The Slatest

Bills Coach Still Not Sure It Was a Mistake to Start Quarterback Who Had Worst Game of All Time

Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott during Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Chargers in Carson, California.

Kelvin Kuo/USA TODAY Sports/Reuters

On Sunday, Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott benched quarterback Tyrod Taylor—who’d had a rough game the previous week but is in general a pretty good player—for a rookie named Nathan Peterman. Peterman subsequently turned in what, at least by one measure, was literally the worst performance by a quarterback in modern (post-1970 merger) NFL history, throwing an unprecedented five interceptions in one half against the Los Angeles Chargers. Tayor replaced him in the second half of the game and performed competently, throwing for one touchdown and running for another.

To the layperson, it would seem like Tyrod Taylor should be the Bills’ starting quarterback going forward, given that he is not the worst quarterback in NFL history. But it doesn’t seem that way to Sean McDermott: “I don’t regret my decision,” McDermott said Sunday, telling reporters that he would have to watch film of the game before choosing between Peterman and Taylor. McDermott then gave a press conference Monday from the bottom of a very deep hole in which he is apparently still digging:

Pretty darn good, folks.

What’s spectacular about this is not that McDermott is trying to rationalize having made a bad choice, which coaches (and noncoaches) do all the time. It’s that he’s doing so using the language of evidence-based decision-making, as if the evidence, upon judicious review during a 5:30 a.m. film session, might indicate that Nathan Peterman actually had a great game. Just give it up, Sean McDermott!