Thursday, August 22, 2013

Marrone: Bills must maintain 'camp mentality'

BY NICK ST. DENIS

The Buffalo Bills wrapped up training camp Wednesday, holding their last practice at St. John Fisher College before heading back to Orchard Park for their final summer practices.

First-year head coach Doug Marrone doesn't want the fun to end.

“The one thing I want the players to understand is that even though we’re leaving St. John Fisher, and that part of it has been absolutely amazing, but even though we’re going back to Buffalo, we still have to keep that training camp mentality," Marrone told The John Murphy Show Wednesday.

The Bills still have a pair of preseason games left to play and a whole lot of paring of the roster, so Marrone expects the intra-team competition to continue into September.

He also hopes his squad will maintain the closeness it had through most of August.

"I think it’s easier to control a locker room here at camp," Marrone told the media Wednesday. "When I say control it, I’m walking through and the players are together, they’re much closer. If we can establish that closeness when we go back, obviously that helps and then when you get adversity, the senior leadership has to kick in. We as coaches can’t be around them the whole time."

For one Bills player and expected team leader, training camp has really just begun. The Bills' best defender, safety Jairus Byrd, is expected to report to team facilities Thursday after sitting out all of OTAs and camp.

Byrd finally signed his tender Tuesday after being franchise-tagged in March, and he has plenty of catching up to do in a brand new defensive system that will require him to make a lot of calls and team adjustments from centerfield.

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