Archives for May 2014

‘”It sparked a fire inside of me that I hadn’t felt in years,” Kouandjio said. “It’s that fire, that will to push myself past my boundaries, to do anything, just to prove people wrong.”‘

‘”What really got me once I started working with him was his energy level and his enthusiasm,” Murphy said. “That never went away, no matter how poor the team was playing, no matter if it was a preseason game or a meaningless game in December. Van’s energy and enthusiasm was infectious and brought the whole level of the broadcast up.”‘

‘”Can anybody imagine Bills’ history without Van’s voice on the soundtrack? Can you tell the team’s story without mentioning Van? You can’t,” said John Murphy, Van’s popular color analyst for 16 seasons who replaced him as voice of the Bills in 2004. “If there were a fan vote, he would’ve been on the Wall already.”’

‘He WAS Buffalo. Besides the Bills, he did play-by-play of the Bisons, Stallions, UB football and, of course, the Braves.’

‘The Bills in the end traded up to get Cleveland’s No. 4 pick and took the pass catcher. Buffalo in return gave the Browns the No. 9 pick in this year’s draft and a first and fourth round pick in the 2015 draft. The Texans could have got a whole lot more from the Bills if the Texans would have listened.’

‘”You like the way he catches it. I mean, he is a first-round draft pick,” Marrone said, breaking into a smile. “I mean, if I came out here and he dropped five balls and he fell down five or 10 times, we’d be crying.”‘

‘He becomes the fourth of Buffalo’s seven picks to sign.’

‘The kid was very precise in his routes and his head coach called him smooth. Doug Marrone said, “Smooth. That’s what you saw on film. He’s smooth. he’s not a herky-jerky coming out his cuts type of guy. He’s a smooth guy coming in and out. That’s what makes him a very good receiver. A lot of it will come down to the timing and things like that once our other quarterbacks get in here, EJ, Thad and the rest of them. Obviously, it’s the first time he’s been out there. Again, you like the way he catches it. He’s a first round draft pick.” Marrone than kidded, “He’s a first round draft pick. If he came out here and dropped five balls and fell down five to 10 times, we’d be pissed and crying.”‘

‘The Bills’ number one pick looked very polished in everything he did and very precise in his routes. Doug Marrone said, “Obviously he is smooth coming out of breaks and he can make the catches and makes nice catches. I’m looking forward to and we probably won’t find out until we get to camp, in this league to be able to play wideout you have to beat press coverage.”‘

‘Brown started all 12 games in 2013 and led the Louisville defense with 98 tackles, including 71 solo stops to finish third in the conference. He also had a career-best 4.5 sacks. The 6-1, 251-pound Cardinal made 36 starts at Louisville where he became just the 12th player in school history to lead the team in tackles in multiple seasons.’

‘”Now that the draft was pushed back and these players will have a shorter turnaround to the OTAs and when other players come in, what we want to do as a staff is make sure that they’re in shape, which you expect them to be,” head coach Doug Marrone said. “Two, we want to make sure they know the drills that we do and the technique that we play so that we don’t have to waste a lot of time when the OTAs start and we’re on the field with them. The next thing obviously is to learn the scheme. That’s really a big thing so that they can come out and compete right away.”‘

‘Brown, who led his team in tackles each of the past two years, had 301 takedowns in his college career. His senior season he had career highs in tackles for loss (12.5), sacks (4.5) and forced fumbles (3).’

‘”Jim is a great guy. It was a great experience,” Watkins said. “He’s a strong guy. A guy that’s fighting every day. A guy that’s positive, not negative. You hear a lot of things in the media that he might be doing bad or looks bad but he looks great to me.”‘

‘Obviously we’re in to rookie mini-camp. One of our goals, and it’s a little bit different compared to some other teams and some other teams are doing things the same way, what we want to do is make sure that now that the draft was pushed back and these players will have a shorter turnaround to the OTAs and when other players come in, what we want to do as a staff is make sure that they’re in shape, which you expect them to be. But you don’t want to take that for granted. An injury can put someone quite far behind.’