Thursday, January 8, 2015

Bills knew they'd make big strides on special teams

BY NICK ST. DENIS

The Buffalo Bills mostly stunk on special teams in 2013. 2014 was much better.

As the team's website points out, the Bills went from a Football Outsiders special teams ranking of 30th to 4th from year-to-year. (Check out the F.O. rankings and numerical values here).
“We kind of knew we were going to be able to do that,” Bills defender Corey Graham told Buffalobills.com. “Special teams you just need to have a few guys that really buy into the system and really want to do their job and work real hard on special teams. 
"When you bring in guys like myself and Boobie (Dixon), guys who really care about special teams you should be alright typically. Guys bought into it. Guys went out there and competed their butts off.”
The Bills made major improvements pretty much across the board on the third unit, namely in coverage and in the punting department. (In all fairness, they were given plenty of opportunities to practice punting.)