With a brand new head coach and a lot of new aqusitions on the offensive side of the ball, it was interesting to see how the Buffalo Bills would fare as they hit the practice field today at St. John Fisher College to kick off their 2015 training camp schedule.
While there was rust to shake off, the practice was fairly up-tempo and had high energy under their new leader.
“This day was a long time coming,” Rex Ryan said. “You can’t wait to get at it. You’re itching ready to go.”
“As a coach this is what you live for. You have an excellent football team. You have a great fan base that is excited to be here. You have a beautiful day here; beautiful facilities. I mean, I dunno, it doesn’t get much better.”
While it was just the first day of practice, you couldn’t help but feel the excitement around the campus as fans starting filing into the stadium at 9:00 a.m. in droves, despite the session not starting for another hour.
The play on the field was also very spirited, and it looked like the players were really enjoying their first time back between the hashes.
The fans were really into too, with chants of “Freddy” and the “Shout Song” among others raining down from the bleachers.
The fun even went so far as LeSean McCoy coming over to the sidelines in front of the crowd during the special teams portion of the practice to them up in chants and throw a football to a fan.
And of course, everyone wanted to know how the depth chart was going to work itself out.
So how about that quarterback and running back position?
“However you rank ‘em” Ryan said with a chuckle when asked about his quarterback rankings. “We got a long way to go.”
While the quarterback battle will drag on for weeks, Ryan did have a much more committed answer when it came to the roster spot of Fred Jackson, stating that even with LeSean McCoy joining the roster, that Jackson could still be valuable.
“He may be the oldest guy but I still think he’s got some tread on that tire still,” Ryan said.
“He’s smart. He picks things up extremely well. He’s picked up our offense extremely well. Still valuable as a threat out of the backfield, great in blitz pick up and oh, by the way, he can still run the football.”
With a new coach, did any of the players notice a difference between this year and last year’s camp under former coach Doug Marrone.
“I think we can sense more looseness within the group. It’s not as tight,” running back Boobie Dixon said. “Last year was a little tight. But everyone is a little bit more looser, everyone is having a little bit more fun. Everyone is smiling just a little bit more. It’s fun man. That’s what football is about.”
“I feel like here we have a lot of talent.” McCoy said. “This is by far one of the most talented teams I’ve played on.”
“If things don’t work out, I have to blame the players…I feel like we’re all in place. We have to go out there and do it”
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