Here's the Bills news of note for August 1st.
**1 - Hyde compares CB White to Sam Shields
**Safety Micah Hyde is the veteran in Buffalo's very young secondary. He's seen a thing or two in his five years in the NFL. That's why in watching teammate and rookie CB Tre'Davious White on practice tape and the field is impressed with the Bills top draft choice.
"Oh, Tre's a beast, man. He's good. He's real good. He's making plays on the ball, he's all over the place. That guy's going to be really good," said Hyde.
Hyde also offered up a veteran comparison to White.
"I see plays from guys in the past [that are] spitting images of him. Sam Shields – I played with him in the past – he reminds me of Sam Shields and that's a Pro Bowl player so Tre has a knack for football."
The comparison isn't surprising from a look standpoint. White and Shields have similar body types, with Shields 5-11 and 184 pounds and White 5-11 and 192 pounds.
Shields was an undrafted signee of the Green Bay Packers in 2010 and logged 18 interceptions and 66 pass breakups in his first six NFL seasons. Unfortunately after sustaining the fourth concussion of his career he is currently a free agent. Nevertheless it's a revealing comparison by Hyde.
"Just (the way he) comes out of his breaks," said Hyde of White. "[He] can run. If he gets put in a bad position, he's able to get out of it with his speed and those are the really good corners."
**2 - Frazier weighs in on Ragland's transition to the 4-3
**Much has been made of LB Reggie Ragland's transition from being schooled for years in a 3-4 defense going back to his college days, to now playing in a 4-3 scheme. Defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier downplayed the thought that Ragland would need a lot of time to get up to speed.
"I don't know if there are any major challenges," said Frazier flatly. "The things that we ask him to do are not overly different than what he actually did in college. He's a good enough athlete, he's a smart enough football player that he can adapt to whatever system you have in place and he's doing a good job in that regard. I don't think there are any concerns, system-wise."
As Frazier sees it the bigger challenge for Ragland is getting his body back up to game speed after his ACL knee injury suffered last year in training camp.
"Yeah, you can see him kind of getting his legs back under him. He got a chance to get a little work at the end of OTA's and [it's been] a long road coming back from the type of injury that he had – and it may take a little while – but every day he gets a little more confidence," Frazier said. "You can see the burst beginning to come back, but it's a process when you're coming back from that type of an injury so we'll just watch and progress over the next few weeks and hopefully he'll have no setbacks.
3 - Jones and White helping each other
Bills head coach Sean McDermott has effectively preached the concept of putting the team first in everything they do. Yes, there are players in direct competition with some of their teammates for starting job, but McDermott promotes being good teammates and helping one another knowing the result is a better team overall.
Two rookies who have taken to that approach are Tre'Davious White and Zay Jones. The team's top two draft choices are sharing one another's on field processing of plays with one another.
"We were just going through some certain scenarios – DB [vs.] receiver," said Jones. "Tre asks me sometimes 'What is a wide receiver thinking when he's doing this?' And then I'm kind of asking him, 'Okay, how do you play this certain leverage?' Because my goal is – it's not to beat Tre'Davious. My goal is to go out and compete on Sundays against other teams so Tre is helping prepare me and I'm helping prepare him for the ultimate goal."
White uses his receiver teammates to gain knowledge about how they react to certain techniques he employs against them so he'll know what kind of counter move to have at the ready.
"At the end of the day, you compete on the field, but off the field they're your teammate," White told Buffalobills.com. "I want to talk to those receivers, and ask when I line up this way, what are they going to think? So, I pretty much have an upper hand going into Sundays."
