Thad Lewis Will Start For Buffalo at Home Against Cincinnati Sunday

Thad Lewis has been promoted from the practice squad and will start at QB for the Buffalo Bills Sunday against the fierce Cincinnati defense. Tuel time has been shelved, apparently. It only took one quarter Thursday against the Browns for Buffalo to determine that rookie Jeff Teul is not ready for his NFL close-up. With EJ Manuel out with a knee injury, the Bills are desperate, and thus Lewis will get the second start of his NFL career. Four fun facts about Thad Lewis:

1) Thad Lewis was a 4-year starter at Duke, setting some school records in the process.

2) Lewis actually looked decent in his only NFL start (22-of-32, 204 yards, one TD, one interception), which came for the Browns against the Steelers last December. But it was a meaningless game in December, the kind of game that vaulted Matt Flynn into getting big money as a free agent. December football on a team playing for nothing isn’t quite September/October football.

3) Majored in Sociology at Duke.

4) Ran a 4.84 40 at the NFL combine, which is a key number – the Bengals have one of the toughest front sevens in the AFC – Cincinnati is in the Top 15 defensively by most metrics, and 7th in third down conversions, allowing just 33 percent of them.

Las Vegas has set the line for the game at Cincinnati -7.5, an unusually high number for a weak offensive team on the road. Buffalo’s defense intercepted Joe Flacco five times two weeks ago. Guess Las Vegas has little or not confidence in Thad Lewis, who will be facing almost exclusively 8-man fronts.