See I think it'd b foolish to spend a day 2 pick on a project when they can find an immediate contributor on the line, as a receiver, tight end or linebacker.
Shoot, by round three they might be RB shopping too.
They drafted one last year, don't hold your breath for one in rounds one or two, it just ain't happening.
After that, you're drafting Thad's replacement, and the consensus here seems to be that that would be a wasted pick, and I concur.
Yours is definitely a more nuanced analysis, I was just going by how FORCED that game plan felt and how adamantly they repeated the narrative "we gotta get him off to a good start." It led me to believe the most important thing for Hackett and Marrone going into Sunday's game wasn't to set up a game plan, but to get their rookie QB comfortable after the steaming turd he lay down in Tampa the week prior.
You're right, he showed signs of being mentally tough, but the very idea that the coaches felt he needed early-game-kid-glove-treatment in the first place tells me they wanted to boost his confidence synthetically. The first part of the game had a bunch of throw and catches teed up that would have eased him in. This backfired, obviously, but there was definitely some scheming behind the scenes that tells me they were concerned with getting him some completions early.
Can I posit a theory here?
May be the Bills don't want him to regress in his confidence. May be they don't want him to face a new opponent in the Dolphins and potentially dip. May be they want him to finish the season on a high note facing the Patriots in round 2, a game they may be feel confident he can succeed in...
May be they think that losing the Miami game with Thad starting is less detrimental to the long term plan than losing with EJ and having him question himself.