Archives for June 22, 2012

‘”What would be great is that if John was able to become the kickoff guy we could count on and get 70 percent touchbacks out of him and let him develop as a field goal kicker and maybe somewhere down the line when Rian Lindell is through that he’ll be able to take over. That would be the ideal thing.”‘

‘Savino is a Buffalo-based attorney representing 53 people swindled out of more than $3 million by Kenneth Bernas, a former lawyer who was convicted in 2010 of larceny and identity theft. Bernas is serving a 2 1/3- to seven-year jail sentence and used some of the money he stole to build the 9,000-plus square-foot mansion in 2005.’

‘Having an NFL team pay a sizable amount for stadium renovations is far from unprecedented.’

‘Buffalo Bills defensive line coach Giff Smith will be a featured coach at Monday’s Southern Football Academy Football Camp.’

‘”They’re ready to go, and we’re excited about it,” said Bills running back Fred Jackson. “It’s going to be fun to watch them compete through training camp and see what happens. … You look at the second-team line, and they could start on a lot of different teams.”‘

‘”We got better, definitely, especially as an offense having to go against a defense like that every day,” said wide receiver David Nelson. “We didn’t have a chance to do this last year, so we were able to grow together as a team. Going into year three (of the Gailey regime) we want to transition from being that surprise offense to a dynamic offense, and we were able to work on consistency.”‘

‘In beginning to shed their adopted ”No-Name” label last season, the Bills’ collection of castoffs and journeymen showed signs of a spark in helping the team get off to a surprising 5-2 start before unraveling en route to a 6-10 finish.’

‘”You want expectations to rise,” Gailey said. “When I came in here I said, ‘We want to expect to win, not hope to win.’ I want expectations to be high not only from without but from within and they are. I think that we understand it. I think we have a mature enough team to understand where we are. Yes, there are expectations and yes everybody’s excited. But we haven’t proven anything yet and we’ve got to go out on the field and prove it then. We’ve got a long way until we get to that point.”‘

‘”Still a lot of work to do. Mentally I feel (OK), everything else I think I am pretty good. My groin felt good. I still have to get over the mental aspect of it,” Johnson said. “I feel like I am about high 90s. I cannot say 100 percent because I am not feeling all the way but I am feeling about 90 percent. I am good.”‘

‘”I think that is what we want to be. And I think statistics lie sometimes. There are a lot of things that go into being a successful offense. That is something we look at though. We see ourselves getting better every year and that is one of those stats that we have continued to improve. Again we are looking for improvement on that end and then taking out some of the turnovers. Better third-down efficiency, better red-zone efficiency; that kind of stuff. We are excited with a lot of the things that happened last year and obviously trying to build on those and eliminate the negative ones.”‘

‘”We got a lot done this week. We got a lot of situations looked at. We got a lot of situational football done this week which was great, we needed to get that and I’ve just been pleased with the overall progress of our football team and one of the best things is there were no injuries throughout the whole thing really to speak of.”‘

‘”We feel like we got a lot to prove, we made some good moves in the offseason and that’s all it is, moves,” said Bills running back Fred Jackson. “We’ve got some valuable pieces added that are looking forward to come in and contribute. We want to go out and make a splash this year.”‘

‘”I hope that they are pros,” he said. “That’s what you hope. If they’re not we’re in deeper trouble than we think they are. If they’re not smart enough or accountable enough to be in shape then we’re in dire straits. I think our guys are pros enough to come back in shape.”‘

‘I talked about several things. If they want to talk about them they can, but I just talked about the state of the team. Where I feel like we are right now. I said ‘this is where we are, this is where we want to be and how do we get there? These are the things we need to do to get there.’ That is what I basically talked about with them in the team meeting today.’