On the surface, it would seem like the Buffalo Bills are content with their quarterback situation after they worked out a new deal with Tyrod Taylor. But behind the scenes, they are apparently dead set on finding “the next guy.”
In an appearance on Jason McIntyre’s FOX Sports Radio show over the weekend, Albert Breer of The MMQB said the Bills are “very, very serious” about spending their first-round pick — No. 10 overall — on a quarterback.
“What Cleveland’s going to have to do now if they want Mitch Trubisky, I think they’re going to have to hop over Buffalo … if Tyrod [Taylor] proves to be the long-term answer there, you’ve got a great commodity sitting on your bench. It’s like the Ron Wolf theory — when the [Packers] had Brett Favre, they kept drafting QBs – they’d draft one every year — Matt Hasslebeck, Aaron Brooks, Mark Brunell, Ty Detmer — [and] they flipped all those guys for draft picks.
“I think Buffalo is very, very serious about taking a QB at 10. If you’re the Browns, it’s, ‘Ok, we have to get in front of Buffalo now. maybe we have to move up and trade with Carolina or the Chargers or Jets … if we want Trubisky, we want to be sure we get him, but we don’t want to spend the #1 pick on him.’”
While Taylor is only 27, it’s hard to get a read on how the Bills view him. The free agent market was so thin at QB this offseason that it’s possible Buffalo reached a compromise with Taylor for the mere fact that they had no other option. If they truly considered him to be a franchise cornerstone, they probably would have just picked up the option that guaranteed Taylor another $30 million and extended his deal.
If the Bills trade up for a QB, that would be a pretty strong message to Taylor that they do not have total confidence in him.
