How Much Does Tyrod Taylor's Preseason Matter?

New Bills starting quarterback Tyrod Taylor has taken just 128 regular-season snaps. Part of the "maybe he develops more" class of young backups with Ryan Mallett, Taylor got just over a million dollars guaranteed as a free agent. At the time, his signing seemed like an insignificant move. Head coach Rex Ryan had already brought in Matt Cassel to babysit the Bills offense until they could draft a real quarterback. Third-year quarterback E.J. Manuel—drafted 16th overall in 2013—had more pedigree than Taylor as well.

But Taylor's agent found the one head coach with a hole at quarterback who had no compunction about switching players around. Jets fans had to endure Ryan randomly using Matt Simms and, most notably, Tim Tebow for long stints. Ryan treats quarterbacks with the sell-low/buy-high mentality of a failed house flipper.

For some, Taylor winning the job at the end of this preseason might have come as a surprise. But Cassel's play had disintegrated, and those familiar with Ryan could have predicted a change. Last week, the Bills cut Cassel, which means the job now undoubtedly belongs to Taylor. But is that a good thing?

I looked at the Pro Football Focus grades of every preseason quarterback who a) had less than three years of experience and b) had less than 600 NFL snaps. My reasoning behind using PFF grades is that no other site covers the preseason with any advanced statistics (since 2013, anyway). While a grade isn't a stand-in for a true level of talent, the results of this study are interesting. Eighteen of the 22 quarterbacks with the highest preseason PFF grades in 2013 and 2014 saw regular season playing time. That tells us that coaches do care about preseason results.

Four quarterbacks in that entire study have maintained a positive grade during the regular season. Only one of the top 22 preseason performers from the study has a positive regular-season grade. (Teddy Bridgewater.) Yes, it's early in their careers. Yes, there was no Andrew Luck in the last two classes. Yes, small sample sizes do apply. But the fact that preseason success had no real effect on regular-season performance isn't surprising. Defenses tend to play vanilla in the preseason. Offenses tend to not ask backup quarterbacks to make tough throws. The coaches can always scale the playbook back if they have to run the backup out in the regular season. These two factors create a storm that can make men of Matt McGloins and kings of Case Keenums.

Taylor is PFF's second-ranked quarterback in the preseason through Week 4. While he's accrued too much NFL experience to qualify for my study this year, he qualified for it in 2013 when his preseason rating was +2.5. To put that into perspective, Manuel's preseason rating in 2013 was +2.0. He followed that up in the regular season with a rating of -18.1. The results of preseason mean something to NFL head coaches, but when you see a downturn like that, it makes you wonder why they do.

It's especially puzzling because the Bills already subjected their fans to this two years ago. Jeff Tuel finished 2013 second in PFF's preseason ratings. The Bills allowed Tuel to mop up a game in Week 5 in Cleveland. Then, Tuel started Week 9 against the Chiefs—the only start of his career—and proceeded to gift the Chiefs two touchdowns: a pick-six and a fumble. Ryan released Tuel earlier this offseason.

Buffalo's quarterback situation is a quagmire this year. Against the Texans, Manuel had perhaps the worst quarterback start I saw last year—and I watched 16 Blake Bortles games. Matt Cassel has been a placeholder type since the turn of the decade, and has done little to gain his coach's confidence. There's been a backlash for years against coaches handing jobs to pedestrian quarterbacks just for being "established." In that sense, we should applaud that Taylor isn't a known commodity. Even if Taylor's accuracy runs scattershot, his legs could at could create problems for defenses.

But let's not pretend this story is anything but circumstances breaking right for a guy who picked the right depth chart. Empty plaudits rained on Twitter after his ascension to the starting role.

I like the Tyrod Taylor decision to start at QB by Rex and the Bills Organization.
— mark schlereth (@markschlereth) August 31, 2015

Why is @Rodney_Harrison optimistic about @buffalobills offense with Tyrod Taylor starting at QB? Tune in tonight at 6ET to find out.
— PFTonNBCSN (@PFTonNBCSN) August 31, 2015

I'm not going to tell you that Taylor is incapable of having a good game, or a good month. Josh McCown had a great month as recently as 2013! Quarterbacks are capable of some wildly random things in a small sample size.

But believing that Taylor is going to save the season based on his work in the preseason is naive. The truth of the matter is that Taylor is starting because nobody else proved worthy.

The Bills, like a few teams on the edge of contention, are a quarterback away from the playoffs.

But they're embracing a preseason star without any pedigree or regular-season success to run the show. In doing so, they've probably made the wrong choice.