I mean, if we're gonna pretend that the reports from 3 different news sources are all wrong, why don't we just pretend that EJ won the job and looked great in camp?
I don't think Whaley said that "EJ is for sure our starter and you're not hired if you don't think he's great." Don't lump me into the extreme of another side. I just don't see drafting a guy in the first round, believing he can be the future of the franchise, and then flip-flopping 2 years later and not caring who wins the job. Whaley isn't a robot, and is as prone to biases as any other human. To claim he has no attachment to EJ Manuel is as unlikely to me as claiming that Whaley is hell-bent on EJ working out.
I believe Whaley would and could absolutely trade for the best possible back-up, and sign a throwaway guy (who TT was at the time), and still be thinking/hoping EJ would be the starter. The open QB competition is the coaches decision, not the GM's, no? 90 man vs 53 man and all that?