Bills Will Start Former Practice Squad Member

The Buffalo Bills' season took a monster hit, literally, whenever rookie starter EJ Manuel suffered a knee injury during Thursday Night's match-up against the Browns. On Friday morning, Bills head coach Doug Marrone announced that Manuel would be out 'for several weeks' with an LCL sprain.

Back-up quarterback Jeff Tuel came into the game for Manuel and successfully took away any opportunity for the Bills to have a rare prime-time win on the road. Tuel went 8-for-20 for 80 yards and an interception.

While it's true that Tuel was put into a tough situation in which he basically had zero reps the week previously, Buffalo's actions on Monday showed exactly how much faith they have in the rookie out of Washington State.

About an hour ago, the Bills confirmed they have signed quarterback Thad Lewis from their practice squad. Lewis was originally signed in 2010 by the Rams and has since had stints with the Browns and Lions. He's had one career start that was for the Browns in 2012 in which he was 22 of 32 for 204 yards with a touchdown and one interception.

Lewis was picked up by the Bills in August via trade from the Lions as Buffalo was scratching for depth at quarterback.

The most telling piece of this story is that Lewis has been added to the active roster to start immediately. He will be under center against the Bengals this Sunday.

This is the Bills letting us know that the Jeff Tuel experiment could be over. He had every opportunity to not only win the starting job in the off-season but also be the legit back-up to Manuel.

Now we know that he is neither and the 2-3 Buffalo Bills will have a hard time progressing with their quarterback of the future on the sideline for the next few weeks.