The Bills’ QB Change Backfired Terribly As Nathan Peterman Threw Five First-Half Interceptions

The Buffalo Bills made a quarterback change earlier this week, benching starter Tyrod Taylor in favor of 2017 fifth-round draft pick Nathan Peterman. It was a somewhat controversial move — Taylor has been solid this year, completing 64.2 percent of his passes while throwing 10 touchdowns to three interceptions. He hasn’t been a superstar, but he’s been perfectly fine and helped put the Bills in the hunt for a wild card spot.

Despite this, Taylor got yanked for a rookie who was selected on day three of the draft. Bills coach Sean McDermott said of the decision “As I continually evaluate our roster and our goal to become better, I’ve decided to start Nate Peterman as our quarterback this week.”

Peterman got his shot against the Los Angeles Chargers and promptly had as bad of a first half as you can imagine. The rookie out of Pittsburgh went 6-for-14 in the first half with five interceptions as Buffalo went into the locker room trailing 37-7 at the half. Here’s his fifth pick, which occurred as he was trying to engineer a drive at the end of the second quarter and threw the ball right to a Chargers defender.

Injured Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman was not happy with the decision to bench Taylor for Peterman, and let everyone know about his opposition to the move after the rookie’s second interception.

Things were so bad that Bills fans in attendance started chanting for a QB change back to their original starter.

Rookies make mistakes, so Peterman struggling in his first start wouldn’t have stunned anyone. But five interceptions in a half is bad by any standard, especially when Taylor’s best trait is arguably his ability to protect the football. Maybe he’ll be able to settle down and play a little more loose going forward now that he has played as poorly as you can imagine, or maybe the decision to bench Taylor will end up looking like a massive mistake that potentially costs Buffalo a spot in the postseason.