After a fantastic 2-0 start and more good news than almost anyone knew how to handle, expectations and excitement were high leading up to the second home game against Sand Diego on Sunday. The fans came to see a solid defense, an offensive line giving time to a game-managing quarterback, and an offensive attack that mixed runs in with passes of all lengths to a talented corps of wide receivers. If you were there Sunday you saw it – unfortunately it was displayed by the guys with bolts on their helmets.

It was easy to be punch drunk in love with what we have seen so far from the Bills – even the most optimistic fans were surprised by the fast start and the way the Bills found to win rather than lose games. EJ Manuel, who had looked so terrible in the preseason, had stepped forward and displayed poise and leadership in the first two wins. Against this backdrop it was easy to overestimate what he would do on Sunday.

I’ll admit it – I was optimistic that the Bills could keep the wins coming by beating San Diego in front of another rabid, sold out crowd. With good defense and a quarterback who could manage, but not necessarily win the game, the Bills seemingly matched up against any team in the league – or so I thought.

The truth of the matter is that the Bills ran into a very good team on Sunday. When you look at a loss for your team it’s easy to express the loss in terms of what your team did or didn’t do to lose the game, but you’re fooling yourself if you didn’t clearly see that the Chargers were the better team on Sunday and played an excellent game.

Much of the credit for Sunday’s win has been given to quarterback Phillip Rivers, and deservedly so – he played nearly flawlessly. He made his throws – almost all of them. When the pocket collapsed, he hit his hot reads. When he had a man deep who had a step on his defender, Rivers got him the ball. He hit short and medium passes with ease, always finding the open man with an on-target pass. It’s true when they say it’s very hard to beat a team whose quarterback always seems to make the right decision – the Bills saw that on Sunday.

By mixing in enough running plays the Chargers kept the Bills honest and allowed San Diego to control the ball for some lengthy scoring drives. Defensively they kept the Bills out of sync by preventing receivers from getting a clean break from the line and getting good pressure by rushing only four men. The game plan was excellent, an San Diego maintained control throughout most of the game.

For Bills fans, the game was a trip down memory lane – an offense that seemed out of sync and couldn’t score, a defense run ragged by long drives, shaky play by the quarterback, big plays by the opponent and enough yellow flags flying to make you wonder what sort of special cancer awareness day was taking place using yellow.

As is always the case, there is plenty of blame to go around in a loss, but the quarterback bears the brunt of it. The same fans that were encouraged by EJ Manuel’s play in the opening two weeks were calling for his head on the call in shows – Kyle Orton’s popularity and imagined skill set grows by the minute.

Listen, I’m not thrilled by quarterback play on Sunday (at least not EJ’s), but I’m about to say some things that many of you will howl and call me an EJ Manuel apologist.

Manuel is a young quarterback – Sunday marked only his 13th regular season game – by many measures he’s still in his rookie season. You had to know that Manuel was going to have some bad games this year – he’d look young, inexperienced, uncomfortable, overwhelmed and not capable of leading the team. He’d make bad throws, bad reads, and bad decisions. The Bills didn’t draft Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck – they knew Manuel was going to need work before he could be the quarterback they wanted.

I so wanted to believe we wouldn’t see a bad game from Manuel, or when we did, we’d be able to overcome it by playing well in other areas, but that’s not very realistic. The Chargers threw all sorts of confusing looks at Manuel and it worked – he looked lost and confused on multiple plays – unable to make a quick read and a quick decision. He lacked pocket awareness – he seemed unable to anticipate the pressure he faced on nearly every down. Nowhere was this more evident on the safety – Manuel obviously had no idea where he was as he dropped straight back and threw the ball to nobody – from inside the tackle box and inside the end zone.

Manuel’s timing was downright bad on Sunday. He rushed passes when he had time, and held onto the ball too long when the pocket collapsed. He seemed to have trouble making his reads and knowing where to find the open man. All of this resulted in some throws that were downright terrible.

When Manuel improvised he was largely ineffective. When flushed from the pocket he either left too late and could make nothing of the situation with his feet, or he ran out of bounds or slid well short of what he needed or could have had. He looked like a guy who didn’t want to get hurt. He looked like a guy who didn’t want to make a mistake. He looked like an inexperienced young quarterback who still needs better field awareness and faster decision making.

Manuel’s poor play directly resulted in the Bills poor showing on Sunday – they were never really in the game. But again I ask – what did you expect? Did you honestly expect that at this point in his playing career Manuel would consistently put in a solid performance? You have to expect that when things get bad you’re likely to see a young guy who hasn’t yet developed that 6th sense pocket awareness, a guy who is going to look lost and make bad plays. If you’re going to expect great games from a guy with less than a full season under his belt, you have to expect some bad games as well – Sunday was one of those bad games for Manuel.

I’m not saying we should all give EJ a pass for having a bad game – he’s certainly earned the pressure he’s under. He’s earned some of the calls to sports radio shows. He’s earned the distrust of the fans. Certainly further play like this cannot and should not be tolerated on a consistent basis, but until Manuel has a whole lot more experience you’re going to have to live with it. On the bright side, Manuel is doing the right thing by not getting hurt and not turning the ball over, even if it means he has to play too conservatively.

In addition to natural skill and ability it takes time for a player to develop into a Phillip Rivers – a guy who sees/sense everything and is always able to make the right move. Buffalo does not have a Phillip Rivers on the team, nor is EJ Manuel likely to become one this year or next. What we should all look forward to is the ability to show improvement and improved consistency on the field. Who knows, if Buffalo can find a billionaire with strong ties to the community to save the Bills from failure it’s not too much of a stretch to think EJ Manuel could one day develop into a solid NFL quarterback.