I've had some more time to think more about the Tyrod Taylor contract over the weekend. Last year in training camp as the Bills were figuring out who their QB was between a then-relative unknown Tyrod , E.J. Manuel, and Matt Cassel. Doug Whaley mentioned how the Bills were in "Quarterback Purgatory."
I think we are kind of still in QB Purgatory as Tyrod is not yet great or really bad somewhere in between. He's still has not a ton of experience where he might be able to grow and maybe could drop off. Chances are that at 27 years old, he is who he is which is not yet great but not terrible. I think that's somewhere between 15-20 which is not great but not terrible somewhere in the middle.
This is where QB Purgatory reigns guys like Alex Smith, Ryan Tannehill, Jay Cutler, Kirk Cousins, and well I suppose Ryan Fitzpatrick as these mediocre QBs are getting paid a ridiculous amount.I think of Fitz as a backup QB but he has his moments as the Jets, and even the Bills, bought into Fitz's good games to give him a decent chunk of change and not seriously looking at drafting his replacement.
It's easy to get excited over this contract because of the outs and it's not like he's getting all $92 million guaranteed regardless of what the national media is telling you. For this contract to truly be worth it is either Tyrod is really good if not great to keep exercising the options or is really bad where they can get out of it.
Wouldn't it be better to give $27.5 million over five years to a first round pick QB than $27.5 million to a middle of the road QB for one year? I would rather draft the QB always and when I get my guy then I'll be set and then I'll pay him top dollar.
The Sabres would always do this where they gave relatively big contracts to middle of the road players like Derek Roy, Tim Connolly, Jason Pominville, Drew Stafford, Tyler Myers among others and Darcy Regier would always say wait until the back half of the contract then they'd be undervalued. How many times did that happen? The answer is zero and by the end of the contract we were ready to dump them, Get the guy and don't be afraid to pay him top dollar.
The worst thing is if Tyrod is middle of the road QB where he is neither really good or really bad and the Bills will keep extending him and giving a middle of the road QB big time money which is never good. They'll be just good enough to miss the playoffs and good enough to keep costing them a shot at a top QB in the draft and good enough to prevent the Bills from drafting a QB in the first two rounds. That's the worst thing that could happen with this contract.
By really good I'm saying around top-10-12 QBs in the league. The bottom 10-12 QBs are Eli Manning, Carson Palmer, Matt Ryan, and Andy Dalton depending on who you think. These are really good QBs but not quite elite as they need talent but they can and have won in this league. That could and should be Tyrod. Of course if he was higher that's even better.
It's hard to rank young QBs Derek Carr, Teddy Bridgewater, Jameis Winston, Marcus Mariota, and Blake Bortles even all of these young QBs show great potential and star ability and eventually could make their way into the top-10-14 spots in the league.
They are still so young so they can't officially be put in the rankings yet although I'd take any one of these over Tyrod because of being so young and starting right away from day 1 or close to day 1. Right now, even though they have so much more room to grow and are generally high draft picks first round and to early second round (Carr).
By really bad it's pretty self explanatory by basically saying this guy can't start in the NFL and he's nothing more than a backup. That's Blaine Gabbert, Nick Foles, Matt Cassel, Colin Kaepernick, E.J., Mark Sanchez, Geno Smith, Josh McCown, and perhaps RG3 and so on.
The worst thing is that he is say Tannehill, Cutler, or Smith and that's usually finishing 7-9, 8-8 every year missing the playoffs (Tannehill) or being lucky and not very good and safe and lucking into the playoffs but never winning (Smith).
The Bills are usually Tannehill and the Dolphins or Cutler and the Bears where they win enough games to miss the playoffs but win enough to not have a high draft pick and usually draft a franchise QB. Tannehill is a decent QB, better than what the Bills have had before Tyrod, but not good enough and they do nothing to upgrade the position except add a receiver or fix the line or change the coaches etc. That's QB Purgatory my friends.
The Bills have lived it for the last 20 years. The reason I believe if they Tyrod is just middle and pretty good they'd keep extending his option is because I've seen worse QBs do less and get the benefit of the doubt from this franchise and assurance that they won't go draft his replacement until the bottom completely fell out and they absolutely had to draft one.
I know the Bills don't make the playoffs so I'm sure some of you would like to be Alex Smith and KC and make the playoffs but lose. They will never do anything to change or upgrade the QB position because they are comfortable with making the playoffs and don't want to miss the playoffs. The Chiefs have no chance at winning a Super Bowl with Alex Smith and the way they are built in my opinion.
I want to win and make the playoffs I really do, but I don't want to just make the playoffs and lose and have really no shot at winning the Super Bowl. My goal and the team's goal should be to win the Super Bowl not to just end the playoff drought.
Correct me if I am wrong but wouldn't being a Super Bowl contender year in and year out more than end the playoff drought? They would be in the playoffs just about every year and every year they would be one of the 3-5 favorites to win the Super Bowl.
We say the same about the Sabres. They decided not to just make the playoffs and instead try to be a Stanley Cup contender and win the Cup if not multiple Cups. Their goal is not to just finish in 8th and instead be one of the best teams and they had a plan and followed through with it. The plan is easier to execute as you can finish at the bottom and get high draft picks to build from. The NFL is go get a franchise QB but it's not easy to get.
The Bills during this playoff drought with the exception of a couple of years usually try everything to just end the drought. The only years they didn't and figured they were really bad and rebuilding and finished at the bottom of the league in 2001 and 2010 and those were the only years they'd draft in the top-5 despite being bad for 16 years.
The other years they'd finish middle or middle-bottom of the league and never really close to the playoffs and never close to the top pick of the draft. The rest of the time, they'd change coaches, change GMs, give weapons to help their QB, change QBs, sign big free agents, etc. They went in to just about every single off season trying to end the playoff drought.
The one thing they never did and should do is draft QB every single year until they find their guy and I still want them to do so, but this potential contract could definitely prohibit them from thinking it. They never did this and I want them to start yesterday but now for sure.
I do like the Tyrod contract because of the outs. It's only great if he's either really good or great or he's really bad. In between, they'll overpay him to be their QB and won't do anything to upgrade the position.
