The Buffalo Bills surprised everyone when they took quarterback E.J. Manuel in the first round of the 2013 NFL Draft. Many knew that the Bills needed a quarterback, but few suspected it would be that quarterback and few suspected they would take one that early, especially given that they signed Kevin Kolb to presumably take over the position.
E.J. Manuel to compete for Buffalo Bills starting job
The Buffalo Bills seem to want E.J. Manuel to compete for the starting job this year, going up against Kevin Kolb and Tarvaris Jackson.
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But CEO and president Russ Brandon told Yahoo!‘s Michael Silver following the draft that Manuel isn’t a guy that the Bills hope to develop into a starter somewhere down the line: he’s going to come in and compete in 2013.
"Our goal coming in was to bring in another bell-cow quarterback to compete for the job, and we did that with E.J," Brandon said. Manuel is a very raw quarterback so it will be interesting to see if he can actually fend off Kolb and Tarvaris Jackson to take the reigns in 2013.
Kolb was actually doing well for the Arizona Cardinals before getting injured in 2012. He played in six games and threw for 1,169 yards with eight touchdowns and three interceptions. His biggest knock was his subpar 59.6 completion percentage. Jackson last played with the Seattle Seahawks in 2011, where he threw for 3,091 yards and 14 touchdowns against 13 interceptions in 15 games.
Manuel is clearly the quarterback that the Bills wanted, but it’s hard to see him being the quarterback that they need him to be to make progress in 2013. That said, the guys he’s up against aren’t exactly the best of the best, so Manuel making some noise is definitely a possibility.
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