The Tyrod Taylor era in Western New York is officially at an end.
Per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Buffalo Bills are trading Taylor to the Cleveland Browns. Buffalo is receiving Cleveland’s third-round pick in the 2018 draft as part of the transaction. Not soon thereafter, the Browns also announced they were trading DeShone Kizer to the Green Bay Packers.
Browns strike again.
This time, Cleveland agrees to trade a mid-round draft pick to Buffalo for QB Tyrod Taylor, source tells ESPN.
Taylor now will throw to new Browns’ WR Jarvis Landry.
And Buffalo back in QB market.
More on SportsCenter now.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 9, 2018
Buffalo Bills Trade Tyrod Taylor to Cleveland Browns
Taylor went 8-6 as a starter in 2017, a season which saw the Bills clinch its first playoff berth in 17 years. While he finished 25th among NFL quarterbacks in both passing yardage and touchdown tosses, he didn’t make very many mistakes. His four interceptions were best in the league among signal callers who completed a minimum of 250 passes.
Though those numbers may reinforce Taylor’s status as a game manager, they’re also historic from a certain perspective. He ended the 2017 regular season with a 0.95 interception percentage, a stat determined by dividing interceptions by pass attempts. That’s the third-best mark in NFL history among quarterbacks who threw a minimum of 400 passes in a season, trailing only Sam Bradford (2016) and Steve DeBerg (1990).
The Bills acquired Taylor in 2015 after he spent the first four years of his career behind Joe Flacco on the Baltimore Ravens‘ depth chart. He immediately assumed the starting role and ended up having his most prolific season to date. The 2011 sixth-round pick out of Virginia Tech recorded 3,035 passing yards while adding 20 touchdowns to just six interceptions. His 99.4 rating ranked seventh among regular starters that year.
The 28-year-old finishes his three-year tenure in Buffalo with a 22-20 record as a starter. Not only is his win total the fifth most in franchise history. He joins Jim Kelly, Jack Kemp, and Doug Flutie as the only Bills quarterbacks to win more than 20 games while also finishing with a winning record.
