However, speaking as a stat hound, if one views any mere stats as conclusive you are likely to be wrong as there is way too much important stuff that we outsiders cannot know and even if you are an insider no one knows the future or can say how this oddly shaped ball is gonna bounce.

Sure there was stuff EJ did well. His more than adequate play was a central part of his QBing the team to a 2-0 start including a tough win on the road in Chicago. He was actually able to rack up QB ratings over 90 in these two games which were indictors of him having good enough accuracy to complete both short and medium passes, him doing a good job running through his progressions, him showing go0od escapability and mobility where even if he got flushed from the pocket he kept looking downfield. His ability to find and complete passes to Watkins was quite impressive against Miami. These good aspects of his game did not nullify or minimize the facthe was not perfect in these two Ws. He sucked in terms of scoring TDs in the red zone against Miami, but actually the fact the Bills won in a laugher despite their failings in the red zone is actually a tribute to his good play in other aspects of the game. This being said, it also is the simple fact that EJ simply sucked in games 3 and 4. In fact bencing him as Merrone did was avery good move given that the good things Orton did as he threw for 300 were important for the W. However, it would be a mistake not to realize that Ortan's play though far better than EJs in games 3 and 4. was also far from perfect yesterday. EJs problem is NOT that he sucks in ALL aspects of the game, his problem is that just like in his college career he is inconsistent. For two games he can be an adequate QB such as in the first two games. At he same time he can suck as he did in games 3 and 4. EJ is a talented player, but he may not be consistent enough to be a franchise QB like we want. My question for you is that if he cannot do anything, what explains his QBing the team to its first two wins?

One of my favorite quotes is from Mark Twain, roughly it was. "There are three types of untruths in the world. In order of severity there are lies, damn lies and statistics. The 300 yard passing number is a great example of a stat which sounds impressive at first, but depending upon the reality of the situation (and actually consideration of other stats) they can actually paint a very different story. One can make a superficial assessment of the quality and effectiveness of Orton vs. EJ as a QB which is based on the one stat you site which is accurate in and of itself. However, from watching too much football (at least according too my wife who I recently celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary- talk about misusing stats) I have found that 300 yard passing production to also be: 1. Sometimes an indicator of an impotent running attack by the O. Orton's 300+ yards yesterday to me was actually mostly an indicator of how poorly we ran the ball. 2. The Orton led O was behind in score much of the game. The best QB passing days I have seen in my too many years of football watching featured stats with the QB passing for less than 200 yards because his team got ahead in the game and then the QB implemented and audibled hos way to a run based attack designed to burn time and keep the clock moving. The best Merrone/Hackett did yesterday was actually to keep running the ball even though the run #s were ineffective because it was this run threat which kept the safety in the box and allowed Goodwin to use his speed to fly past the CB and Orton threw his best pass on the game to the streaking Goodwin for a big gain. The result of the play was almost as good as the less accurate bomb by EJ to Williams last week which led to a TD (score is actually the ultimate stat). 3. The most challenging stat of the day was that Orton somehow managed to throw successfully for 300+ yards but did this failing produce the 20 point standard which is often the mark a visiting team must hit in order to win on the road. When one considers the game stats as a whole the 30+ yards leading to merely 17 points was a pretty pathetic QB level of production. hen one really looks at yesterday's stats the only real conclusion is to chalk one up for the D. They not only held the potent home team (at least until yesterday well below the 20 point standard (they were so outclassed by our D that even an anemic O production under Orton gave us the win, but also, 7 of their points were not our Ds fault at all since Orton threw a pretty horrendous pick 6 that was worse than the errant throw by EJ which led to 6 due to great play by the Texans Watt. 4. From my view, despite the 300 yard+ performance by Orton, I would overall judge his QB play to be at about a similar level of feebleness to EJs work which produced a 2-2 record in the first four games. Great game for us as like the EJ QB'ed W against Chicago the bottomline was though the QB play was not good, it was good enough to get the W. I too prefer Orton at QB rather than the PROJECT EJ right now. However, the 300 yard stat is laughable at best! Orton for me is a .500 QB at best based on the 10 years performance of his career. EJ under the other hand is simply a PROJECT who at this point in his brief career still has more upside than the too often injured clear history of great starts followed by massive disappointments that Orton has had as a franchise QB in the NFL. EJ was inconsistent at best when he was chosen and 1. The Bills had no choice but to draft a QB in the first last year and the two options were EJ or Geno Smith and despite the likely temporary benching of EJ, Smith was not the better choice of these two inadequate youngsters. 2. EJ was impressively good in his first two games this season QBing the team to a 2-0 start with a win on the road and achieving a QB rating over 90, but this inconsistent PROJECT then led his tam team to an 0-2 record with grossly inadequate QB performance in his next 2 starts. Does EJ deserved to be benched right now? Yepper. In fact if this turns out right the benching and watching a more experienced QB in Orton run the same O with better QB performance but similar results may be the teaching tool which allows EJ to become an adequate performer at QB. I would not bet on it because NFL adequacy at QB is a hard thing to achieve. Odds are that EJ does not get there. The irony is that these poor odds are a better bet than a plan that Orton is going to surpass the results of his .500 record in 10 years of play and escape injury that has been the prime cause of his failures. Orton simply took too many bad hits behind our questionable blocking yesterday and showed a great gaminess that was impressive but was a little slow-footed behind our spotty OL and matador pass blocking by Spiller that one really wants to be on Orton surviving and surviving with success. I as a Bills fan hope light heck that Orton catches lightening in a bottle and leads us to a playoff berth where anything can happen (and usually does- just ask Peyton who by far is best QB in the league but like it or not is still second in his family in QBing his team to SB wins (those darn stats again). I hope Orton is the answer we want (and it could happen in this game where outcomes seem to be most determined by how this oddly shaped ball bounces) by far the more intelligent bad bet is that Orton though he will likely perform at the same .500 level that ten years of his real world stats predict that he will survive at least 3 games that one can reasonably expect from a back-up NFL QB. However, EJ in his three or more games of benchriding will learn some things from watching that will outweigh the better teacher which getting reps generally is. Though I hope Orton remains healthy and leads this team to the playoffs, I think the better but still unlikely bet is that Orton spends a good chunk of the next few weeks improving his QB play by dissecting tapes of his performance with Hackett and EJ so both he and EJ learn a lot. Even better though I hope Orton is a savior on his way to leading the team to a 14-2 record (1 game down and a mere 11 more to go) I think the more likely bet is that he leads the team to 8-8 or 9-7 on a good season. Thus. the better bad bet is that the bigger more talented EJ learns from watching and when Orton has the usual injury or production outage which define his 10 year stats, that EJ will come back as a better (but still inadequate performer at QB) who leads this team to the playoffs this year.

When one measures the import of the things in a person's life (and those who choose to be in the public eye like owner of an NFL franchise or who legally gain the benefits of taxpayer subsidy as the Bills did, then you also have submitted yourself to both unreasonable public judgment). Ralph Wilson's life is open to public comment. In the end, his life follows the track of most humans in that he was good at some things and not so good in others. It seems to me that in the big picture Mr. Ralph was good at a lot of the important things in life (loyalty and commitment, building strong familial relationships, showing a lot of generosity. However, he was not so good at a lot of other stuff (failed public relationships in a pretty larger number for which he was likely responsible for 50% or so of the problem (Polian, Butler, Wade Philips, Mularkey, Donahoe, etc) and also being a pretty poor football mind with the exception of a great run by his team of the late 80s and early 90s. Ironically I think the sum total simply points out how little the game results really mean in the big picture. Mr. Ralph did Buffalo and WNY a great favor in keeping the team here when he probably easily could have sold out to a bidder who would have moved the team in the 70s, but he showed loyalty to the area reeling from an economic downturn when other captains of industry were taking their winnings and leaving little behind except hazardous waste. Yes, the team milked a bunch of corporate welfare from the system, but in the gross accounting I think he gave much more to the area in exchange for corporate welfare than he took. Further, the deal he left in his will which reinforced the need to sale to a local owner gave a lot to this area he was not required o give. He was a human, but a good human in total as best as this inobjective viewer can judge.

As long as they are Bills I root for them to excel and do well. As far as football goes the individual personalities mean little to me and the TEAM means everything. PS: Given Orton's history of being well-regarded but the results of him winning at a .500 level, with his history of injury, I think it is reasonable to hope he does well, but the smart bet is that EJ has not started his last game as a Bill.

Given that Orton has won a starting role for several different organizations and then loss the job de to injuries or his .500 W?L production over his extended career not being good enough my guess is that this board will have EJ as a starter to kick around again. EJ was from the moment he was drafted a PROJECT. His MO in college was that he was a good guy and physically gifted. He showed the judgment and talent to stop from getting sacked and not throw a lot of INTs, but the simple fact was he was inconsistent and was helped a lot by FSU being head and shoulders better than most opponents. I think the fact that many were disappointed he did not lead this team to great success as a rookie (or even with the starts he had amassed as a 2nd year pro says more about the lack of good football judgment of many fans as it says about his failings as a player. Whaley and Merrone pretty clearly saw him as a PROJECT and their plan appeared to be to reinforce the very good RBs we have, to take a shot at getting a bunch of good talents to build an OL and get dynamic receivers capable of allowing the team to get Ws even with a mere PROJECT QB. My GUESS is that the benching of EJ makes him now a failed project, but still he is a year+ away from anyone labeling him a bust. My GUESS is that Merrone/Whaley having seen the frustrating inconsistency of EJ (as seen in his 2-0 start and 0-2 finish) have decided that they want to give the well-regarded but oft injured or failed QB a shot. However, my GUESS would be that it is pretty stupid to give up on EJ at this early point in his career without taking a good shot at toughening him up by benching him and working with him in practice as much as trying to win with Orton allows.

Like EJ a lot will depend upon A. How our OL does most importantly in making the run game work and also in keeping Orton off his butt B. If our WRs have a case of the droppsies even on well thrown balls like they did on Sunday I expect little from Orton. EJ sucked on Sunday and benching him is not unreasonable, but it would be pretty unreasonable to expect a lot from Orton than a him being a QB with starter talent, but in the end a .500 performer whose record is .500 at 35-35 in the 70 games he has started in his career. Orton has also demonstrated a propensity for getting knocked out of the starter role about 3 times due to injury (usually to his ankle)

I think it is hard to say the Bills made a dumb pick taking EJ as I think that this choice was fairly predetermined by the Bills giving up on Fitzy (an interesting decision given Fitzy's gritty and successful play Sunday). Bills fans and media have had a virtually psychotic addiction to finding a franchise QB since the end of Jimbo's career. Getting a franchise QB is a good thing, but this desire has become psychotic for the Bills leading to a 15 year series of bad football judgments and pressure to produce immediately that I think has contributed to failed efforts to train up some talented athletes during that time. I think comparing Bridgewater to EJ is pretty senseless since they were in different draft classes. Saying e missed on Bridgewater and took EJ instead makes only slightly more sense than feeling bad because we did not trade up Luck. Yeah so what.

I have always felt that the EJ pick was not a mistake as from what I read about him he always was a PROJECT. Whaley moved into a position where like it or not, the Bills had to take the best QB they could get in the draft even though it was generally agreed that it was a pretty weak QB class. The Bills had a history going back to Ralph making a horrible football judgment that only he could make when he made a handshake deal with Jimbo to pay him off in his next contract. This move had several impacts- the thought that Jimbo was gonna be our starter a few more years had already caused the Bills to pass on getting a new QB and when they realized they better acquire and train someone they stretched to draft Todd Collins a round earlier then most had him going and even worse when the football folly of Ralph's handshake deal came home to roost because there was no next contract for Jimbo the bills rushed TC to start when he needed at least another year to train the happy feet out from him. My sense is also that something was causing the HoF committee to delay Ralph's entry into the Hall and my guess is that it may have been his blatant violation of the salary cap that did it. Even worse, this bad football move set the Bills on a course of mismanaging the QB situation featuring idiocy with BJ Hobert, mismanagement of the RJ/DF situation, the JP debacles, etc. The decision to cut Fitzy created a need at QB the Bills were not attractive enough to fill thru FA and we did not have the talent for trade so drafting as good as we could get in a bad class was it. The only QBs talked about as meriting a pick in the first 2 rounds were Geno Smith and EJ. Geno had better short term prospects (but now we see how sorry he is0 and EJ had better long term potential but was a PROJECT right from the start. I think Whaley/Merrone knew this and actually set forth trying to assemble a TEAM that might compete for the playoffs with the likely inconsistent play of EJ, They tried by reinforcing our RBs (good job with Booby and Bryce), rolling the dice on OL (good try but it has not worked yet), and going for gambreakers at WR (too many drops on Sunday to win with PROJECT QB play. Oh well. But overall if folks were disappointed with EJ it says more about their silly expectations than folks who correctly judged him to be a project did not expect him to lead this team to a playoff this year.

It may well be an interesting test of whether a player needs to play to get better or whether a player can learn as much/more/or different useful things from watching and analyzing.

My guess is that the NFLPA knows they are in a different place than in the mid-80s when they pursued an AFL-CIO type strategy and were mere employees of the NFL team owners. When the Ed Garvey led traditional union types got smashed by the owners, this gave the talented tenth of players led by Gene Upshaw the opening where they sold their fellow players on the decertification threat. The NFLPA won a new deal reflected in the CBA which essentially made the players partners with the team owners. The CBA represented not only the owners running as fast they could from operating in a traditional free market, but the new CBA basically expanded the social contract which team owners operated under since the days of Pete Rozelle to include the players as partners i the social contract which replaced the free market as the NFL profit making framework. This movement away from the free market simply revolutionized the NFL because the social compact allowed for making even greater profits as the TV nets proved willing to pay billions for a stable product rather than the mere millions a good franchise could make in a free market. The NFLPA concentrated on re-arranging the profit sharing cut when Gene Upshaw dictated the end of the designated gross arrangement and demanded that the player cut of the cap start with a 6. The NFLPA changed under the new arrangement by dropping their reflexive opposition to all discipline and instead accepting draconian punishment by Goodell since in the big picture it left NFLPA hands clean of the needed disciplining of its own members for the greater good of profits. However. Goodell has seemed out lived his usefulness to the NFLPA and they are now looking for an opportunity to at least get a larger % of the profits (perhaps the player cut should start with a 7) though alternately I would guess is the players can find a way to simply cut the owners out of the picture and thus inherit the owners 39.5% cut they would be happy to do so. In the end the team owners are really an unnecessary part of the equation (see the Green Bay Packers) and if the NFLPA can find a way to cut them out they would. The owners really add little value to the product so get rid of them.

This point is really fairly silly. We have all seen good throwers become better passers and become more accurate as they gain experience from being a raw rookie with a strong arm to a seasoned vet who increases their accuracy as they gain experience and are TAUGHT the game. There is a huge difference between more static demographic issues where like it or not an athlete is a specific height and you can't teach tallness or a certain speed and you cannot teach a tortoise to be a hare. Yet even with these more static measures, with practice and hard work a player can be taught. Arguably you can't teach height, but players learn to time their leaps better and make a catch at the top of their jump even though they are not taller or even if their jumping height does not improve. We have all seen vets lose a step in speed but become better receivers as they learn to need fewer steps to get where they want to go. Better receivers increase increase the QBs accuracy. Don Beebe even claims yiu can increase speed and makes money selling his techniques. Having Sammy Watkina has increased EJs accuracy as seen in Watkin's 8 catch game against Miami. He gets separation quicker and forces DBs to play off him which ends up reflecting itself in greater accuracy for EJ as measured in his completion %.

You seem to be watching the game through totally black glasses as the tangible improvements in EJs game are not only easily seen by a non-professional such as me but they are even strongly indicated in EJs game. First off, your observation that he has shown NITHING simply runs counter to the fact that the Bills with EJ as starting QB are 2 Ws and 1 L- Perhaps if they were 0-3 the overstatement that he has shown NOTHING might be true, but winning in the NFL is not an easy thing. I was pleased with both of these performances by EJ. Thy were not proof he is there yet. In fact, in my mind he has always been a PROJECT and the Ws say more about how intelligent the Whaley acquisition strategy has been. Whaley/Merrone picked EJ with what appears to be that this PROJECT player would not be where we want hyim to be for 2-3 years, but Whaley focused on adding depth at RB, rebuilding the OL and getting gamebreakers at WR. Watkins was great in the Miami game and believe it or not someone had to throw him the ball in order for him to have a great game. 2. Take a look at EJs INT total. If he showed NOTHING his numbers would look more like the 3 INTs Fitzy racked up for Houston yesterday. Yesterday was still a non-productive day for EJ and he deserves blame for the bad day. However, it is simply ridiculous to indict him for his poor play yesterday and ignore the 2 Ws he QB'ed. 3. He definitely had flaws in his game, but again the actual facts reflected in the stats reduces your indictment to a whine. EJ racked up a QB rating in thee low 80s last year. The QB stat is not pergect in showing reality, but its the best statiscal distillation available even though it ain't perfect. His ratings in the firt two games were in the 90s and this strongly indicates improvement over the year. EJ ain't perfect if even adequate yet, but he shows good indication of improvement from last year when he was clearly to college thinking in that hje ran when he should have just let it go until he got good in his 3rd year.

I have no problem waiting if the team is seriously competing for the playoffs. Our 2-1 record is actually the real world template fir this happens even if some folks are freaked about havng the inconsistent EJ at the helm. EJ has always been a PRIJECT and likely will be th rest of this year at least. The key is for this team to be a TEAM. IF the Bills continue to have good D and the outstanding ST play they showed in beating a quality opponent on the riad and pulling off a laugher on a division opponent this TEAM can carry EJ to the playoffs as he learns the game.

The facts actually are that Orton was last a starter in 2010 where he racked up a 3-10 record in his 13 starts. Orton was first drafted in 2005 and really is a well respected back-up who left his last gig in Dallas threatening to retire. Look at his stats for the last three years and tell us whether his losing record as a back-up are the "facts" you site that make him an up and comer.

You may not have noticed but we actually have won 2 out if 3. If memory serves me correctly EJ was the QB.

Are you saying that you saw no improvement in his play last year which easily can be judged to be inadequate for a 1st string QB. He clearly did not perform last year like QB we wanted (I think most Bills fans want a QB who showed the performance of a 5th year starter like Rivers did on Sunday. However, I think most people had no expectation that EJ after a dozen starts was going to be anywhere near where a good 5th year starter like Rivers is (well at least most semi-rational fans do not think this is the proper measure. I think your judgments actually seem to show a somewhat irrational judgment of EJ. He flat out still performs inadequately at QB and may not ever reach the levels of performance we want. However your claim that EJ is not performing better this year compared to his performance last year seems to simply ignore the limited facts we have in his brief time as a starting NFL QB. When EJ was picked by the Bills in the first last year it was a pretty good move in my judgment. I feel this way because: 1. The Bills simply had to take the best QB they could get in last year's draft because of the foolish way they had handled the QB position in the past leading to them signing Fitzy to a big contract and him perform9ng so badly they had to cut him. The bog problem this created was that last year's QB class was pretty bad. There was no Andrew Luck to trade up for. The choices were either the inconsistent in everyone's judgment at best EJ or Geno Smith. The pro scouts judged neither of these players to be 1st round quality even in a weak QB class. Even a 1st rounder was probably 50/50 at best to be capable of being a bad starter. EJ was to most without a fan bias a PROJECT at best. I am (and I think Whaley/Merrone who no matter how you judge them relative or GMs/NCs in the NFL have actually forgotten more than you and I will ever know about judging NFL players- but hey we are fans and have a right to our fact-free opinions if we want) pretty comfortable with a judgment that though EJ was inadequate as a rookie starter last year. He earned the endorsement the Bills braintrust gave him for this season as he was by far a better choice than Tuel or whatshisname who was our #2 last year but after a sorry pre-season we cut him. Would you choose either of these two as your starter? Further, I think EJ demonstrated by looking at their performances last year also looking at theor performances head to head last year EJ was a better choice than Geno. Would yu prefer Geno? Further, there simply was no one else in the draft worthy of a pick in the first few rounds and further, the Bills were simply not an attractive choice for any available FA QBs and we did not have the trade bait to get one. EJ was and is a PROJECT but clearly had the best upside of any PRIJECT the Bills could get last year. If not then WHO do you suggest the Bills should have drafted in the 1st last year. Add on to this that Whaley cleverly traded down to still pick EJ and got a 2nd and 7th for him which became Kiko and Gragg. The way Whakley handled the pick we got not only the best (though still inadequate) QB in s bad QB class and got the best rookie LB and a TE still with the team. What woukd yiu have dine that was reasonable that would have been better? The other less than rational point you claim is that EJ has not gotten better from last year to this. EJ is still not the QB we want, but the claim that he would have been the QB for the first two wins this season simply does not fit the reality. EJ was too quick to bail out and run last year (bad judgment that led to his injury). Further, he really locked onto his chosen receiver completely last year. Has he improved on this bad habit? Yes, and his INT rate in three short games shows it so far this year. Is he great? Nope, he still can leave his receivers out on a limb a bit with hugh or inaccurate throws, but he clearly has improved tipping his hand to DBs and has better INT numbers to show this. In addition to EJs play improving (he racked up over 90 QB ratings in the first two games) Merrone Hackett have also learned some of EJs weaknesses which make him still an inadequate QB like an inability to make all his reads. The offense has been simplified this year and the O braintrust is not asking EJ to run a constant no huddle and because he is not experienced enough to do this his O play is more effecrive than last year. Is EJ the QB we want and deserve? No! Anyone who saw his struggles in game 3 against SD knows that is the case. The safety he racked up throwing the ball away while in the endzone shows he ain't there yet. Hpwever, it is ridiculous to see how he played QB beating a better team than the Bills on the road in Chicago to claim EJ has bit inproved. Even in the win against Miami where the EJ led O was horrible in the redzone for getting TDs, he still QB'ed a team which win in a laugher as the EJ QB'ed O generally succeeded in at least getting FGs in the redzone. The hope for the Bills at least competing for the playoffs this year is not the irrationale dream that the young EJ is going to lead this team (he ain't good enuf yet) but instead can be am adequate manager of the team where reinforcing the RB spot, better OL play and getting gamebreakers at $1 and #3 WRs can help this TEAM be competitive? Better play by EJ over his rookie performance as he turned out to be almost adequate in games 1 and 2 were a big part of wins. It certainly is possible EJ will never become the consistent QB we need. However, it is simply irrational to not see that EJ is an improved player over last year (the record says he is and Merrone/Hackett are dumbing down the O to be more successful even with EJs limitations. The Bills had limited options for getting a QB last year (do you argue we should have reached even further for Geno- if so you missed his redzone play on Monday which was even worse than EJ against Miami). I am comfortable that with a mere better performance than his shortened rookie year the Bills can compete for the playoffs even with merely adequate play from EJ as we saw in the first two games.

I hope and assume they are. Do you think that during the Bills success of the early 90s, that the message to the "other 50 or so humps on the team was Jim Kelly is our franchise QB and he is gonna deliver us? Was the message to the humos and the fans in The Greatest Game Ever Played that Frank Reich is no where near the franchise QB Jimbo was so you are excused from making an effort. Look, EJ is not a franchise quality QB and the sad reality is that he is quite unlikely to develop into one by the end of the season even if he gets every rep he can this year. It just makes me laugh that anyone could have been football stupid enough to demand that this PROJECT should have been declared a bust last year based on his progress (he was an inadequate producer but showed reasonable progress for a PROJECT in his truncated rookie season. It is just about equally hilarious to see folks wringing their hands and really simply downright getting their panties all in a wad over what has been an inadequate for Bills rooters (even me)but fairly impressive work by him in 2 of the 3 games so far this season. The real scoop on EJ this year is that he has shown flat out the improvement in his play from the 9 games of reps as a starter last year. As a rookie, EJ demonstrated that he is a young strong talented player capable even as a rookie of leading his team to comeback victories. However, despite flashes of virtual brilliance in 2013 he also showed he could simply stink up the joint at times and even worse he can show bad habits like depending on his legs to run out of trouble. This worked in college against lesser players but you are gonna get injured trying to so this too much as a pro (and EJ did last year). EJs other failings in 2013 included locking on to receivers a bit leading to INTs. He also seemed to have trouble doing a lot of progressions and reads in a fast paced game. After 3 games so far (still a bit small of a sample to draw real conclusions) EJ seems to have: 1. Improved in his overall game management with the team racking up two victories including one on the road so far. 2. He has avoided risking his body so far when forced to run or escape danger. 3. He really has minimized INTs and this year. 4. Merrone/Hackett have adjusted the game a bit in diminishing the use f the no huddle which gives EJ a little more time to do reads. Whaley has also helped a lot emphasizing A. reinforcing the running game finding a productive Booby Dixon to play #3 RB and even storing Bryce Brown when the likelihood of Jax or Spiller going down Brown is there, B. Getting a bunch of talented OL players to try to find the best 5 C. Getting some great WR talent. Overall, EJs QB rating was over 90 in each of the first two games and the good ratings reflected his imperfect buy good play. I am not sure what the rating was but he sucked. However, this seems consistent with his inconsistent play we expected.