Archives for August 2015

'"Rex gets it," Kelly said. "If there's somebody in Buffalo that's not excited about this season, something's wrong."'

'8-8, fourth place.'

'How much hope? 7/10. The pieces are in place to end the playoff drought. Plus, there’s a huge opportunity. The Patriots won’t have Tom Brady for the first four games of the season and one of those includes a match-up with the Bills. Buffalo needs to pounce on that.'

'Cassel has said twice now that he’d like to play the whole game on Friday. We all know that’s not going to happen, but he wants every snap he can get, “The more the merrier. I always look forward to preseason because there’s no substitution for game speed when you get out there under the lights, real fans there and you’re hitting and there’s contact. The more time that you can play, the more comfortable you become as the season gets going.”'

'Seantrel Henderson is the starting right tackle ahead of Cyrus Kouandjio and Fred Jackson is the backup to LeSean McCoy at running back, with Boobie Dixon #3. Bryce Brown is listed as the #4 RB ahead of rookie Karlos Williams.'

'“He actually comes into our meetings and is the one that installs the defenses" Bills safety Aaron Williams said during an interview on the WGR morning show. "So to hear him explain why he does and why he calls a situation and the reason the technique needs to be this way, he definitely goes into detail about why we are running this defense at a certain time in the game."'

'Cassel has been the only QB to take first team reps every day and Ryan is going with him against Carolina, “Yes, we will start him on Friday and how much work he gets we’ll see.” Ryan added, “We’re going to get all those guys work through these preseason games, but he’ll get the first shot out.”'

'EJ Manuel failed to build upon an encouraging end to last week and some positive plays in Saturday night’s scrimmage. It was a step back for the third-year QB after a couple steps forward. Manuel was off-target quite a bit Monday morning, as his inconsistencies and inaccuracies showed up again. The most discouraging part of all of it was that Manuel was basically playing against the second and third team defenses most of the day. He has very few reps against the starters.'

'Ryan wouldn't indicate how long he would play Cassel, but did confirm that he would be the first quarterback on the field on Friday at Ralph Wilson Stadium. Manuel was given the "start" in the team's blue-white scrimmage on Saturday night at St. John Fisher College.'

'The Buffalo Bills have been waiting for one player at quarterback to show enough consistency and be the best player, day after day. They still don’t have that, but the slow-and-steady-wins-the-race style of Matt Cassel shot ahead on Monday.'

'“He looked good today, you know Matt looked good,” said Ryan. “But sometimes it’s a, ”Hey offense looked great, ah, defense didn’t look so good.” “Ah the defense looked great but the offense never look so good.” So when you’re against your own team there’s always a winner and a loser in drills ands everything else, I thought today that two minute obviously, I thought, you know kudos to our offense because it definitely won that two minute today.”'

'I talked with Corey Graham after practice about the communication on defense, which he called a work in progress. There was a hilarious exchange on the sideline between Graham and Jerry Hughes during practice about a miscommunication on a blitz. I really wish I could print some of the back-and-forth, but it involved some not-so-PG-rated words.'

The biggest surprise for the Bills so far in training camp is DL Corbin Bryant. He was a solid contributor last year for the team but has really blossomed in training camp this year. He will be a solid depth player who will likely start on opening day while Marcell Dareus serves his one game suspension.

'“We’ll start him on Friday and how much work he gets,” said Ryan. “We’ll see. We’re going to get all those guys work through these preseason games. He’ll get the first shot just like EJ got in the scrimmage. I’m looking for that consistent guy who is going to be at the top each time out.”'

'“I have something to prove every single day: something to prove to myself, something to prove to my family, something to prove to my teammates,” he said. “I’m just out here to prove that I’m a good guy, I’m a good teammate and I can be trusted with this opportunity.”'