Could Tyrod Taylor Legitimately Become the Buffalo Bills' Starting QB?

The Buffalo Bills are planning to use the summer to stage a genuinely wide-open competition at the quarterback position.

Veteran Matt Cassel, former first-round pick EJ Manuel, former Baltimore Ravens backup Tyrod Taylor and last season's practice squad quarterback, Jeff Tuel, will all receive opportunities to earn the start when the Bills open the 2015 season against Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts on Sept. 13.

General manager Doug Whaley confirmed the impartial competition during a recent appearance on The Jim Rome Show, (h/t Chris Brown of Bills.com).

Despite being a career backup with zero NFL starts and just five passing attempts over the last two seasons, Taylor should have a legitimate chance of winning the job. But this possibility probably says more about the current state of Buffalo's quarterback depth chart than Taylor's untapped ability as a starter.

A spectacularly mediocre four-player competition at the game's most important position will now determine who quarterbacks an otherwise playoff-ready roster.

“The way they’re structuring practices, everyone is getting a run with the ones,” Whaley said. “So it’s a fair shake. In this system that we’re trying to figure out who is going to be the No. 1, it’s all about competition. That’s why everybody involved is excited about it.”

A fair shake is one reason why Taylor picked Buffalo as his next home.

After four years of backing up entrenched starter and Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco in Baltimore, the 25-year-old wanted a chance to earn meaningful snaps.

According to David Steele of Sporting News, head coach Rex Ryan used the allure of a true competition to get Taylor, who signed with the Bills in March.

“He (Ryan) was telling me how excited he was to have a chance to have me there and to have me compete for the job,’’ said Taylor. “Throughout the process, I thought this opportunity was the best for an open competition. That’s what I’d always felt throughout the offseason, and I had confidence in what I could do when I got that chance."

Taylor can earn roughly $7 million over two years if he becomes the starter in Buffalo, according to Mike Rodak of ESPN. The deal includes $1.2 million guaranteed.

Winning the job will require Taylor to beat out Cassel—whom Buffalo dealt for this offseason—and Manuel, the No. 16 overall pick in the 2013 draft. Tuel, a 2013 undrafted free agent with one career NFL start, remains the longest of long shots in the race.

Taylor's task is far from impossible.

Paul Sancya/Associated Press

Neither Cassel nor Manuel can be considered locks to start in Week 1.

Cassel is by far the most accomplished of the four, with 71 career starts with three different franchises. He once helped the New England Patriots win 10 games after losing Tom Brady in Week 1 of 2008, and his 27-touchdown, seven-interception campaign for the Kansas City Chiefs earned him a Pro Bowl invitation following the 2010 season.

But being accomplished should mean very little in this competition.

Cassel is now 33 years old, with a regressing skill set and recent injury issues. While his career passer rating sits at a pedestrian 80.1, his last four years of production highlight a bigger problem.

Since 2011, Cassel has thrown 34 interceptions against just 30 touchdowns, with a passer rating of just 74.0. Of the 54 quarterbacks who have started at least 10 games over the last four seasons, Cassel's passer rating is tied for 46th.

He hasn't started more than nine games in any of the previous four years, while the Chiefs and Minnesota Vikings were a combined 9-17 in his 26 starts.

Cassel might be labeled a game manager, but he's proven himself to be reckless and inefficient with the football in recent seasons. It would be difficult to argue Cassel is any kind of upgrade over the recently retired Kyle Orton, who threw 18 touchdowns and posted a 87.8 passer rating for the Bills last season.

	Cassel	Manuel	Taylor	Tuel
Age	33	25	25	24
Acquired	Trade	16th overall in 2013	UFA	UDFA
G-GS	90-71	15-14	14-0	2-1
Att	2369	437	35	59
Cmp. %	59.0	58.6	54.3	44.1
TD-INT	96-70	16-12	0-2	1-3
YPA	6.6	6.4	5.7	5.2
Passer Rating	80.1	78.5	47.2	45.1
Rush Yards	931	238	136	17

Buffalo dealt a fifth-round pick in 2015 and a sixth-round pick in 2016 to acquire Cassel from Minnesota back in early March. The Bills' scramble for a quarterback wouldn't have been as necessary had a certain high pick developed more swiftly.

The first quarterback taken in 2013, Manuel has since provided precious little evidence of his ability to take the starting job by the horns this summer.

He has thrown 16 touchdowns and 12 interceptions over 15 starts, with a passer rating of 78.5 and a career completion percentage of 58.6.

Maybe Manuel is a victim of the recent quarterback surge during which highly drafted players have produced immediate results. The start of his NFL career has been a mostly anticipated series of highs and lows, with four games with a passer rating over 95.0 and another four under 65.0.

There have been flashes of first-round talent but little sign of consistency—the one trait that separates the good from the great and the backups from the starters.

Manuel was benched in favor of Orton last season.

Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images

Recent rumblings from Buffalo had placed Manuel's roster spot in jeopardy this summer, but Whaley all but dismissed the rumors as manufactured hearsay. As is the case with the other quarterbacks on the roster, Manuel will get his chance.

"Everybody has got an equal footing," Whaley said. "It’s a clean slate for all four of our quarterbacks. We’re not tied to anybody. We just want the best man to start."

Like Manuel, Taylor needed the clean slate. Probably more than the others. More specifically, he needed the opportunity.

The Ravens took the former Virginia Tech star in the sixth round of the 2011 draft. To his credit, Taylor stuck on the Baltimore roster for the next four seasons, winning the backup job every year. But he never made a start behind Flacco, who hasn't missed a game in his NFL career.

He won't need to wait on an injury in Buffalo.

Taylor is a different kind of quarterback. While not ideally sized at 6'1" and 208 pounds or pinpoint accurate (57.2 completion percentage over almost 900 college attempts), Taylor does provide speed and athleticism at the position.

It's possible new Bills offensive coordinator Greg Roman could design a type of offense around Taylor similar to one he used with Colin Kaepernick in San Francisco.

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

Ryan sounded especially tempted by the speed aspect.

"If he’s not the fastest quarterback in the league, he’s certainly up there with them," Ryan said, via Rodak. "He’s got great run skills. I’m not gonna say he’s Russell Wilson, but he’s got a little of that in him, where he’s able to run zone reads and pull the ball down and be effective."

The fleet-of-foot Taylor could team with new running back LeSean McCoy to create an attractive read-option combination. It's a wrinkle neither Cassel nor Manuel could provide at his level.

Then again, playing quarterback in the NFL requires much more than zone reads. Taylor's sample size in throwing the football is a small one. Ironically, the passing part of the job description figures to be his biggest hurdle in winning the job.

Taylor only attempted 35 regular-season passes in Baltimore. He completed 19, but averaged only 5.7 yards per attempt with two interceptions and zero scores.

However, Taylor did impress at times in the preseason. In 2013 and 2014, the Baltimore backup threw seven touchdown passes and rushed for nearly 200 yards. Exhibition games must always be considered in context, but no opportunity can be dismissed for a young player.

To realistically win the job, Taylor will need to display an ability to distribute the football safely and efficiently this summer.

Starting a quarterback without those attributes would be basically wasting the immense talent ready to be unleashed in receivers Sammy Watkins and Percy Harvin as well as tight end Charles Clay.

There's a chance the Bills are selling this open competition as nothing more than a motivating tool for Cassel and Manuel, the two expected front-runners to start. In a perfect world, the Bills would probably enter the 2015 season with a new and improved Manuel as the starter and either Cassel or Taylor holding down the backup job.

But it's equally possible that Whaley and Ryan can see the obvious. The Bills are not especially talented at quarterback. A long-term solution at the position might not exist on the current roster.

Cassel hasn't played consistently well in over four years. Manuel is nearing bust territory as he begins his third season. Tuel's realistic ceiling is that of a backup.

Taylor remains the great unknown, and there's a certain appeal to the unknown. The only way to discover the secrets of the unrevealed is to provide an opportunity. Taylor has his now. He can't be ruled out as an option to lead a talented Bills team starved to find a quarterback.

Statistics courtesy of Pro-Football-Reference.com.

Zach Kruse covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. 

Follow @zachkruse2