The conclusion of this article is that Marrone called pass plays on 45% on first down in his first three starts of his career and went back down to 20% in the next two starts before Manuel got hurt in the Cleveland game. The trend continued downward the rest of his rookie season and in the first four games of the 2014 season, before he got benched for Kyle Orton. Manuel apparently had a 98 QB Rating on 1st and 10 in the first three games.
Marrone called pass plays 56% of the time when the game was within one score in the first three games, then ran the ball more than 70% of the time in a one score game the rest of his rookie year. Manuel apparently had an 87 QB Rating, 6.4 yards per attempt, four touchowns, and just one interception in his first three starts.
The QB Rating is the fourth best in NFL history for a rookie QB who started the first three games of his career with some guy named Jim Kelly one of those ahead of him. It doesn't mean much because RGIII and Mark Sanchez were the other two ahead of EJ and look how well they've done. Three starts doesn't make a career and how many guys have had a few good starts early on and do nothing? Very many.
I guess the premise was that Marrone called pass plays and might have made more manageable third downs instead of running on first all the time and going into third and long. I don't disagree with that i agree pass on first down and pass all the time. But if it's 3rd and 7 or longer, make the throw EJ!! It's that simple, well easier said then done. An excerpt of the article goes as follows:
"Following the 4th quarter loss to the Jets in week 3, something changed with Doug Marrone. Despite EJ Manuel overachieving as a rookie in his first 3 starts, Marrone began to call the game differently in his starts. Marrone stopped letting EJ Manuel pass like an average quarterback and started calling passing plays much less frequently, particularly in early downs.
In his press conferences after the game vs the Jets in week 3, Marrone insisted the trouble with the Bills was 3rd down performance. He wasn't wrong -- the Bills were terrible on 3rd down. But they were primarily terrible on 3rd and 7+ yds, where they converted just 6% into 1st downs so far that season. On 3rd and 1-6 yds, the Bills converted 50% into 3rd down in 2013 to date, which was essentially the NFL average. The key for the Bills was to keep 3rd down manageable. Therefore, they needed to produce on 1st down. So what happened on first downs for the Bills in 2013?"
I love how the writer neglects to inform all of you that EJ was awful for most of that Jets game, throwing passes way out of bounds and not letting any of his receivers a chance to make any sort of play. That was conveniently left out of the article. Did this guy watch that Jets game? There might be a reason as to why Marrone stopped throwing and it was EJ was regressing. He also made it a point to say he struggled on third down passing as well in that game.
Even in the first two games, EJ didn't set the world on fire. He only had 150 yards passing and only 5.6 yards per attempt, but he did throw two very nice touchdowns and did not turn the ball over once and had a 105.5 QB Rating in his NFL debut in the season-opener against New England. He even had them leading before Tom Brady did what Tom Brady does, lead the Patriots to a comeback win. EJ had a nice come-from-behind victory against Carolina the following week where he led them on a 8-yard TD drive, capped by a TD pass to Stevie Johnson and threw for a career-high 296 yards. But the reason they were behind was because of Manuel, who threw an interception and fumbled in the fourth quarter and even threw a pick on the final drive that was wiped out by a penalty.
Then came the Jets game debacle, but to his credit, Manuel led them from a 20-6 4th quarter deficit to tie the game late at 20-20. The Jets won a huge Geno Smith TD pass to win the game as Justin Rogers got shredded in that game as well. Manuel only completed 45% of his passes in that game, most of which went out of bounds. Even his running went down not only after his injury but even the next two weeks before his injury. He was averaging nearly 6 yards a carry the first three games to averaging less than half that the rest of the season. He didn't run particularly well but the coaches also did not let him run too.
The next week against the then-defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens, the Bills ran 2.5 times more than they threw as EJ only attempted 22 passes, yet only completed 10 of them. They ran more because EJ was not good and they ran for over 200 yards as well. Manuel threw one touchdown and threw two interceptions in the second half and fumbled twice as well, almost costing the Bills the game as they held on to win 23-20 thanks to five Joe Flacco's five interceptions. Manuel got hurt the next week against Cleveland, costing him the next four games. The play he got hurt was a beautiful run.
If anything, it seemed as if Marrone and Hackett trusted Manuel before he showed them not to trust him. While Manuel according to his report looked good on first down, he wasn't very good on the downs 2-4, which matter just as much as first down. The writer doesn't take into account the rest of the downs in a game, where EJ was not good. Seems like this piece was written by a Manuel cheerleader.
I'm in no way shape or form not saying Marrone had nothing to do with it. I'll say it's 25% Marrone's fault. Now EJ was widely inaccurate even in throws 1-10 yards and it got worse the more he threw deep. That's EJ's fault he can't hit wide open receivers, often throwing behind them or even throwing them up too high where receivers had to jump up to grab a four-yard pass and risking injury. Or in the first Jets game his rookie year he kept throwing deep passes horribly out of bounds.
Where is it 25% Marrone? He kept having EJ throw the passes he wasn't good at. That Jets game for example, when Manuel kept throwing sideline passes deep out of bounds he should have not kept calling those throws continuously. He also had Manuel throw the fade patterns to the sidelines, which are very low percentage even for some of the very best and even worse for an inaccurate QB, as well as the sideline or even corner of the end zone. Marrone called those plays so many times it made my head explode. So the constant calling the same failing calls were on Marrone.
I'll give Hackett 1% because he needs a little blame but not much. The rest of the 75% is all on EJ and is inaccuracy. His completion percentage is 58.5% and the fact he doesn't even complete 60% of his passes from 1-10 yards is staggering. That should be one of your highest percentages and the best QBs complete in the upper 60s to 70s. The numbers might suggest that Manuel struggled because of Marrone not throwing on first down more, he struggled because simply he might not be a good QB. As I've said before, Manuel struggled on every other down and what is the most important down? Every down.
I agree with the fact the Bills took Manuel because they needed a QB after passing on guys in 2011 and 2012 such as Colin Kaepernick, Andy Dalton, Jake Locker, Nick Foles, and of course Russell Wilson. They waited for a not so good QB draft in 2013. That year I didn't care who they took just take the best guy you can get. Manuel was the only QB taken in the first that year and it's not like any other QB has been better. It's been a pretty lousy QB draft. Maybe you can make the case Mike Glennon has been the best of that class. That's like saying however it's the best smelling garbage in the neighborhood.
I wonder what made this guy go back nearly two years ago and pull up this data and why did he concentrate so hard only on first down? I think it's someone desperately reaching and hoping that EJ Manuel is the guy and is our answer at franchise QB. Let's hope he can be but at this point, it doesn't look good unless Greg Roman can work some magic.
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