Former Buffalo Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor was named the team’s biggest scapegoat of the past decade in an exercise conducted recently by Bleacher Report.
The first part of the past decade was not a stellar time for the Bills, as the team consistently fell short of postseason play for a good chunk of the decade, ultimately concluding with the team’s 2017 playoff berth. Prior to that season, though, there was a lot of blame to be passed around with the Bills’ consistent futility.
Tyrod Taylor was the Bills starting quarterback from 2015-2017. He was named to the Pro Bowl in 2015, and he was the team’s signal caller in their return to the playoffs. Taylor has won the fifth-most games as a quarterback in team history.
However, Taylor was polarizing, viewed as a low-ceiling player due to questions about the consistency of his passing game.
B/R highlighted that even with the incremental progress that the team made under Taylor, the facts would always be followed with “Yeah, but…”
The climax of Taylor’s time with Buffalo was the team’s 2017 Wild Card playoff game against Jacksonville. In that game, Taylor went 17-of-37 for 134 passing yards. The most damning fact: he could only lead the team to a three offensive points on the day.
Here’s part of the deep-dive by B/R on Taylor’s selection:
Was the loss entirely Taylor’s fault? No. LeSean McCoy was held to 75 rushing yards, and Buffalo had five penalties for 52 yards. However, it’s hard to believe the Bills wouldn’t have accomplished more with their 74 plays—compared to the Jacksonville Jaguars’ 59—with an even competent passing performance.
Buffalo held Jacksonville to a mere 10 points, but Taylor and Co. produced only three.
The Bills traded Taylor to the Cleveland Browns that offseason, kick-starting the Josh Allen era. Thanks to Allen, Taylor is mostly a distant memory in Buffalo—except for his final game in a Bills uniform.
Taylor was infamously benched during the 2017 season, even as the team held a playoff spot, for Nathan Peterman. That failed at epic levels for the Bills. The team returned to Taylor as the starter, but the offense could not get over the hump, culminating with the offense’s playoff struggles in Jacksonville.
Then even as Taylor led the Bills to that playoff berth, it seemed apparent to many, partly because of the Bills selecting Peterman over Taylor on that day, that the Bills would move on from him the ensuing offseason. Which is exactly what the club did.
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