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If you don't already listen to The Rich Eisen Podcast, you should fold it into your rotation, because it's excellent. In the most recent episode of the podcast, Eisen (NFL Network) had former league scout and current analyst Daniel Jeremiah on to talk about the 2013 NFL Draft.
Naturally, the quarterback position came up, and because the quarterback position came up, that brought the Buffalo Bills into the discussion briefly. Eisen and Jeremiah quickly, efficiently and accurately summed up Buffalo's quarterback situation as follows:
Eisen: "Well, I mean, shoot - boy, do they need a quarterback."
Jeremiah: "Oof."
Eisen asked Jeremiah to "handicap" the quarterback position, and rather than assign round grades as most analysts do, Jeremiah broke the position down a bit differently.
"In Baltimore with Ozzie Newsome, we separated it this way," Jeremiah explained. "Is he an immediate starter, is he an eventual starter, is he a potential starter, or is he a backup?
"I see one eventual starter for me, and that's (Geno Smith)," Jeremiah continued. "And then after that, there's a whole group of guys - you're talking about five or six guys that are just different styles - but to me, they're all just potential starters. I don't know that you can say, three years from now, we're going to have many starting quarterbacks out of this group."
Within the past week or so (thanks largely to the release of a certain bearded gunslinger from Harvard), the quarterback-at-No. 8 talk surrounding the Bills has gained a new head of steam, with USC's Matt Barkley the most popular name at the moment. Jeremiah, however, maintains that he's hearing that only one quarterback will go in the first round, and doesn't think Barkley will make the cut.
"I think (Barkley) will go in the second round in this group," Jeremiah said. "I really do."
As the Bills continue to conduct private workouts with quarterbacks - they did Smith on Friday, and are meeting with E.J. Manuel of Florida State today - it's worth noting that while Jeremiah predicts one quarterback to go in Round 1, other reputable analysts (such as Greg Cosell) believe three or four will be taken.