Sunk Cost Fallacy: the idea that a company or organization is more likely to continue with a project if they have already invested a lot of money, time, or effort in it, even when continuing is not the best thing to do.

To the surprise of exactly no one, Buffalo Bills head coach Doug Marrone announced Monday that the team’s 2013 first-round pick, quarterback EJ Manuel, had been benched in favor of career journeyman Kyle Orton. This, after, to the surprise of everyone, Manuel completed 66 percent of his passes in the Bills’ first two victories of the season — before subsequently imploding against the Chargers and Texans over the last two weeks, both losses.

Implausibly, with Buffalo now sitting at 2–2 on the young season, the team still finds itself tied for first place in the AFC East. Between the Patriots forgetting how to play football, the Jets giving away games left and right, and the Dolphins acting like their typical wildly inconsistent selves, the Bills actually have a shot at stealing the division if things go their way.

In economics, sunk costs are those business expenditures which have already been incurred, and cannot be recovered. Or, in essence, sunk costs — unless being studied to avoid making the same mistake twice — are not representative of forward-looking decision-making, they are quite simply, water under the bridge, commercially speaking.

Right now, Manuel looks like a sunk cost. The Bills invested a valuable draft pick on him — and he’s been nothing but disappointing over his 14 career starts, completing just 58.6 percent of his passes over that span. Not only does he complete a low percentage of his throws, but he doesn’t generate many big plays either, shown by his paltry 6.4 career yards per attempt.

What’s most concerning about Manuel is that he shown zero improvement since last season, and his play has gotten progressively worse in each of Buffalo’s first four games. As shown by his attempts, the Bills have tried to feed him more to do as the season has gone on. At this point in his career, Manuel should be showing signs of life. He should be demonstrating control of the offense. Instead, he’s proven wildly ineffective unless completely hidden by the game plan.

Statistics courtesy of Pro Football-Reference

According to Pro Football Focus’ grading system (subscription only), he’s been the third worst quarterback in football this season.

His disastrous performance Sunday was indicative of everything that’s wrong with him as a passer. He struggled all afternoon to complete rudimentary throws, has no downfield accuracy whatsoever, and is prone to making major mistakes — like gifting J.J. Watt a pick-six that put Houston ahead for good in the third quarter.

Manuel’s performance looks even worse when we consider that nine of his 21 completions were to running backs. His passing numbers were inflated by the 80-yard touchdown pass he threw to Mike Williams on a completely blown coverage by the Texans. Taking that one play away, Manuel completed eight passes to primary receivers for a grand total of 47 yards.

Using Pro Football Focus’ passing direction chart from Sunday’s game, we can see just how abysmal Manuel was getting the ball down the field.

Chart reads Attempts-Completions-Yards- Touchdowns-Interceptions. The numbers in the box indicate PFF’s grade for that area. A grade indicated in red is bad. Green is good, white is average.. EJ Manuel has no green grades.

On passes 10-plus yards down the field, Manuel completed just 2 of 12 passes for 91 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. On the season, he’s completing just 32.5 percent on such passes. Last year, he was at 41.9 percent.

After the game, Manuel was reportedly pensive, standing at his locker with his face down as most his teammates got changed and headed for the buses. I don’t subscribe to Bill Simmons’ theory that playing successful quarterback in the NFL is 75 percent intangibles, but I think it’s fair to say that having your quarterback openly dejected after a game probably isn’t good for the morale of your team moving forward. This is especially true if said quarterback is also bad at football.