Archives for August 3, 2016

'"But I have a great coach and a great group of wide receivers that help me out a lot, so I tip my hat off to them like I always do," Lewis said. "They really help me along the way and taught me a lot and really helped me with my transition to the NFL."'

'The Bills have a crisis in their punt-return game. No one who was on the roster before Bush's arrival was any good at it. Once upon a time, Bush was very good at it, but he also is coming back from a torn meniscus. He has done no football team activity since Nov. 1, and he's also at an age when players generally don't get faster or more elusive … or stay healthy.'

'One day after signing with the Bills, 31-year-old running back Reggie Bush provided the highlight of the night when he took a handoff, burst through the middle and then cut to his right for long gain. The crowd of 5,000-plus cheered wildly and broke into chants of "Reg-gie! Reg-gie!" that could be heard at the end of the two-hour session as well.'

'“Dez Lewis has made big strides over last season,” said Woods. “A year in, he has that experience, knows what the league is about, put in the work in the off-season and it shows. It seems like every time the ball was in the air, he was making plays. He understands how to run his routes, how to get behind people, and he’s getting open.”'

'Still, if adding Bush gives the coaches some piece of mind for the remainder of the summer and early fall, it’s all good. If anything, Bush will have a positive impact on Buffalo’s young crop of backs and be a useful sounding board for McCoy as veterans in arms.'

'“Well the thing is a lot of people during the day are working and they’re busy and they’re preoccupied,” said Larry Greggs, who attended with Casey Greggs and Damarius Breeze. “At night you get the fans and everybody going; they’re all here, they’re off work, and they just want to enjoy the evening. That’s what makes it more exciting.”'

'"Obviously we feel good about Karlos," Ryan said. "You never say never and things, but there's going to be opportunity for others to have an impact on this football team, and we'll see what happens. We're not going to give up on Karlos Williams, I can promise you that."'

'"It's like the old saying, 'What goes around comes around,'" Bush said after that game. "They talked about all week about putting hot sauce and this and that, and they ended up losing their best player for the rest of the season. So, it's sad that it happened because of that, but I'm going to be back."'

'"I'm here, I'm ready to go," Bush said. "I'm not sure how much I'll do at practice, but I'll definitely be out there learning, getting used to the verbiage from the play calling standpoint and just gaining experience about the new system. I guess the good thing is I've been around long enough to where I've pretty much been through every offensive system possible so I'm sure that there's nothing in this system that's going to surprise me or be too difficult."'

'The offense worked a lot on sets with a fullback in the backfield during the early team portion of practice. I-formation and split backs. Jerome Felton and Glenn Gronkowski are the only FBs the team has and the only players they used in that role.'

'"We're not bringing in Reggie just to be the No. 2 back," he said to media before practice. "I'm bringing him in to do specific things with him offensively, put him in certain packages, but I want him fresh and quite honestly I want to put a little fear out there with those defenses. When he's on the field you better have your antenna up because we know that he still has special abilities. I don't think he's ready to be the every-down back like he used to be, but he doesn't have to be here."'

'"I've been doing this ever since I was six years old. It's everything I know. So when you have something like that almost change your life, it definitely changes your perspective and your mindset on life, the experiences you go through, and becoming a man and growing as a person."'

'A league source familiar with the negotiations told me the two sides have discussed a deal that would be short-term in nature, even as short as one season, but automatically kick in long-term years and more money if Taylor performs well enough that the team wants to keep him beyond that.'

'"Once you get one injury, that gives you experience," Bush said. "Unfortunately, all the injuries kept happening to my knee. At this point, I'm just prepared. I know what to do, I know how to approach it, what to expect on a day-to-day basis, and the grind that it will take to get healthy. At this point, I'm well versed in that area, but it's taken a number of injuries to go through that."'

'Even though he combined that with a dropped pass early on in the practice, he came back and performed at a fairly high level for someone practicing for the first time since suffering a torn meniscus in 2015. He showed some chops in the receiving game, and even flashed some burst up the field by planting his foot in the ground and turning it up field. That last instance drew some “ooh’s” and “aah’s” from the crowd in attendance at St. John Fisher College.'