1. Adjusting to the new environment at One Bills Drive
Monday this week marked the first time the balance of the Bills roster was at the team facility at One Bills Drive. For players who had been away for months the look was in stark contrast to what they remembered.
Although they knew many of the protocols and procedures due to the COVID pandemic, seeing it in action was still a bit of a surprise.
"Every locker has an empty locker by it, so you know you don't you're not necessarily right next to somebody," said Jordan Poyer. "No more cafeteria upstairs. All the food is downstairs. All the lunch tables and dinner tables are outside and it's all spread apart. There are no more meetings where you're kind of crammed into a room sitting next to your teammates and so it is a lot different.
"Everything's been first class and they've made as many adjustments to the building and the facilities as they've could they have," said Josh Allen. "Everything's been smooth so far. We've got to still continue to wear masks and we've got these little trackers that make sure that we're staying six feet apart and in order to perform on the field, we're going to have to do everything right off the field."
2. Josh Allen looking to make up for lost reps
There wasn't much Josh Allen could do. With no OTAs and no spring minicamp and a delay to the start of real practice at training camp there were hundreds of reps lost on the field.
He and his fellow quarterbacks tried to make up for it a bit with two days of player-organized throwing sessions in South Florida earlier this offseason. But knowing it can't make up for all of their lost time, Allen set to make up for the lost physical reps by adding mental ones.
"I've set up something in my house and I've got my complete film room there and I got everything I need to watch as much film as I can," said Allen. "So I'm going to spend a lot of time in that room, be able to make sure that I'm getting all the mental reps that I can."
3. Cody Ford to work at guard and tackle
With the torn pectoral injury suffered by starting right guard Jon Feliciano, which required surgery just a couple of days before training camp opened, there is suddenly a void in the team's offensive line. Head coach Sean McDermott laid out the means by which they may choose to address the hole in the lineup and it involves second-year lineman Cody Ford.
The former second-round pick, who played primarily right tackle last season as a rookie, will be working at both right guard and right tackle as walk-through practices commence this week in the acclimation period.
"He's a young player that has a high upside and the thing with Cody is I'd like to get him set at one position and let him develop," said McDermott in an appearance on Bills flagship station WGR Sportsradio 550. "In this case we're moving some things around with Jon's absence and moving Cody down inside and then some other people inside and have Cody stay outside some reps as well so we're going to take a look at some things as we get started here."
GM Brandon Beane also mentioned free agent signees Daryl Williams and Evan Boehm as potential candidates as well as Spencer Long and even Ty Nsekhe who has played guard in his career.
