When a youngster is learning to swim, there comes a point when they have to jump into the deep end to figure out if they can handle themselves in the water.
The kids that float are fine. The ones that don’t have to be taken back for some more lessons before giving it another shot.
Why the swimming talk? Because the Bills are heading back to the shallow end with quarterback E.J. Manuel after Sunday’s 27-6 thumping at the hands of the Buccaneers. Manuel threw four interceptions and took seven sacks as he continued his habit of poor performances away from Ralph Wilson Stadium and coach Doug Marrone said after the game that the team would be cutting back on the offense to avoid overwhelming the rookie quarterback.
“I think we’ve been giving him more and more. Now it’s a point of where you have to re-evaluate that. He’s been going fast with his progression and now we just have to look at it and get him started again,” Marrone said, via ESPN.com. “It’s not starting over -- don’t get me wrong -- [but] we’ve got to look to see what we can do and probably cut down what we’re doing.”
Manuel’s rookie season has been a mixed bag in terms of performance and the knee injury that cost him four games certainly didn’t do anything to help smooth out his transition to the pro game. Scaling things back at this point and then rebuilding things during the offseason sounds like a wiser move than continuing to force feeding things that aren’t working at this moment in time.