Archives for August 2013

‘Johnson, battling a left hamstring injury, had extensive work on the practice field Monday during a morning workout. After the practice, Johnson said he was anxious to test the leg in live action against an opposing team.’

‘Lindell’s time in Buffalo had appeared to be coming to an end. The Bills have drafted kickers in each of the past two drafts with the selections of Hopkins and former Western Michigan kicker John Potter.’

‘Lindell connected on 83.3 percent of his field goal attempts with the Bills and all but one of 306 extra-point tries. He made 21-of-24 field goal tries last year after missing the final seven games of the 2011 season because of a shoulder injury.’

‘Lindell lost the competition for the Bills’ kicking job to sixth-round pick Dustin Hopkins, who displayed a stronger leg in training camp.’

‘Here is a look at how it could all shake out, based on how players have performed throughout training camp and the first two preseason games…’.

‘The Manuel situation still is without a public timetable of when the rookie may in fact be back from his surgery, so veteran Kevin Kolb continued to try and get the upper-hand in the quarterback competition.’

‘”Obviously I was pushing with the competition this whole time, pushed to be out there now and forever and Week One and whatever it is. From my mindset, it really doesn’t affect me much. I hate it for him because obviously he’s been doing real well, and he’s progressing, but he’ll get right back in the action.” The thing he does like is getting those reps in, “Yeah, that’ll be nice, it really will. It will allow you to get in a groove. Like I told you before, there was a little bit of rust for me to knock off. So this will just help continue to do that and be prepared for everything down the road in the future.”‘

‘”We are still in the process of gathering the facts surrounding this report and will reserve comment until we have completed that process.”‘

‘”I’m actually looking forward to see what the doctor says to see if it’s going to be shorter, obviously prior to the preseason. The message that I have gotten from the doctor is everything went great. I didn’t ask for all the specifics and I’m meeting with the doctors today to go through all the injuries again sometime this afternoon. But my message from the doctor was that everything was great.”‘

‘Coach Doug Marrone said, “It’s always tough when you have to release a player like Rian Lindell. He’s a true professional and I have a lot of respect for him even though I was never here with him in the past. I think in the past 10 days, Dustin has performed better, so we made a decision to go with Dustin.”‘

‘I think a lot of things that you hear at this time of year are kind of get your legs back. We have more than enough time. We’ll be practicing tomorrow night, it’s a good time now to go back, watch all the film, make sure we’re focused and come back tomorrow evening and have a great practice. It’ll be our last evening practice of camp.’

‘I think if somebody came up here and said, every time without fail that I’m minding my Ps and Qs every time, I think they might be lying to you. 99-percent of the time, I’d like to say yeah. But every once in a while there’s an anomaly in there that’s kind of like man, I have to fix that. But for the most part, my mechanics are feeling good. I’m breaking down film and making sure I’m documenting why I’m feeling better and being successful and things like that. And I think that’s all part of being a pro.’

‘”I think for us it has been too much,” said Marrone of the penalties. “I think that when we get into situations, especially the red zone when we work on those situations we have to constantly remind those players that they have to up their area of focus. We don’t want penalties down there and they hurt. It’s hard to make up certain downs and situations in this league and we’ve seen that with everyone. We have to make that a point of emphasis with our players and evaluate those situations.”‘

‘Lindell, 36, connected on better than 83 percent of his career field goal attempts with Buffalo (83.3%), and had his share of game-winning attempts in his 10 years with the club.’

‘Bureaucrats at a provincial agency asking for billions to expand transit in the GTA had exclusive access to premium tickets to the Toronto International Film Festival and a Buffalo Bills game, the Toronto Sun has learned.’