Getty Jake Fromm warms up before the AFC Championship game.
One of the biggest offseason moves for the Buffalo Bills could spell an early end for Jake Fromm, one insider speculates.
After making some major investments to the offense over the last two seasons, surrounding Josh Allen with the weapons he lacked in his first year in the league, the team moved to bring in a big-name insurance policy in the form of Mitch Trubisky. The move gives the Bills what many consider to be one of the top quarterback tandems in the league, but could leave a difficult path for Fromm to make the roster.
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Fromm’s Uphill Battle
In a mailbag for the Buffalo News, Bills beat writer Jay Skurski fielded a question about what implications the Trubisky signing have for Fromm’s career. The Bills used a fifth-round draft pick to snag the Georgia quarterback last year, and asked him to play an unconventional but important role — quarantine quarterback. Fromm practiced apart from the rest of his teammates, staying ready in case an outbreak were to take out Allen and backup Matt Barkley.
Skurski wrote that Trubisky’s signing appears to be a signal from the Bills that they do not yet see Fromm as capable of backing up Allen, and that a year without any real live reps — and no preseason at all to test his abilities — leaves the second-year quarterback as something of a question mark.
Bills signing QB Mitch Trubisky to one-year deal.
“With Allen and Trubisky set as the team’s top two quarterbacks, it sets up an interesting question about what to do behind them,” Skurski wrote. “In 2019, the team kept just two quarterbacks – Allen and Matt Barkley – on the active roster. If that’s the plan again, Fromm’s job could be in jeopardy.”
Skurski added that the Bills are likely to keep another quarterback on the practice squad, but it appears that former 2017 third-round pick Davis Webb is in line for that role. That would leave Fromm with a lot of work to do to make the roster in 2021, he wrote.
“Fromm could be in a position in which he has to convince the Bills to keep him on the 53-man roster, because carrying two quarterbacks on the practice squad seems unlikely. It’s silly to do a 53-man roster projection until after the draft, but Fromm would not be on mine right now.”
