Last week it was rookie quarterback E.J. Manuel going down for the rest of the preseason with a knee injury. This week the Buffalo Bills suffered another blow as quarterback Kevin Kolb suffered a concussion in their preseason game with the Washington Redskins.
The injuries leave the Bills with just one healthy quarterback on the roster. It is undrafted rookie free agent quarterback Jeff Tuel who played at Washington State last year. Now while Tuel has looked good in pre-season for Buffalo, he has mainly played third string minutes, against a quality of competition that is well below starting NFL standards.
The Bills have previously said that they expected Manuel to be ready for week one of the NFL regular. But since he underwent knee surgery its still a bit of an unknown. The prognosis on Kolb’s concussion is also up in the air, and so the Bills are in desperate need of quarterbacks.
One option that will be explored is moving Brad Smith to quarterback for a short-term stint. Smith was a quarterback in college for Missouri, and has been used by the Bills (and his previous team the New York Jets) as a Quarterback in Wildcat packages, he really hasn’t been a full-time qb since his college days and those ended in 2006. However one advantage is that Smith already has a knowledge of the the Bills new offensive system under head coach Doug Marrone and offensive co-ordinator Nathaniel Hackett.
The Bills will also be bringing in Matt Leinart and John Beck for tryouts this week. This again shows the desperate situation at the position as the former high draft picks, were both seen to have busted out of the league and didn’t garner much interest as free agents this spring.
For the Bills, desperate times call for desperate measures, as the regular season opener against the New England Patriots is just a couple of weeks away.
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