Archives for September 3, 2017

'Of the 68 players who were part of the 53-man squad at some time last season, only 27 remain, a mere 14 of them starters, plus punter Colton Schmidt.'

'The Bills’ roster cuts, which were officially announced 10 minutes before the 4 p.m. league-mandated deadline, weren’t all that surprising considering their depth at various positions, including receiver, offensive line and running back.'

'Meanwhile, the speedy Clay could potentially be a downfield threat now that he’s healthy. The 25-year-old, who signed with Carolina in April, caught six passes for 127 yards for the Panthers this preseason. But he has yet to catch a pass in a regular-season game. A 2015 sixth-round pick of Tampa Bay, Clay briefly spent time with Detroit and Baltimore. He averaged 10.6 yards on 23 punts and 24.5 yards on 14 kick returns for the Ravens.'

'At a time when expectations for the team are as low as at any time during the 17-year playoff drought, Reilly was a genuine feel-good story. He also showed, in various summer snapshots, the capacity to make a meaningful contribution.'

'Johnson had a two-yard touchdown run in last Thursday night's preseason-finale against the Detroit Lions.'

'Three of their first five games are on the road, and they all figure to be tough: the Carolina Panthers, Atlanta Falcons, and Cincinnati Bengals.'

'They completed menial tasks like washing uniforms and changing an executive's flat tire. They emerged from doe-eyed obscurity to be fought over by different departments inside their organizations, to earn sudden, prominent interim roles, to get teased and passed over, to prove all over again they're going nowhere but to the tops of their professions.'

'Beane isn’t tanking it, but his actions bespeak a man who is cleaning up after is predecessors and looking to the future. Sure, he and Sean McDermott would love to compete for a playoff spot, but they know they’ve inherited a weak roster, a difficult situation.'

'The Bills were still my team and remain a scrapbook of my youth. I dodged potholes while delivering newspapers the way O.J. danced around tacklers. I toed imaginary sidelines the way Bobby Chandler did. You have no idea how much I wanted to step on Terry Bradshaw's head the way Jim Haslett did.'

'The Bills announced their transactions shortly before the 4 p.m. deadline which got them down to the NFL-mandated 53-man limit. Like many of the players around the league, mulligans are coming because each team can sign up to 10 players for their practice squad, and it is expected that several of the players the Bills cut will be back on the team Sunday afternoon.'

'Clay will now play for his fifth team since the Tampa Bay Buccaneers drafted him in the sixth-round of the 2015 NFL Draft out of Utah. Clay, 25, has never caught a pass in an NFL regular season game but has experience in the return game. He has one punt return touchdown in his career. He also caught six passes for 127 yards with the Panthers this preseason.'

'The Bills will be Kaelin Clay's fifth team. Clay was drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the sixth round of the 2015 draft. He had practice squad stints with Tampa Bay and Detroit in 2015 before the Baltimore Ravens signed him to their 53-man roster. Clay would stay with the Ravens through 2016. This offseason, Clay joined the Panthers before he was traded to Buffalo.'

'In less than four months with the team, Beane is proving that he's serious about building through the draft. The GM has made multiple trades that have resulted in adding picks in the next two drafts.'

'According to the Batavia Daily News, Reilly will be added the team's practice squad. Various reports also indicate Shorts, Sayles, Lewis, Seau, and Sanders will also be added to the practice squad, if another NFL team doesn't claim them. Buffalo is allowed to place 10 players on their practice squad.'

'“Yup, 100%. We have all sorts of tags when we (grade) a player … all the measurables that you would normally see. But we also have, ‘Is he ultra-competitive? Was he a team captain?’ You know, all the little indicators of what this guy is. We also have tags that are mental. We’re concerned with, ‘How smart is this guy?’ … Part of that entails asking the weight coach: ‘How hard does this guy work in here?’ And asking his guidance counsellor, ‘How hard does this guy work in school?’ Now, the competitive guys? Most of them? They have good grades, too. Yeah, some of them have schooling issues. But most of them that can learn, they’re busting their butts. But I definitely make our scouts ask every single thing about them.”'