Archives for August 2013

‘Hogan, undrafted in 2011 out of Monmouth College, had five catches during the 11-on-11 portions of practice. The 6-foot-1, 220-pound receiver has excellent hands and is making an underdog bid for a roster spot amid tough competition at receiver.’

‘EJ Manuel and Jeff Tuel split snaps evenly, getting 26 apiece. Manuel had a good day. He beat the blitz with a 20-yard strike down the middle to Hogan and hit a 40-yard bomb to T.J. Graham.’

‘My agent said the Bills were thinking about bringing me in and I got a phone call from the Bills 20 minutes later saying they had a flight for me in three hours. I had to do laundry and was worried about missing my flight. It was pretty crazy.”‘

”’To me, last year never happened,” he said. ”I done came to the realization that my little brother is gone. I’ve coped with that. I’ve grieved over it. I got all of it out, and I’m OK now.”’

‘”It’s hard, and coach Marrone and coach Pettine and Bud and those guys have done a really good job of with me. I’m the kind, if it’s not working right, I want to beat down the door until it opens up and it works right, but they’ve put the reins on me ‘This is what you’re going to do, this is what you’re not going to do’ and we’re going to progress as we get to the season. I feel better than I did when we reported, a week ago, and we have five weeks until the first game, so next week it’ll be better than today and I’ll continue to move on and on and on. That way when we get to play New England the first Sunday in September, I’m ready to roll.”‘

‘Two other players, outside linebacker Kourtnei Brown and defensive lineman Jarron Gilbert, “dressed for the day” in full pads but immediately went to go work with trainers after the team’s stretching period. Running back Kendall Gaskins and wide receiver Brad Smith each had to stop practicing before the day was over. Gaskins was walked back to the locker room with trainers, and Smith had his leg wrapped and took off his shoulder pads still with time to go in practice.’

‘Doug Marrone mentioned last week that he’d like to get some hot and humid days for practice. The head coach said, “When you look at the schedule and you look at the calendar and you know you had a scrimmage a couple of days ago and you know you’ve got two games coming up here in nine days, today’s kind of a day that mentally I circle. Knowing that the players are going to be sore, the coaches, it’s everybody and I really thought today they did a very good job. We came out, we got a lot of work done so I’m proud of the players from that standpoint and I appreciate it.”‘

‘”I felt like we kind of came out sluggish,” said Nigel Bradham. “And that was one of the ways coach got us going a little bit. He gave us a little music, to get us going a little, get a little momentum and tempo. It picked up the practice a little bit, so it definitely helped.”‘

‘I try to explain to them. We had this morning workout and now we’re going to have a good recovery period as we don’t go until tomorrow night. So just to try and explain to them, I understand this thing, what’s going on. We’re going to make sure we are doing the right thing and help them be able to recover as they get into the short stretch of these two games.’

‘”I think he has stepped it up from when we were in OTAs and mini-camp,” said Marrone. “I believe he’s in better shape than he was before. That’s a credit to him and our conditioning people and what he did in the off-season. He’s done some nice things. He’s had some separation. He’s a big receiver with strong hands. He’s going to be competing for a roster spot.”‘

‘C.J. Spiller was ripping off big runs left and right. He gained 10-plus yards on each of his first three carries and had a 30-plus yarder around left end later on.’

‘Harris’ story is particularly damning to the Bills leadership in the 1960s as he explains to an incredulous Keteyian that he had to stay in a $6 a night room in the YMCA away from his teammates in a hotel during training camp. The Bills also asked him to consider playing wide receiver and gave him a job cleaning cleats in the equipment room.’

‘”I always had a strong leg, even in Pee Wee football, but that situation got me thinking that I can do something with kicking, maybe go to college for free,” says Hopkins, who received numerous offers and had narrowed it down to Florida State and Notre Dame.’

‘”We know that down the road from now, when we’re dressing seven linemen, we’ll have a swing inside player and a swing outside player, swing tackle and a swing center-guard,” he said. “And what we want to make sure of is if something does occur with an injury, and one of the inside players are injured, then the swing player goes in there, which one of our tackles is best suited to go in there next.”‘