Buffalo Bills Training Camp: Day 4

Aug 15, 2015; Houston, TX, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Reggie Bush watches on the sidelines against the Houston Texans in a preseason NFL football game at NRG Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports /

The Buffalo Bills met again at St. John Fisher College for their first night practice of the 2016 season on August 2nd. How’s the team looking now that they are nearly a quarter of the way done with training camp?

Just a couple of weeks ago, Buffalo Bills‘ fans never would’ve expected to see Reggie Bush suit up in a Bills uniform. On Tuesday, they got to see just that. It didn’t take long for Bush to show the team what he had to offer after signing with the team just a day ago.

Last season, Bush suffered a torn meniscus during his short stint with the San Francisco 49ers. In 5 games played, he only had 8 carries for 28 yards before the injury. It kept him off the field for the remainder of the season. Tuesday was his first time back on a football field since then, so a little rust was expected.

We saw a little bit of that rust early on when Bush dropped a punt return, as well as a dropped pass. However, he quickly found his rhythm in the receiving game, the punt game and the running game. He will most likely be the Bills’ punt returner this season, but after getting first-team reps there is a possibility he competes for that backup running back role.

It’s been a while for Bush, but overall he looked pretty good in a Bills’ jersey on Tuesday.

Another player that is showing good talent is one of the team’s undrafted rookies, Eric Striker. Throughout the first three training camp practices, Striker was pretty solid and showed glimpses of starter-capability. With the recent struggles the Bills were seeing in IK Enemkpali, who was having trouble with coverage in open field, Striker was moved up to the first-team defense.

What we saw from Striker was exactly what we wanted to see, explosiveness. He was a tough guy to block when he lined up with that first-team defense and proved the same when he was pinned up against Jordan Mills in one-on-one’s. With Shaq Lawson likely missing a good chunk of the season, there is a good chance Striker sees some playing time early on if he continues down this route.

Remember that battle I talked about in our Buffalo Bills training camp opening weekend edition for the fourth spot in our safety rotation? It seems like a name, that actually wasn’t mentioned in that last piece, has stuck out the past few days. That guy is Jonathan Meeks, who seems to be the front runner to win that spot on the rotation behind Aaron Williams, Corey Graham and Robert Blanton.

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During team drills on Tuesday, Jonathan Meeks turned heads with an interception off rookie QB Cardale Jones. Meeks did the same thing on Monday, but to backup QB E.J. Manuel. Two interceptions in two days is a good way to get the coaches attention, if you ask me. The other two players fighting for the spot — Duke Williams and Colt Anderson — are still having an alright training camp. However, Meeks has stolen the show so far.

As for the wide receivers, it seems like a different guy currently battling for the No. 3 spot has stepped up each day. We know that Robert Woods is a lock for the No. 2 spot, but so far we’ve seen Greg Little, Leonard Hankerson and Dezmin Lewis all show flashes of what they could do. However, two names have been a little more consistent than the rest: Greg Salas and Marquise Goodwin.

Greg Salas has proven to be a very dependable receiver, which if we’ve learned anything from Tom Brady and Julian Edelman, those receivers are nice to have on your side. On the other hand, Goodwin had a very solid day on Monday and has also been dependable throughout the first four days. This is a good sign for Tyrod Taylor, who won’t have a shortage of targets this season.

Lastly, like always, the kicking competition.

It seemed as though the Bills made their decision when they released Marshall Morgan on Monday. After Morgan won the first two days of training camp, Dan Carpenter has been slowly getting back to his accurate form. He is the clear No. 1 kicker for the team right now. However, we did see Jordan Gay line up for kicks on Tuesday. That shouldn’t really matter for Carpenter, though, who made all 10 of his field goals Tuesday night.

As training camp continues, we are starting to see the Bills get situated and comfortable back on the field. If this continues, we could be ready to watch what all the hype this off-season was about. This could get really fun, really soon.

Who would you like to see line up as the No. 3 wide receiver this season? Are you impressed with Reggie Bush so far?

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