Who's Next?

After yesterday's surprisingly unsurprising release of Ryan Fitzpatrick, the Bills officially find themselves where they have been realistically since Jim Kelly retired in February 1997 -- without a quarterback.

Yes, Todd Collins (and when I first compiled this list, I had briefly forgotten him ever getting under center for Buffalo) , Rob Johnson, Doug Flutie, Alex Van Pelt, Travis Brown, Drew Bledsoe, J.P. Losman, Shane Matthews, Kelly Holcomb, Trent Edwards, Brian Brohm, Fitzpatrick, Levi Brown and Tyler Thigpen have all taken snaps and thrown season passes over the last 16 seasons.

Of the 14, though, only Johnson and Flutie ever started a postseason game for Buffalo. Among the rest, only Bledsoe came close, falling short when he failed to get the 2004 Bills past a group of backups wearing Pittsburgh Steelers uniforms in the season finale. At home.

We're not here to bemoan past failings, but to look forward.

Looking over the list of available free agents, though, the immediate future does not look a whole lot brighter.

(Note: The above was compiled before Baltimore re-signed reigning Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco, who no one ever thought would hit the market, anyway, and Miami and Buffalo re-upped Matt Moore and Tarvaris Jackson, respectively.)

When Moore's re-signing with the Dolphins pushes Rex Grossman and Jason Campbell to the top of the list, you know one thing. You need more options.

Unless new coach Doug Marrone and general-manager-in-waiting Doug Whaley find this year's Russell Wilson, a questionable prospect who turns out to be ready to thrive the day he arrives at training camp, the Opening Day starter for the first campaign of their new era will be someone who has failed elsewhere.

The last two names on the linked list are worth noting.

Losman's time as Buffalo's Quarterback of the Future may have largely faded from most memories, but he is still out there, looking for one more shot.

Then there's this guy.

Oh. The WWM fact-checking department informs me that the Kevin O'Connell in question is NOT the longtime Channel 2 weather guy, but a well-traveled scrub whose entire professional resume is comprised of six passes thrown for New England in 2008. That's much less fun.

Releasing Fitzpatrick, who was in the middle of a contract signed at the high point of his Buffalo career, when the Bills were 5-2 in mid-2011, made sense from a financial standpoint. It was a must in terms of marketing a team whose last playoff game took place eight days into the new millennium.

Given what else is out there, though, it is tough to see how it makes them any better.