The Buffalo Bills signed AJ McCarron in free agency and traded up to draft Josh Allen in the first round after getting rid of long-time starter Tyrod Taylor in March. Yet there’s a chance that their opening-day starter will be a quarterback who is actually entering his second season with the team. That quarterback? Nathan Peterman, the same quarterback who threw five interceptions in his first half of regular-season football last season.
It turns out, some serious buzz supporting Peterman’s candidacy is beginning to mount. On Friday, ESPN’s Bills reporter, Mike Rodak, called Peterman the team’s surprise offseason camp standout. Rodak noted that Peterman is splitting first-team reps with McCarron and then wrote that “Peterman should be considered a serious contender for the starting job in Buffalo.”
Here’s Rodak’s entire blurb for ESPN:
The 2017 fifth-round pick was an afterthought at best and a laughingstock at worst after his five-interception performance against the Chargers last season, but Peterman should be considered a serious contender for the starting job in Buffalo. He has rotated daily with AJ McCarron to lead the first-team offense, with rookie Josh Allen starting in minicamp to see periodic time with that group. Peterman has looked sharp, including Tuesday at minicamp, when he completed 10 of 13 passes in 11-on-11 drills and ended practice with a touchdown.
Due entirely to that five-interception nightmare, it’s tough to believe in Peterman’s ability to actually steal away the starting job. That’s how bad he was for one half of football. But it’s probably not fair to Peterman to judge him entirely off that performance. After all, he wasn’t the one who decided to bench a pretty good starter in Taylor and insert a fifth-round rookie against the sneaky-good Chargers in Los Angeles. He was placed into a bad situation by Sean McDermott and he certainly didn’t make the best of it.
But here’s why Peterman could win the job: His competition is very beatable. There’s McCarron, another former fifth-round pick who spent the first four years of his career backing up and filling in for Andy Dalton in Cincinnati. With the Bengals, McCarron seldom saw the field and he never wowed anyone when he did get the chance to play. Then there’s Allen, who features an arm as pure as Lannister gold, but is viewed more as more of a developmental prospect. He’s not expected to start immediately, which is why he’s third on the depth chart.
None of this means that Peterman should suddenly be considered the favorite to win the job, but it’s probably time for us to consider him a factor in the race, which won’t heat up until training camp and the preseason.
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