Buffalo Bills Offseason Grades: Quarterbacks

The position with the most controversy ended up being the one with the most stability heading into the 2015 season, with Tyrod Taylor taking the control at the helm of the Bills offense and never letting go. Well, except for that game in Jacksonville but we aren’t going to talk about that one.

The Virginia Tech graduate and former Baltimore Raven finished the season completing 63.7 percent of his passes, while throwing for 3,035 yards and 20 touchdowns to go along with only six interceptions.

Now, those are not mind-boggling numbers, but when the only quarterbacks to throw for more yards in a season during this 16-year playoff drought were Drew Bledsoe (2002), Ryan Fitzpatrick (2011, 2012) and J.P. Losman (2006), that tells you how dire the situation is at gunslinger in Western New York.

But, for right now, it looks like the Bills have found their quarterback, a playmaking one at that. Taylor has the unique ability to escape the pocket and make plays down the field not only with his arm, but with his legs. He so eloquently did both in the season finale against the Jets, making two separate plays to his left, with one turning into a long throw to Sammy Watkins and the other resulting in the game’s first touchdown.

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Whether it was playcalling or not, Taylor needs to find his other speedy partner in crime, Sammy Watkins, much more often than he did this season. Watkins was targeted 96 times on the year, but 57 of those came in the season’s waning weeks.

The second-year speedster out of Clemson has playmaking ability that made him worthy of being selected with the No. 4 pick, but whether it was on the fault of Roman, Taylor or a combination of both, the ball was not being thrown to him all that often.

The last thing is staying in the pocket longer and trusting his arm, rather than his legs sometimes. Something that I saw from Taylor back in training camp was the fact that he bailed on a play too early and tried to make something happen while running, instead of waiting for the play to develop and hitting the receivers down the field.

Taylor did a very good job of that in spots, but there were other times when he would bail and run, and that is never a good thing for a receiver down the field or for a quarterback not wanting to take a hit from the big linebacker standing in his way.

For his first year starting, Taylor did an excellent job with an offense that really just could not stay healthy. Next season, however, the pressure is really going to be on to lead this unit into the postseason.

Grade: B

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