Of all the horrendous quarterback performances last season – Pro Football Reference, in Weeks 1, 7, and 10, Manuel completed 69.6% of his throws for 196 yards, 2 touchdowns, and only 0.3 interceptions per game. While the yardage is certainly not impressive, his efficiency was middling at worst.

In the other seven games he played, Manuel only completed 55.1% of his passes for 198 yards, 0.7 touchdowns, and 1.1 interceptions per game. The yardage remained mainly unchanged, but the shift in his touchdown-to-interception ratio should raise a red flag.

In addition, Manuel isn't an overly mobile quarterback, which limits his statistical floor unlike other athletic play-callers like Net Expected Points (NEP) metric, which shows how a player’s performance affects his team’s point total, the picture only gets uglier.

While taking a look at rookie Sammy Watkins' prospects for 2014, numberFire’s Leo Howell briefly touched on how bad Manuel was using our metrics. Below are Manuel's 2013 numbers, and how he ranked among the 39 quarterbacks with at least 200 drop backs.

Hypothetically, if Manuel was a running back, a negative NEP number would be easier to understand. After all, it’s much more difficult to have a positive impact in the running game compared to the passing game, where big plays are much more likely to occur. But as it stands, Manuel is a quarterback, which makes his -47.83 Passing NEP even worse than it initially appears.

Manuel ranked near the bottom in every category among passers last year, and only Geno Smith was worse in regards to Passing NEP. As JJ Zachariason points out, history doesn't favor Smith’s future prospects, and Manuel may fall into that same category.

In order to gain an understanding about where Manuel might go from here, I believe it’s important to find some historical reference. I searched every season since 2009 to find quarterbacks who have finished in the bottom-five in terms Passing NEP with at least 200 attempts in a season being the cut-off point.

I’ve listed a few examples in two categories: Successes (players who despite having a terrible season eventually rebounded and improved their play) and Failures (players who never recovered from their horrific performance and now toil in relative obscurity).

Successes

At the top of this list is while discussing Khiry Robinson, I referenced our newly released rankings. In most leagues that start only one passer, Manuel is nothing more than an occasional streaming option in the event of injury or a plus weekly match-up.

In terms of real football, the odds of Manuel breaking the historical trend are small. In order for him to become a top-end NFL quarterback, a lot of things need to break in his favor in the next few years – improved accuracy and decision-making top this list. If the Bills continue to invest in offense talent to surround Manuel, however, his long-term prospects could improve.