Buffalo Bills Training Camp: Day 10
By Ryan Brennan
The Buffalo Bills training camp continued on August 10th with their 10th practice. With six remaining and their first preseason game closing in, how’s the team looking?
With all of the injuries to the defense, most recently the news that we will most likely be without rookie Reggie Ragland for the whole season, it was nice to see how dominant the Buffalo Bills‘ defense can be without them.
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That’s right, Wednesday was completely owned by the defense.
The team lined up for two-minute drills, giving each quarterback — Tyrod Taylor, E.J. Manuel and Cardale Jones — one drive that started at their own 40-yard line with 1:18 left on the clock. With the missing pieces on defense, you would think our offense would be lights out. However, the three quarterbacks went a combined 6 of 15.
Taylor ended up going 0-4, Manuel went 3-5 with 21 yards and Jones went 3-6 with 20 yards. Even worse, the offensive line allowed two sacks throughout the drills and even had a delay of game called against them. Safe to say, this wasn’t a very good sighting for the offense, the healthier of the two sides of the ball.
Two players on the defense really stood out on Wednesday, more specifically from our defensive back crew: Kevon Seymour and Jonathan Meeks. Both of these players haven’t seen a lot of action with the first-team, but stepped up when given the shot.
Seymour, our sixth-round draft pick, had an outstanding day and came away as the day’s most valuable player. He was seen as a problem to just about every receiver he was matched up with. From breaking up passes to not even allowing the ball to get thrown to the receiver, Seymour had a coming out day and came at a good time.
On the other hand, Meeks saw time with the first-team in light of a rest day for Corey Graham, who is the starter alongside Aaron Williams, even though Robert Blanton got a majority of those reps. Meeks is fighting for a spot on the roster and is giving the Bills good reason to keep him. His highlight on Wednesday came with his third interception of training camp. However, he did show a weakness when Sammy Watkins completely juked him out during a play that was turned into a touchdown.
On the other side of the ball, it wasn’t a very good day.
The Bills’ receiving core really struggled to bring the ball in and was seen dropping passes on NUMEROUS occasions. In fact, at least 8 dropped balls came at the hands of the receivers on Wednesday. Dezmin Lewis, Greg Little, Jimmay Mundine, Robert Woods, Mike Gillislee, LeSean McCoy, Leonard Hankerson and Chris Gragg were all recorded with a dropped pass during either 1-on-1’s or team drills.
One receiver stood out above all the rest and it’s a familiar face recently: Marquise Goodwin. After the Bills released their first unofficial depth chart of the season, we saw Goodwin named as the team’s No. 3 spot — a spot that is still up for grabs, but slowly becoming Goodwin’s spot. On Wednesday, he made a fool out of CB/S Jonathan Dowling on back-to-back plays, where he left the defensive back in the dust. He also had a nice grab against Ronald Darby, a grab that required a lot of fight.
In light of a bad day by the offense, matters were tampered with even more when McCoy got in a small scuffle with Zach Brown — who is the top replacement for Reggie Ragland so far. On a screen play for McCoy, Brown quickly read the play and stopped it before it could be made into anything. After McCoy caught the ball, Brown stopped him and initiated a small amount of contact, although it was too much for McCoy. He responded by throwing the ball at Brown and this time wasn’t a playful throw like the one at Sammy Watkins on Tuesday.
I didn’t want to end this on a bad note for the offense, so I saved some good news for last.
Tyrod Taylor had a tough time completing passes on Wednesday — although a lot of that came with dropped passes by the receivers. It got to a point where the quarterback decided to just not throw and do it all himself. There was a four-play stretch that saw Taylor take a stand and show his capabilities.
On the first play, he couldn’t find any receivers open so he worked his way out of the pocket and into the endzone for a rushing touchdown. On the next play, he noticed a large hole in the middle of the field and once again, ran the ball untouched for another touchdown. The third play finally saw a passing touchdown to Dez Lewis, who had to battle off Stephon Gilmore in the endzone. To end the hot streak, he used a pump fake to fool the defense and ran the ball in for his third rushing touchdown in four plays.
Related Story: Bills' First Unofficial Depth Chart Released
It was a dominant stretch for the starting quarterback.
The Buffalo Bills training camp will continue on Thursday, August 11th for their third night practice. They will take the field from 6 pm to 8 pm.
Do you feel a little better about the defense after Wednesday? Leave your comments below!