They're a team with a proven quarterback, one of the most successful defenses over the last 10 years and a pair of Super Bowl rings since 2005. So it's little wonder the Bills are interested in making use of their two days of practices with the Pittsburgh Steelers as a gauge to see where they stand in their development as a team and in their preparations for the 2014 campaign.
"It'll be a good test for us," said Eric Wood. "They have a lot of tradition and we have a lot of respect for their franchise. It'll be a good measuring stick. Anytime you go against the Steelers I don't care how tough you are or how fundamentally sound you are because under Dick LeBeau they've traditionally been really sound defensively."
"We know it's going to be a good opportunity for us to go out there and see where we stand," said Fred Jackson. "When you get the chance to do it, you're going to go out and prove yourself."
Though Buffalo's training camp practices have been long and challenging, the players realize that the intensity is going to much more intense than a normal practice with two teams pitted against one another.
"I'm expecting it to be a physical couple of practices," said Chris Hogan. "We went up against them last year and they were a pretty physical team. I'm expecting to get some good work in. It'd be nice to go against a different defense for these next two days. Then the game so I expect us to go in there with the same attitude we've had here every single day in camp."
For Buffalo's offense the Pittsburgh defensive looks will be in stark contrast to anything they've seen from their own defense in camp at St. John Fisher, and that's a welcome change.
"We're going against a new look, new defense," said Robert Woods. "It'll be physical I feel like going against an older team. We don't know each other so we have to prepared for everything."
"We just want to keep building," said Wood. "We talked about that all through the preseason. We're not going to go from where we were offensively to being a top five or top three offense in one day. It's all about the process. These are just two opportunities with the practices and one opportunity with the (preseason) game to get better. We need to show up and work hard and execute and hopefully we'll come out of it feeling pretty good."
