1 – Dialing up the blitzBuffalo's defense was bringing the pressure throughout the team portions of practice on Sunday. More often than not the 'D' was lining up a variety of five and six-man pressures and even threw in some seven and eight-man rushes. Needless to say the blitz calls and overloads were very effective.
"We installed a lot of '46' stuff, that type of defense and when you do that a lot of mistakes usually happen on offense," said head coach Rex Ryan. "That happened a little bit, but overall I was pleased with the effort."
There were about a half dozen 'would be' sacks through the course of practice. Aaron Williams admits it puts a charge in the men on defense when they can be aggressive.
"It's a huge charge because we may show that we're coming and we don't, and then we don't show and we do blitz," said Williams. "It's a mixture, so it helps all 11 players on our side of the ball. We want to try to confuse the quarterback. That's all this defense really is."
2 – McCoy more shifty than shadyLeSean McCoy came to the Bills with the nickname 'Shady,' but a more appropriate one might be shifty. Day three of camp may have been his most impressive. Though he's turned in an eye-opening play each day of camp, McCoy appeared to be at his most elusive Sunday.
Bobbing and weaving, dipping and cutting, McCoy is easily one of the quickest athletes on Buffalo's roster. His ability to check in and out of a hole that might be closing or side stepping a defender has a lot of fans in attendance and coaches raising their eyebrows or grabbing their head in disbelief.
"He made some cuts today where it's like, 'Whoo!' 'Wow,'" said Ryan. "One of the first plays we did we got him one-on-one with the corner and I'm thinking that's not good for the defense, but it's good for us. I can't wait to watch him."
"The way I do things, I like to prepare myself for the season and to go through camp hard and get the offense down, know exactly what I'm doing and the players around me, and get better with my teammates and then everything will take care of itself," McCoy said.
3 – More first team work for QB CasselMatt Cassel has seen some measure of work with the starting offensive unit each of the first three days in the quarterback rotation. Sunday would've been the day he rotated out with EJ Manuel and Tyrod Taylor getting the bulk of the work with the ones, but that wasn't the case.
Ryan explained that he and his offensive staff believe Cassel is a veteran that knows what he's doing, while Taylor and Manuel can be more effectively developed by getting them additional work with the second and third team units.
"We put (Cassel) there," said Ryan of working with the ones. "That's what we want to do. With his experience we think it's more appropriate that he's always rotating with them. Tyrod will get his equal turns at the one spot and so will EJ, so we're putting them there, but when we go to running some other units they go down with the threes because they're younger and are going to be with some of these younger guys. We think that's the best way to develop these young quarterbacks."
Bonus notes:
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FB John Conner **is going to miss a week of practice according to Ryan thanks to a hamstring injury suffered Sunday. Ryan said Conner is naturally disappointed.
Sunday was the first day in pads for the players and though the physicality of practice didn't take a giant step forward, the Bills head coach liked the effort.
"The first day in pads is always fun. It looks like real football, finally," Ryan said. "I like the way we carried our pads for the first time."
G Cyril Richardsonis giving rookie G John Millersome stiff competition. Ryan confirmed that Richardson's play has been good at the outset of camp and that he's "pushing Miller." Richardson has been rotated in with the starting unit on occasion.
