Bills head coach Doug Marrone said in his opening statement to the media that the players’ break begins now, but there “will be a quick turnaround”, as the team begins training camp at St. John Fisher College on July 20.
“We’re excited about reporting at St. John Fisher,” said Doug Marrone.
But before the Bills take some time off, they had a surprise visit to practice from Hall-of-Fame quarterback Jim Kelly, according to the Associated Press (via ABC News). Marrone said that Kelly coming “wasn’t planned,” but certainly didn’t mind Kelly being there to address the team, and hopes he wins in his battle against sinus cancer.
“We always appreciate him,” said Marrone. “Personally for myself, I miss having Jim around. He was great for myself and great for Coach Hackett and coming around, talking to us, having great insight and being a true Bill in every sense of the word. We’re with him. We’re fighting through this. Just like he’s been there with us trying to fight through what we’re going through. We support him and it was great for him to get out there and be amongst the team, which I think he feels comfortable about and having the strength to address them.
He made a good point and it’s one that we drive home with the players. Buffalo is a special place with special people in this area. Jim’s message was that when he was a player they supported him. Obviously now, through his fight and his battles, they’re supporting him just as much, if not more now. I think that says a lot for the people in this region. I think that’s a good point and our players have to understand that.”
With the book closed on minicamps for the off-season, Marrone is “excited” about a longer training camp. Last year’s training camp was from July 28 t0 August 21 with 15 total practices, whereas this year’s is from July 20 to August 21, with 20 total practices.
“I’m excited that we have those extra days,” said Marrone. “I wasn’t as excited last year because we had the least amount of practices. Now we will have the most amount of practices. So, I’m excited about that because we need that and we have a lot of hard work ahead of us.”
One player who could use extra time is Chris Hairston, a fourth-year player who has started 15 career games, but missed all of last season while on the reserve/non-football illness list. Marrone believes that Hairston can compete with some of the youth at the position.
“He’s a big body and it’s a position for that,” Marrone said of the 6’6”, 330 pound lineman. “We have Kraig Urbik. we have Chris there. We have some of those younger guys that are playing that position. Like we said, it’s hard to judge at this time of year in shorts and how it’s going to shake out, especially up front. So we’re putting everyone in there and giving them an opportunity to learn that stuff so they can go ahead and compete.”
Marrone was asked about training camp. how far second-year quarterback E.J. Manuel has gone in his progression from last June, and responded “quite a bit further”. Marrone hopes to see Manuel’s improvements showcase themselves at training camp.
“I think it’s always this stage in a young quarterback’s career, especially one that hasn’t practiced as much as him because of the injuries,” said Marrone. “Out of everyone on the football team, make no mistake about it, that position has the most. He’s put in a lot of work. He has a much, much better understanding and it’s exciting. What you hope to see as training camp and the installation goes in, you hope to see it better the next time around.
“What happens after that is that is starts getting better because now the playbook starts reducing to what you’re going to do. So, it’s a natural reaction. The thing that we were concentrating on, like I said before, was to make sure that he had the fundamentals that a lot of people might not be able to see because we’re always looking for the end result. But I think in these last couple of days, we’ve had some good results with yesterday probably being the best day that he’s had on third down when he was here. There are a lot of things that are going on that you get excited about and we have to carry that on and do that when the preseason comes.”
As for how he wants the players to behave during their month off, Marrone has some suggestions be both physically and mentally ready for the longer training camp, which he sees as more than a competition to make a team.
“One thing you can do, you have to be careful from a nutrition standpoint, a sleep standpoint, you have to get ready,” said Marrone. “You’re going to a training camp, it’s a lot more difficult than people think. Not only from a physical standpoint, but for some the emotional part. Am I going to make this team? Am I not going to make this team? Did I have a bad play? Did the coaches think I had a bad practice? There’s a lot going on mentally that you have to be prepared for.
“It’s not easy to go through that camp and at the end of the day we sit down and we write about players, so and so didn’t make the team, so and so didn’t get cut, and we take it for granted that this is a life changing experience for these guys. And I don’t think anyone who hasn’t gone through it before really understands the amount of work that they put into it. If you think that these guys are just going to leave here and go lay out on a beach somewhere and do nothing all day and just report to camp, it can’t happen. There’s testing that gets done at camp that these guys have to be ready for because physically they need to be at a certain level in order to be able to compete.”
