The biggest starter on the team may have been announced, but that didn’t mean there weren’t still players fighting to earn their position’s top spot.
Head Coach Rex Ryan, a day after announcing Tyrod Taylor would start at quarterback for the season opener against the Indianapolis Colts Sept. 13, confirmed his starting right tackle.
Seantrel Henderson is their man.
“…When he put his mind to it, that he wanted to be a great player. That is how he came back,” Ryan said after practice today. “That is how he entered camp. [Cyrus] Kouandjio was pushing him and things like that but at the end of the day. Seantrel has had a tremendous training camp.”
Henderson, 23, started all 16 games for the Bills last season, after they made him a 7th-round selection in the 2014 draft.
It was a shaky rookie season for the 6’7″, 331 lb.,University of Miami product (one that graded Henderson one of ProFootballFocus’s worst rated lineman from the past year), but he looks forward to a fresh slate with the up-coming season.
“It feels good man,” Henderson said. “Putting in a lot of work. Down in training camp, before training camp, and now we are getting ready for that first game man. It just feels good coming into the season knowing that you got a starting job.”
Henderson, who was being pushed by 2014 second-rounder Cyrus Kouandjio, emerged atop the depth chart after a strong training camp, one in which offensive coordinator Greg Roman told reporters earlier in camp that he felt the young tackle improved by “leaps and bounds”.
The head coach felt it was all in the mindset.
His player would agree.
“I was just pretty much staying on myself about coming back in shape, coming back at my goal weight, and staying in the weight room every day,” Henderson said. “I just had a schedule that I stuck to every day until it was time to come back. Once training camp came back only thing I was really worried about was passing the conditioning test and I passed the conditioning test and then it was just day by day after that. You know once we put the pads on, I was ready and it just went like that.”
A chance in mindset also brought a change in confidence.
“I just proved I can do this every day. This is my job now,” Henderson said. “You know just coming out of college last year, I didn’t really know what to expect. Now I am one year in, I know exactly what I got to do now. Now I am just ready to go.”
