One thing missing from Buffalo Bills season-highlight video: any sign of Tyrod Taylor

The Buffalo Bills tweeted out a 65-second video Thursday night that contained season-long highlights and contained the hashtag #FinishStrong heading into the Week 17 finale against the New York Jets.

It was notable as much for who didn’t make an appearance in the video as for who did. Nowhere in the hype reel is anything — not even a still shot — involving Tyrod Taylor. He’s only the starting quarterback, or was all season up until this week anyway.

Now, before we jump to any grand conspiracy theories, one could give the Bills’ social-media department some benefit of doubt here. For one, it was a short video — barely over a minute long. Also, Taylor is hurt (more on that subject below) and will not be playing against the Jets. You also obviously didn’t see the mugs of Rex and/or Rob Ryan either, and we certainly know why that’s the case.

But with Taylor, it’s surprising that he didn’t make a single appearance — and a hat tip to Matthew Fairburn for first spotting that one. Look, could it have been accidental? Perhaps. But in a week in which Taylor has been benched (by whom, we have no clue) coming off a monster game against the Miami Dolphins, the Bills are not going out of their way to help the guy out whatsoever.

Taylor missed practice on Thursday in what interim head coach Anthony Lynn called a “veteran’s day off” after practicing fully on Wednesday despite a balky groin injury that will require him to travel to Philadelphia to visit with a surgeon to determine if Taylor needs is operated or not. But the Bills went out of their way to list his absence as non-injury related … a few days after some unknown entity in the organization benched him.

Why? Only because he could get further hurt in the finale and kick in the injury guarantee for his massive contract number — the contract that, yes, the Bills offered him this year and Taylor signed — that they have no intention of paying next year. Heck, Lynn called benching Taylor a “business decision,” so it’s no surprise. If he can’t pass a physical on March 11 because of an injury, he’s due $30 million, so the Bills are going to go with EJ Manuel, even if Taylor is the better QB.

So knowing that, are you still thinking the video omission is accidental … well, do you need more?

He’s the quarterback. He has throw 436 of the 443 passes by the team this year. He has run the ball 95 times and been involved in nearly half the team’s touchdowns this season. So you’re telling me that you can devote 15 of the 65 seconds to Marquis Goodwin, who caught all of 28 passes all season, and not even show the starting quarterback for one second?

The Bills are doing Tyrod Taylor dirty here. Future free agents should take note of this. The Bills can offer you big money, but you might not get it and there’s a chance they could toss you out with the garbage and not even have the decency to take onus for who made the call on that (Lynn — after all, he’s just the head coach — admitted he was not in the room when the decision to bench Taylor was made).

Now, has Taylor handled things perfectly on his end? We say no. He became difficult and moody with the press and we can only assume that he’s expressed his disappointment privately with how things are being handled. We don’t know that for sure because he hasn’t spoken publicly this week. But it’s easy to connect the dots on this thing. This was no accident.

It’s just a video. We know that. But it speaks volumes. It says that no matter what the Bills do in the final game, if the way they’ve handled the Taylor situation is any indication, there’s a good chance they’ll continue to #FinishWeak.

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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