Here is the Bills news of note for June 20th.
**1 - Polian likes new offense for Taylor and Clay
**ESPN NFL front office Insider Bill Polian has made a good number of positive comments on the direction of the Bills under head coach Sean McDermott. While the former Bills GM believes the organization is unquestionably on the right track, he also outlined some issues the team is facing in a recent appearance on the John Murphy Show.
"Who is going to emerge at receiver? Who is going to back up Shady? The Mike Gillislee departure left a void to fill," Polian said. "I have no question that the defense will come together. It just might take a while. It will come more sooner than later because (the scheme is) so similar to what Jim Schwartz did there. You'll see them get cohesive relatively soon. I want to see how the offensive line performs. That's an area where I think there are some question marks as to how well it can perform."
Polian was speaking about the line's ability to pass protect. While sacks don't solely fall on an offensive line, Tyrod Taylor was taken down 46 times and the Bills had the second-highest sack percentage in the league in 2016. If that can be effectively addressed then Polian believes Tyrod Taylor can flourish in this offense as well as his tight end.
"The offensive line performance and protecting the passer is the issue, and how they adapt to the system," he said. "That system, by the way, is perfectly suited to Tyrod Taylor's talents, and will get Charles Clay more involved than he has been in the past. It's suited well to his talents too. But you've got to be able to block it and that's the key."
2 - Bills option run game heralded by PFFAs much pub as Dallas RB Ezekiel Elliott and the Cowboys got last season, it was Buffalo's run game that was most productive. ProFootballFocus took and in-depth look at the Bills rushing attack from last year. Their most astute observation was explaining how the run scheme almost always included an option element in every run play.
That extra layer freezes linebackers, who must wait and see who has the ball. As ProFootballFocus pointed out it takes a defender out of the play without even having to block him. PFF speculates as to whether new offensive coordinator Rick Dennison will incorporate some of the hugely successful run concepts of last season into their offense this year.
There's no need to speculate. Dennison confirmed that recently.
"Certainly there are a few things that we're doing that we watched on film that we didn't do over the last couple of years," said Dennison in reviewing Bills game film from the last two seasons. "Some things that they did here that (offensive line coach) Juan (Castillo) and I have talked about in the run game that they've done very well that we'll try to carry over.
"I think it's a blend of everything. Whatever we think we need to do for the 2017 Buffalo Bills to move the ball, make first downs and win games."
**3 - How prankster Eric Moulds met his match
**Bills second all-time receiver Eric Moulds was on the John Murphy Show last week and in addition to talking about the premiere of the second episode of the ‘Bills Top 10’ television series airing on MSG on Monday nights at 9 pm, he also shared some stories of how big league the pranks were getting between teammates at One Bills Drive back when he and Drew Bledsoe were teammates in 2002.
"Back when Drew Bledsoe was on the team he and the quarterbacks kept locking us in our receivers room. We couldn't get out," Moulds said. "We couldn't figure out how they were doing it. When we finally got out we decided we had to get them back. So Peerless Price came up with the idea to go to the store and buy the club that used to lock up the steering wheels. So we went and got five or six of those for the quarterbacks and got their keys in the locker room, went out to their cars and put the clubs on their steering wheels. So they had to wait for security and some other guys to come and cut the clubs off the steering wheels. It went back and forth a lot that year."
Unfortunately for Moulds and Price, Bledsoe had the last laugh.
"It was crazy after that, Drew Bledsoe said, 'Oh you want to play that way?' He went and got a two truck and they took all the tires off my car and Peerless' car and put them on bricks."
