E.J. Manuel, Bills have strong outing against the Colts

The Buffalo Bills have moved on from their brief and highly unsuccessful Ryan Fitzpatrick era, but there have been a lot of questions about E.J. Manuel’s ability to perform at a high level immediately out of college. If today’s game was any indication, the Bills will be just fine with Manuel under center.

Manuel’s stat line, 16 of 21, 1 touchdown and no interceptions, doesn’t tell the whole story. It does indicate that Manuel wasn’t moving the ball deep, but he was moving the ball consistently, and more importantly, he wasn’t giving it away.

It’s important to note that the Bills are sporting a much less traditional, up-tempo offense this season that will likely reduce the number of deep passes, but the change should make the game far easier to manage for their quarterbacks.

Manuel wasn’t the only young quarterback that looked good under the Bills’ new offense. Jeff Tuel topped 200 yards with a pair of touchdowns and a completion percentage of over 80%. Like Manuel, Tuel didn’t turn the ball over, and ran a very efficient offense.

With such a strong performance, we’re curious to see how the Bills look in the coming preseason games. In addition, with Kevin Kolb’s absence and Manuel’s good performance, expect Manuel to become the favorite to win the Bills’ starting job in the near future.

About Shane Clemons

Shane Clemons came from humble beginnings creating his own Jaguars blog before moving on to SBNation as a featured writer for the Jaguars. He then moved to Bloguin where he briefly covered the AFC South before taking over Bloguin's Jaguars blog. Since the inception of This Given Sunday, Shane has served as an editor for the site, doing his best not to mess up a good thing.

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