Sullivan: Re-run - Bills face QB dilemma
"The Bills are among the worst offenses in the game, but they're 3-4. If they keep this up, they'll be alive for a playoff spot in December, same as a year ago."
It's eerie how history repeats itself. I wrote those lines two years ago, after an ugly, 13-3, road win at the Jets. After a 1-4 start, a Bills team crippled by injuries had won two games in a row to lift itself back into playoff contention.
Trent Edwards, then a rookie, had injured his wrist early in the game. J.P. Losman had relieved him and thrown an 85-yard touchdown pass to Lee Evans to sew up the win. Losman was set to start the next game, at home, and a full-blown quarterback controversy was about to erupt in Buffalo.
Coach Dick Jauron was predictably evasive at the time. He wouldn't say whether Edwards was still his long-term starter, or whether Losman had a chance to win back his job for good. Jauron said the NFL was a "performance-based business," and he believed that the long term usually took care of itself.
The key word was "business," of course. It was evident by then that Losman was not going to get a contract extension at the end of the '07 season. His days as the franchise quarterback were over. It was Edwards' job. In 2008, Losman played out the final year of his original contract and was gone.
So here we are again, only this time it's Edwards who is in the next-to-last year of his deal, and rapidly losing his grip on his status as a franchise QB. Ryan Fitzpatrick, a career backup, has led the Bills to consecutive wins and has people muttering the old line about him "giving us the best chance to win."
Fitzpatrick will start again here Sunday against Houston. On Monday, Jauron ruled Edwards out with a concussion. It's a bad sign if Edwards can be dismissed so soon, an indication that this concussion could be more serious than last year's. Or maybe Jauron simply wants to keep riding the Harvard grad.
Jauron wouldn't speculate on what might happen when Edwards is healthy again. Push button. Replays coach's comments from '07: "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Jauron said.
I'm guessing it's the same bridge Losman reached two years ago, the one that leads an elite QB to his lucrative second contract, with the huge bonus. The bridge was blown up by the time Losman arrived. And they're likely to push the plunger on Edwards, too.
Look, it's a very big deal to give a quarterback the big extension. You need to be sure. Last spring, the Panthers gave Jake Delhomme a five-year, $42.5 million contract extension. How's that one working out? Delhomme has 18 interceptions in his last seven games.
Fans and media in Carolina are clamoring for Delhomme, who is 34, to be replaced. He's fighting for his job, and the men who signed off on that contract — GM Marty Hurney and coach John Fox — might wind up losing theirs.
In the NFL, no one's job is secure until you get the quarterback position settled. We know that only too well in Buffalo, where the Bills have been fumbling to find the right guy since Jim Kelly retired 13 years ago.
So would you give Edwards the sort of deal the Panthers gave Delhomme? I thought not. I hear a lot of silence out there, and some muffled laughter.
Of course, if Edwards isn't the answer, the long-term QB isn't on the roster. That's the difference between '07 and '09: Two years ago, the Bills thought they had their guy in Edwards. Ralph Wilson loved him. So did Jauron. Edwards is only 25, but if Fitzpatrick can inspire more hope, it is a troubling sign.
Fitzpatrick is a nice fill-in, but nothing more. The big question isn't who starts Sunday, or after the bye, but who will be the starting quarterback next season and the season after that. Now where have I heard all this before?
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