**FYI** EJ Manuel Suspended for Remainder of Playoffs

majesty95

Admin
Staff member
After last night's game between Cleveland and Buffalo, there were reports that the Bills may have broken league rules regarding distribution of plays. Specifically, unidentified sources claimed that BIlls QB EJ Manuel was excessively using slants and crossing routes in the Bills 28-13 win over Cleveland. A league investigation revealed that Manuel did in fact break league rules. The findings are as follow:
  • Manuel completed 10 drags, slants or crossing routes on 18 completions. The limit is 10 in 25 completions.
  • Manuel completed 4 corner routes in 18 passes. The limit is three in 25 completions.
  • Manuel also did not complete an in, out, streak or comeback. This violated the league's policy on mixing up plays in a realistic manner.
There was also a question as to whether the Bills ran a playaction on 3rd and long (prohibited by league rules). The findings were inconclusive, however. The Bills claimed that they hot routed the running back to kill the play action yet punted the ball away when it was brought to their attention. Due to this fact, the league chose to treat this as a first time offense (rather than multiple infractions in the same game) and therefore are suspending Manuel for the remainder of the playoffs (rule is offending player for 2 games). Manuel must be removed from the Bills depth chart and will not be allowed to make an appearance for the remainder of the playoffs.

When asked about the specific play limits commissioner majesty95 had this to say:

"While we regret that this situation has come about in such a high profile game, we must enforce the rules at all times to make sure that all teams are playing on an even playing field. Normally, we may give a pass to a team or player if he was over on just one route and doesn't have a history of abusing the rules. However, the fact that there were multiple limits violated and several routes that were not used, we felt that it was necessary to address it. We, as a league, apologize to the Cleveland Browns and wish the Bills success in their game against the Denver Broncos and possibly the Super Bowl."

Konvict27, Xxclaywilliamxx, sifukeatis, Paytonno1son, BigTexas18, woodsmall12, pack1797, BlackPaw, Mark, rkjones217, Warren7, NightHawkTH32, Titanman931, Trizzle911, Kwarren3, IAmBPBurke, bruiser
 
Top