300 YD Passing: Orton 1 Manuel 0

[BillsFan-4-Ever]

Dude, relax. Lighten up, Francis.

 

Here's my point in black and white: It is USELESS to compare EJ Manuel to Kyle Orton. Especially after one game. And for the dozens of people on this board to continue to feel the need to create new threads in order to spread the gospel that EJ sucks ... well, that's even more useless.

 

The Bills beat a formidable opponent on the road yesterday. There should be very little to B word about and starting yet another EJ sucks thread was dumb.

 

That was my point.

+1

 

for many its easier to rant against someone than admit the truth,

[offyourocker]

Its irrelevant if we lose to the lions yesterday. You can throw for 500 yards but if you don't make the key passes at crunch time its all for not. Drew brees has thrown for over 5000 yds the last 3 years and has not won a super bowl. Back in the 90's if you had a qb throw for 3000 yards you were all but guaranteed a playoff spot. Now your qb throws for 3000 as a rookie. Point is stats can be misleading and if a qb throws for 150 yds and wins the game I'm fine with that.

 

It is totally relevant in the sense that EJ has not done it in 10+ games. Not only that but Orton did it on the road against a top 5 defense. He had command of that offense by half time and his passes were accurate. Big difference.

[qblax16]

I was looking for this thread, and agree, it's been a while sense we have a 300 yard passer.

 

It didn't feel like it was a 300 yard day, and I'd say that is a positive. Your QB should be able to throw for 300 yards within the flow of the game, and eventually won't need to celebrate 300 yard passing games.

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

 

 

Why dont you post a list of your top ten receivers and Ill post a highlight rel of each from just this year and see how many fingertip and highlight catches they are making for other Qbs ?

 

receivers are supposed to make those catches and Qbs are supposed to bring out the confidence in them to make em.

 

Ej was a passenger in the huddle while Orton is leading the huddle . I dont get why people cant see that distinction

 

Which direct TV package has the huddle cam? I need more info on this as it might warreny replacing my tv. You can actually see huddle leaders in a game? That's awesome!

[hondo in seattle]

Its irrelevant if we lose to the lions yesterday. You can throw for 500 yards but if you don't make the key passes at crunch time its all for not. Drew brees has thrown for over 5000 yds the last 3 years and has not won a super bowl. Back in the 90's if you had a qb throw for 3000 yards you were all but guaranteed a playoff spot. Now your qb throws for 3000 as a rookie. Point is stats can be misleading and if a qb throws for 150 yds and wins the game I'm fine with that.

 

It's not entirely irrelevant. In his best games this year, EJ was efficient but not very productive.

 

Sometimes you need your QB to throw for 300 yards.

 

Yesterday our backs were not very productive against a good Lions D, but Orton was. I doubt if EJ - at least at this point in his career - would have put up 300 against the Lions.

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

Actually Orton has already done it several times in his career.

 

But to see it happen in his very first game as a Bill, even after a slow start and on the road, was very telling - considering that EJ has never had a 300 yard game in his career.

 

Doesn't mean much. Manuel had 296 yds in the second game as a pro ever. That's only 4 less than the arbitrary 300 that only means anything because of our base ten numbering system and love for zeros in our benchmarks.

 

And now look at him. Now he's a back up behind KYLE ORTON!!!

 

Glad they won. Look forward to watching our new messiah shred the pats. Maybe he can have 50 completions or 100 rushing yards or 400 passing yards. That means good things right?

[xsoldier54]

Dude, relax. Lighten up, Francis.

 

Here's my point in black and white: It is USELESS to compare EJ Manuel to Kyle Orton. Especially after one game. And for the dozens of people on this board to continue to feel the need to create new threads in order to spread the gospel that EJ sucks ... well, that's even more useless.

 

The Bills beat a formidable opponent on the road yesterday. There should be very little to B word about and starting yet another EJ sucks thread was dumb.

 

That was my point.

Ok, but I didn't see that when I read the title of this thread. I saw a thread that pointed out that Orton passed for over 300 yards in his first game action since last December and EJ has yet to do it, EVER in the NFL. It was more of an affirmation that the coaching staff made the right decision, than an EJ sucks thread as far as I saw it. And I wasn't bitching. Quite the opposite. I was celebrating that the Bills made a good decision at QB and it allowed the team to win a very tough game on the road. I too saw a lot of bitching about Orton on this board even though the Bills won and would have had absolutely zero chance of doing so if the switch had not been made. That was MY point.

[RuntheDamnBall]

Why dont you post a list of your top ten receivers and Ill post a highlight rel of each from just this year and see how many fingertip and highlight catches they are making for other Qbs ?

 

receivers are supposed to make those catches and Qbs are supposed to bring out the confidence in them to make em.

 

Ej was a passenger in the huddle while Orton is leading the huddle . I dont get why people cant see that distinction

Maybe because people are trying to belabor the f---ing point without any meaningful statistics and observations? I'll be far more interested to read any All-22 analyses and to measure how Orton does with the benefit of more time and comfort with the receivers. Really, what is the point of this thread other than another way to cut down EJ? Especially when there were few circus catches coming EJ's way. Seriously. What is the point? Orton makes people catch imperfectly thrown balls better? If that's the argument and then we want to give it some mystical title like "leading the huddle," and this makes real football fans feel better, then that's just swell for them.

 

300 yards? IDGAF.

 

Win. IGAF.

[Hplarrm]

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.

[RuntheDamnBall]

Ok, but I didn't see that when I read the title of this thread. I saw a thread that pointed out that Orton passed for over 300 yards in his first game action since last December and EJ has yet to do it, EVER in the NFL. It was more of an affirmation that the coaching staff made the right decision, than an EJ sucks thread as far as I saw it. And I wasn't bitching. Quite the opposite. I was celebrating that the Bills made a good decision at QB and it allowed the team to win a very tough game on the road. I too saw a lot of bitching about Orton on this board even though the Bills won and would have had absolutely zero chance of doing so if the switch had not been made. That was MY point.

So if a Bills receiver in the Carolina game gets four more yards of RAC, we wouldn't be having this discussion? It would turn the magic key and open up the box of special QB goodness?

 

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.

 

...

Don't want to mass quote your whole post but I think it's great.

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

 

 

 

Sometimes you need your QB to throw for 300 yards.

 

 

Focusing on this point, starting to see the pattern that if they put the ball up 40+ times in a game. They either are in a nail biter or a stinker.

 

Ironic thing is the focus on watkins and williams and other weapons as doubling down on ej and a bad bet, mortgaging the future, etc... But if that same cast can pull an average journeyman guy like Orton to a win... Well then isn't that sort of the same accomplishment???

[DPR4444]

300 yards? IDGAF.

 

Win. IGAF.

 

 

I agree.

 

Out of curiosity i looked at last year's regular season stats per http://www.footballd...ng.html?yr=2013

 

By my eyeball count, there were 114 300-yard passing games int he 2013 regular season. 58 wins, 56 losses.

 

Small statistical sample, I know, but I think my employer might not appreciate the time I spent on this

Edited October 6, 2014 by DPR4444

[RuntheDamnBall]

This is how important 300-yard games are:

 

http://www.nfl.com/player/benroethlisberger/2506109/gamelogs?season=2004

http://www.nfl.com/player/benroethlisberger/2506109/gamelogs?season=2005

 

Ben Roethlisberger had a whopping two of them in his first two seasons on two teams that went to the AFC Championship and then won the Super Bowl. And he was most assuredly a more refined QB than EJ even if he was brought along slowly.

[Big Gun]

+1

 

for many its easier to rant against someone than admit the truth,

 

Man, how hypocritical is that statement!

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

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.

 

All good stuff.

 

Bottom line is ej is going to make some plays orton won't... Orton will make some plays ej won't and the net result right now today at their current levels of proficiency, orton is going to buy you a few more positive plays per game than manual. With 25-45 total opportunities, that's 10-20%, which is a big number.

 

That's what this whole thing is really all about.

[BillsFan-4-Ever]

It is totally relevant in the sense that EJ has not done it in 10+ games. Not only that but Orton did it on the road against a top 5 defense. He had command of that offense by half time and his passes were accurate. Big difference.

This week Orton threw a pick 6 in the beginning of the game and barely got them in FG range against a good defense

Last week EJ threw a pick 6 in the end of the game against a good defense.

[xsoldier54]

So if a Bills receiver in the Carolina game gets four more yards of RAC, we wouldn't be having this discussion? It would turn the magic key and open up the box of special QB goodness?

 

 

Don't want to mass quote your whole post but I think it's great.

But the fact remains that no Bills receiver actually did get four more yards and EJ still has never thrown for 300 yards, yet Orton managed to do it in his first game action since last December. Did you even read the rest of my reply? The 300 yard statistic is not the whole story here. It is simply an affirmation that perhaps the coaching staff made the right decision with the QB switch. It is an INDICATOR. Not sure exactly why you think it is not important at all. It certainly was a contributing factor in the win.

[BillsFan-4-Ever]

Man, how hypocritical is that statement!

You can't handle the truth.

 

where have I lied? EJ has 15 games under his belt. (who also went on the road and defeated the Bears) and played just under the performance of a 9 year vet.

[Kellyto83TD]

Its irrelevant if we lose to the lions yesterday. You can throw for 500 yards but if you don't make the key passes at crunch time its all for not. Drew brees has thrown for over 5000 yds the last 3 years and has not won a super bowl. Back in the 90's if you had a qb throw for 3000 yards you were all but guaranteed a playoff spot. Now your qb throws for 3000 as a rookie. Point is stats can be misleading and if a qb throws for 150 yds and wins the game I'm fine with that.

 

Ok so if its so damn easy to throw for 300 yards in a game these days...why hasn't EJ ever done it?

 

Checkmate.

[RuntheDamnBall]

All good stuff.

 

Bottom line is ej is going to make some plays orton won't... Orton will make some plays ej won't and the net result right now today at their current levels of proficiency, orton is going to buy you a few more positive plays per game than manual. With 25-45 total opportunities, that's 10-20%, which is a big number.

 

That's what this whole thing is really all about.

This is true and this is why playing Orton right now is a good idea - the best idea, really.

 

Whether or not EJ stands a chance later on is something people have pretty much made clear their stance on, and I tend to side with patience and evidence with young players over the blanket statements, eye tests, proclamations of "never," etc. I just don't understand why it needs to be crusaded over at every turn.

 

But the fact remains that no Bills receiver actually did get four more yards and EJ still has never thrown for 300 yards, yet Orton managed to do it in his first game action since last December. Did you even read the rest of my reply? The 300 yard statistic is not the whole story here. It is simply an affirmation that perhaps the coaching staff made the right decision with the QB switch. It is an INDICATOR. Not sure exactly why you think it is not important at all. It certainly was a contributing factor in the win.

And would Orton have done it, or won, without Sammy pulling in an amazing catch on a ball that no one can say he had any business catching?

 

I understand what you're saying, and I think it's a net positive that Orton got 300 yards, but it's also a stat that demonstrates what a team game this is.

 

Ok so if its so damn easy to throw for 300 yards in a game these days...why hasn't EJ ever done it?

 

Checkmate.

That is not what he was saying at all.

 

And "checkmate" usually means you've proven something. Might want to revisit the board.