When the Bills selected quarterback E.J. Manuel in the first round, the list of things they were hoping to see happen during his rookie year certainly did not include three knee injuries.
That’s what they got, though, as Manuel injured his left knee in the preseason and his right knee in Week Five against the Browns before hurting the left one again last weekend. That will keep him out of this weekend’s game against the Dolphins, but it hasn’t made coach Doug Marrone question Manuel’s durability. Marrone admitted that it is tough to defend that opinion, but he did it anyway.
“When you look at the injuries and how they’ve occurred, it’s really been ... outside of the Cleveland one, and Cleveland, I think it’s very easy for us to see, he took a shot right on it. But the other two, when you talk about Minnesota in the preseason and this last one, you’re looking and you can see it, and you’re like ‘Wow,’ the position of him and the position of somebody else, and it’s not a surgical-type procedure that you need to correct. So what we’ll do in the offseason is we’ll strengthen those things, do different things to get him ready, and I don’t forsee it being a problem,” Marrone said, via Mike Rodak of ESPN.com.
It’s impossible to know right now what the future will hold for Manuel and his knees, but we can be sure that the Bills will be back in the quarterback market a lot sooner than expected if Marrone’s wrong about Manuel’s knees.