Buffalo Bills: McDermott’s gamble fails against Chargers – 5 Takeaways

1. The Nathan Peterman experiment fails in spectacular fashion

Entering Week 12 with two straight losses, Bills head coach Sean McDermott decided to shake things up in order to get back in the win column and save the season from disaster.

That shake up came in the form of giving quarterback Peterman his first career start and benching Taylor.

This shocked many across the NFL, because not only were the Bills still in the thick of the AFC playoff hunt with Taylor under centre, but Taylor hasn’t been a major problem statistically.

As Nick Wright from FS1’s First Thing’s First pointed out, Taylor is one of four quarterbacks this season to have 10 or more touchdowns and less than three interceptions. The other quarterbacks are Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Alex Smith.

Whenever a rookie quarterback makes his NFL debut, there’s no telling how things can go. But few people would have expected Peterman’s start to go so badly…well except for LeSean McCoy apparently.

Peterman completed six of 14 passes for 66 yards and a whopping five interceptions. Three of Peterman’s five picks came in the first quarter.

His poor performance forced the Bills to go back to Taylor in the third quarter when the game was completely out of reach for a Buffalo comeback.

Taylor completed 15 of 25 passes for 158 yards with one touchdown, while running the ball four times for 38 yards for a rushing touchdown in relief.

Not only was Peterman’s debut bad by traditional standards, but it was also one of the worst debuts by a quarterback in NFL history as pointed out by the NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.