Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images
By Brandon J. Koch
The national media knows absolutely nothing about small market teams, especially the Bills.
NOTHING. And it shows.
They are so out of touch.
When it comes to the Tyrod Taylor benching, the national media wants to push their own agenda, a false one that is: Tyrod Taylor being blackballed by McDermott, Bills.
That couldn’t be more wrong.
- Since day one, Sean McDermott has said he will make decisions that is best for this football teams to win games.
- Yes, it back fired. But McDermott was looking for a spark, what’s wrong with that? Taylor against the Saints threw for 56 yards in a brutal performance. Of course it wasn’t all his fault, he’s not playing defense. But, he’s gotta be better than that.
The national media believes that mediocrity is good enough for the Bills because they haven’t made the playoffs in 17 years. So the Bills can’t try and be better? I like Taylor, he’s good enough to make it into the playoffs, but that’s it. Bills fans, like me, want more than just mediocre play.
For instance, John Clayton was on Schopp and the Bulldog a couple of weeks ago and said this: “Is it that big a deal in any city to be able to make the second wild card, lose by 2 touchdowns… in Buffalo it’s huge.” “I know that in the big picture it’s like ‘OK a wild card loss isn’t great’, but for Buffalo it’s fantastic.”
Now, I ask you this: How much in depth does Clayton really watch and study the Bills? He lives in Seattle covering the Seahawks. Just because he’s the “insider,” doesn’t mean he’s right when he says just making the playoffs and losing by two touchdowns is “Fantastic,” for Buffalo. That’s settling for just being mediocre.
After the Kansas City win, Jonathan Jones wrote a piece at MMQB SI.com
He acts in this piece that Taylor is being a victim.
In Sunday’s 16-10 win against Kansas City (struggling with its own problems), Taylor proved once again that he’s good enough to win his team games and maybe good enough to sneak into the playoffs with just one fellow star on offense in LeSean McCoy. How many times must he prove his worth at this sport’s most important position?
Apparently, many times. Even though Buffalo is threatening to make its first postseason since 1999—which would end the longest active playoff drought in the NFL (yes, longer than the Browns)—Taylor, a wholly decent seven-year veteran, will still likely not play for the Bills next season. Buffalo went so far as to give rookie QB Nathan Peterman the chance to unseat Taylor last week against the Chargers, and, well, we all know how that went. Peterman is clearly not the Bills’ answer at quarterback, and never should have been considered to be so.
“Good enough,” and “Decent.”
He wrote in a tweet: “Tyrod Taylor is now 20-18 as a starter for a team with 1) the longest active postseason drought and that 2) doesn’t want him”
What 20-18 is something to be proud of? Ask that to the Bills front office who is trying to build a something bigger.
And then of course the two that know all! The PTI guys! Do you think they watched one quarter of a Bills game all year? Doubt it.
Mike Wilbon said if he owned the Bills, he would’ve fired McDermott and doesn’t know why he’s still employed. He also called McDermott: “dopey.”
Then of course there are sarcastic Twitter people who act like they have never made a mistake. I saw something Sunday about Paxton Lynch starting and there were multiple tweets saying, “The Bills would’ve benched Tyrod Taylor to start Paxton Lynch.”
Really creative.
I get it, that’s how sports work, McDermott’s move ended up being terrible, so he got the criticism, But know why he made that decision. Be informed. This is just all overreaction and being blowup by national media who barley watch the Bills.
Taylor is not the victim, this is the other side of how sports work. The Bills want to be better than 19-for-29 for 183 yards.
