Opinion: This is the wrong time for the Buffalo Bills to switch to Nathan Peterman

Two weeks ago after crushing the Oakland Raiders, Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott talked about how confident he was in his starting quarterback. He said the confidence he had in Tyrod Taylor is what pushed him to go for a critical fourth down conversion that resulted in a touchdown.

Today, two pitiful performances by the run game and defense and one poor performance from the quarterback later, Taylor now finds himself on the bench. Stepping in for Taylor is rookie quarterback Nathan Peterman. This move is wrong for so many reasons.

The Bills, who if the season ended today would be in the playoffs, are on a two-game skid. However, the issues that have caused the Bills to regress from Week one are not located under center. The run defense has vanished, the run game has been virtually non-existent, and the play calling has not exactly been stellar.

Sure, you can make the case that Taylor doesn’t read the whole field and takes off running too soon sometimes. I wouldn’t disagree with you. But does that mean a rookie gives the Bills a better chance to succeed?

If the brass really wanted to give Peterman a shot, why not give him the reins at the beginning of the year and throw him into the fire when the team was expected to be awful? Throwing him into the fire and saying, “Okay Nathan, don’t lose the playoffs for us,” is a a lot for any quarterback to handle, especially a rookie that has never gone against NFL starters before.

Buffalo is in the heart of the playoff race, a place they don’t tend to find themselves nine games deep into the season. Two weeks ago, if we conducted a poll, nearly all Bills fans would say the team was on their way to the playoffs for the first time in 17 years.

Going back to the Oakland game, do you have that much confidence that Peterman would convert on the fourth down? I say put the ball in Tyrod’s hand 11 times out of 10 in that situation.