AJ McCarron signed with the Buffalo Bills knowing he has a great chance to earn a starting job in 2018, but he will have to beat out the team’s first-round pick in order for that to happen.
The Bills traded up to No. 7 to draft former Wyoming star Josh Allen, which means they are obviously confident he can be their quarterback of the future. In fact, general manager Brandon Beane says the team is not ruling out the possibility of Allen starting as a rookie.
“We’re not going to rush him, but you know if he somehow wins the job, he wins it,” Beane said, via Matthew Fairburn of NewYorkUpstate.com. “There’s other players out there. There will be 52 other players out there and if they see that he’s clearly the best, I don’t think we (bench him). We wouldn’t do that at any other position, so we’ll let it go.
“But he’s got a lot of catching up to do, that’s the thing. AJ (McCarron) and Nathan (Peterman) are a long way ahead just getting in here with (offensive coordinator) Brian (Daboll) when the offseason conditioning program started.”
In the meantime, Allen is saying all the right things.
“My goal is to help this team win football games, whether that’s being the starter day one, game six, game ten, a year from now, two years from now, or just being a backup to AJ or Nate,” the rookie told reporters. “That’s what I’m going to be; I’m going to be the best teammate possible.”
Allen would probably benefit from sitting out for a season, as most rookie quarterbacks go through serious growing pains if they end up starting immediately. He also had some accuracy issues in college, though he believes he knows how to fix them. Our best guess is McCarron will start in Week 1 unless Allen lights it up in his first training camp.
