Bills Camp Day 1: D-Line STANDS OUT and NO DRAMA with James Cook

Right here. I said Terrell Bernard would be I actually think right here. Yeah, it was right. By the way, I’m standing in the spot where Dan Fates made the Dan is right proclamation of his career. You know what’s right over there? The Jugs machine. That there’s the open. [Music] This is the Buffalo Plus podcast brought to you by Connors and Ferris. All right, welcome back to the Buffalo Plus podcast presented by Connors and Ferris. Mike Catalana, Dan Fates, I am Jenna Kotro. Please be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share. Training camp finally here. We are at Fiser day number one. Football is back. Woo! You can feel it in the air. So many people out at Fiser today. But we got to start with the news of the day, Michael, and that is that James Cook was here and did participate. I think it’s great. I think eventually it’s going to be really good for James Cook because I think he’s got to be here. I don’t think holding in, holding out is going to do him any good in these circumstances. I hope he’s getting good advice. He’s a very good player. I don’t think the door is shut on the Bills resigning him. I just don’t think it’s wide open. And Brandon Bean talked about that today saying, you know, they’ve had dialogue, but that he loves James. He does say he loves James. In fact, he even paused and says, “And you guys have heard me say I love James.” He didn’t say Jimbo. It was not a Jimbo James. It was serious conversation. But look, the way it is is he is their number one back. As much as we like the other guys, he’s out there practicing with his teammates. He’s going to make 5ome million dollars this year. And hopefully for James Cook, he plays great and he gets paid whether it’s in Buffalo or somewhere else. Gets paid a lot of money. It’s the way the NFL works. No guarantees either way, but I think that’s the way it’s going to stay. And I think as soon as you saw him out there and I think you looked at us and you came over and you were like, “This is good.” Yeah. Like like it was that thought of not having this be a distraction. I’m not saying it was or wasn’t in the offseason, but when it’s a slow off season and James is posting on social media and all of these things and didn’t show up to voluntary, which it is voluntary, it was a little bit of that underlying of would he show up? Like he was even asked at mini camp when he showed up, you going to show up to training camp and he says, “Why don’t we just wait and see when camp gets here?” So to have that and not have this be a really a story instead of just the contract negotiations, set that aside. He was here. He was practicing. Everything looked fine. I liked the move. I think it was the smart thing to do. We know he’s about his money. He doesn’t want to deal with fines, but he also he could have come and held in and not practiced, but I think he’s been a great teammate. And I do think Brandon Bean talking today was saying like, you know, the the conversations will continue. I don’t know what they will be like, but at the same point, at least he was here. He was a good teammate. He showed up. He’s putting in the work. And let’s be honest here, he’s in part, and I know some of you were going to comment because you always do. He’s there because he doesn’t want to get fined. Well, there’s part of that that’s in there, right? He’s not he’s he skips training camp. He gets fined a lot of money. There’s no reason for him to do that. The plus for James Cook is even though I think he’s still severely underpaid this year at 5 million. Yep. I think he would make more than that certainly on the open market, he’s not in the open market yet. If I was advising him and he did not ask me, I he would have done the exact thing he’s done so far. Yeah. Skip the the non clear that you are unhappy with your contract and then show up and work. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s he’s speaking to the Bills and he’s speaking to 31 other NFL teams now. He shows up and then he’ll get paid at some point. So, let’s see how it plays out. It’s nice to see that just kind of take care of itself. Now, what will the second piece look like in terms of a contract, in terms of that playing out? We don’t know that yet, but I feel like today I was like, okay, this is at least a solid footing to go forward with not hang all of that hanging over your head. I also think the other big thing that Bean had said was he’s hopeful that when he’s sitting here next year at training camp, James is out here practicing representing the red, white, and blue. So, I thought that was that was the most definitive him saying like we want him back more than before. No, no, I think that’s a good thing for him to say. I think so. 0 to 100, what’s the number that he’s he’s on this team next summer here at camp? I was gonna say so my thing was what he said I liked hopeful I it’s I think it was the perfect thing to say if you are Brandon Bean do I think it reflects how the team is approaching it I don’t know because I don’t believe that James Cook will be on the team next season correct right so I think we’re in agreement on so I will go 178% see why you doing fractions because you can’t it’s a decimal it’s not a fraction well isn’t a fraction technically a decimal. No, they’re different. Well, can’t they be like similar? Well, it would be 17. I guess it’s like saying six of one half dozen the other. Yes, I guess you’re right. Yes. Who’s right? You’re right. It’s seven. Both are right. Who’s right? You’re both right because it’s 17. I gave her a decimal and she said a fraction. But it’s 17.8 over 100. Yes. Yes. Wow. You could tell we’re communications majors. Yeah. Seriously, this is the hard-hitting stuff they come to here for the Buffalo Plus YouTube channel. I would say like, comment, and subscribe. Appreciate it. I would say I’m less than 17. What? I think I think I’m around 15% that James Cook will be back next year. 15.0. 15.0. We’re going to keep it round numbers. Keep it easy. So, it’s no fractions involved. Yeah, it does. And I’m going to go 14.9. All right. Uh the but the other part today was the hearing about Dawson Knox and Spencer Brown. uh Dawson hamstring. I don’t think it Do you think it’s a big deal? No. I mean, Brandon Bean even talked about like at later points in the season, he probably would have been out there, but because they have the time, because he’s a veteran player, like you can kind of slow play this a little bit. And I think that’s that’s what you want to do. You want to be conservative about it considering where we’re at in the season. So, it makes sense to me. I wasn’t like, whoa, I’m alarmed. This is going to be a huge thing. Totally agree with Dawson. Little bit concerned with Spencer. I’m with you. The back injury on a surgically repaired back flaring up. Don’t love don’t love hearing that if I’m being honest. Yeah. Especially long term. But I’m with you. He’s not when he’s missing. He’s missing reps. He’s been a very good player at that right tackle spot. I don’t worry about that as much. He knows the offense, same coordinator, the whole thing. I’m with you though. Back injuries for big human beings. For anybody is a problem, but for big people great. So hopefully it’s I mean it’s easy to be a little overly cautious in July. Correct. We’ll see where we are. It’ be nice to see him at some point here out there practicing. Sometimes these things it’s like oh Spencer Brown’s cleared and he’s on the practice field. I think with a back it might take a little longer, but we’ll see. Yeah, that’s fair. All right, let’s get to some of our on the- field observations. Is there any Do we want to start with pass catcher of the day? Do we want to go nudoo the day? Or we want to start general? So, we did that last year was pass catcher of the day. I wanted to add this year new dude of the day because there’s a lot of new dudes on this team. Not that there weren’t last year, but we were so focused on the pass catcher. So, either one. Why don’t you start? We’ll do new dude of the day. So, new dude of the day for me was Joey Bosa. So, I think for me obviously had during the spring, you know, the injury you’re like, what will this look like? Shawn McDermott said in the spring it won’t be an issue, but to see Joey Bosa out here on the field working with his teammates. He spoke afterwards just about feeling good, about feeling like himself and really taking the time to also now know some of these guys because of the off season and getting in the reps and all that stuff mentally, but now being able to take that onto the field and how beneficial that will be. Great quote he had about spending time with his teammates. Yeah, which this was wild. So, he was talking at the podium after practice and he said this the six weeks of this last part of the season and now being at training camp, he has spent more time hanging out with his teammates than he did for the entirety of his career with the Chargers. Yeah. Which you hear about culture here and how the players love to be catching. But I was like just catching a stray. It’s almost a decade. What? Yeah. I I also was thinking I was watching Josh Palmer who was a player on the Chargers Chargers and he’s signing autographs. player. Well, he’s signing autographs for fans and I’m thinking he was so good. He had a meeting. They kept saying, “You got to go. You got to go.” He’s like, “One more.” He was great. He was running over. He signed more. And I’m thinking to myself, and I mentioned to somebody, it’s got to be wild for him that because he played for the Chargers where most of their home games more than half the crowd was for the other team. And he’s here. And I thought the crowd was with it today. It was loud. Everything was loud here. People were very excited to see him, but for a guy like Joey Bosa, and you brought him up, not just saying that, but flashed on the field, too. Like, you see the skill that the guy has. He blew up Ryan Vandermark. Yeah. Yes. It was a It was a great rep. And I think for him, it probably just felt good. You know, he had been holding back with the injuries, all that stuff. I think for him, he talked about just the feeling of being himself again. and and for an athlete like he talked about how can have a little bit of like not self-pity but just like dang I can’t believe I’m injured again. So to be back out on the field I think that’s huge. Had those flashes of moments and then also now settling in with a a new team in a new culture in a new environment. Dan it started for me when he wasn’t on a list. Yes. Right. Like you say they have all these lists and it’s like would it have stunned anybody if they said Joey Bos is on, you know, whatever. But it wasn’t. He’s out there practicing. I think that’s a positive sign. My new dude of the day, because I disagree with you guys, TJ Sanders, I thought was electric. I thought he made two plays of just throwing away uh whoever the right guard was that he was going up against. He looked the part that you were hoping to to be not as big as the massive human that is Dion Walker. Like just a mountain of a man, insanely large human being, but he has that more of that agility. Yeah, it’s almost like you took Ed and kind of pulled him up and stretched him out. Like that’s that’s what it looked like with some of that power. Again, I try not to get too excited one way or another, too down on a guy after one day because it was a pretty light practice. Yeah, it’s tough at times. Like we we will say it, we say every training camp, we’re not judging running plays here when there’s no pads on. Even when there are pads on, it’s tough to really judge. But I thought he did a couple of really nice stunts, moves, looked powerful and quick from that nose tackle position that I thought was impressive. And Matt Oy was sitting next to me and he’s like, “Would it be crazy to say that TJ Sanders has the second most snaps for a defensive tackle this year?” And I was like, “I don’t think so.” Oh, so we were talking to him and he did say I asked a very clumsy way of the question, so it didn’t really go over very well, but later he was asked about um basically playing as a rookie. Yeah. And he was, you know, he should feel this way. Yeah. Like these guys are going to get every opportunity. And I don’t like when I hear, first of all, we’ve already pushed back on that Sean doesn’t like to play rookies. If these guys can play, believe me, they are going to play. And you drafted what, six of them. Yeah. in in this year’s draft, but I think he looked that way. And I’ll throw the other one in there. You talk about the human monster size-wise of Deion Walker when he’s out there. And one play, he pushed the entire offensive line quarterback. Yeah. So, he is in a field full of big human beings. Yes. Comically large. Comically large was was my tweet. I’m also so happy that on day one we’re talking about the Dline. Like I I mean that in the best way possible because there’s been yes a lot of resources that have been put there but I think it’s good to just look it is day one but the amount that they have invested in this Dline it’s nice to be like hey there’s some guys that really jump off now it’s it’s a light practice all that stuff but you want to see that considering the amount that they’ve invested a lot of fans are going to be excited because there’s a lot of people who want to see something from Javon Solomon this year and there was a play well there was a play where Reggie Gill scored a touchdown. Yes. Celebrated. It’s a lot of fun. He caught the ball. I think they did a little spike together, but on that play, Solomon was It would have been I mean, he easily would have had a sack on the play. There was a touchdown earlier. I think it was to Concincaid. They did a ton of red zone today. Um it was a touchdown to Concaid. They celebrated and we’re watching the touchdown was over here. Okay. And on the far end of the field, Taran Johnson is jarring with another player and you’re like, “What? What’s going on here?” He was jarring with KJ Hamler, which was hysterical almost to Taran being like, “Who are you?” Because there was there was that intensity for the practice, for the red zone. They talk about that. That’s why the offense celebrates. The defense was also celebrating on every single stop. It was hilarious. And it was peak day one of training camp. Yeah. of the offense, the backup seventh wide receiver being like, “Yeah, we scored on you.” And Taran Johnson being like, “Yeah.” Okay. All right. Since you brought up Taran, was it Shakir that he hit? I think so. Yeah. Yes. Tackled him. Yeah. Yeah. Not hit. Yeah. Tackled him to the ground. To the ground. And And then Shakir’s like looking and then Shawn comes over. The classic experience. And before Shawn could even walk over to him, Taran gives him the I know, coach. I know. And he gives him just the pat on the back. Yeah. I go, if it was anybody else, they’d be running push-ups. Can’t do it. It was one of those things. And Taran was a guy that last year hit Josh during a run. Josh Allen, you know, 17 like hit him. Not only is it training camp, he’s Josh Allen and he’s wearing a red jersey and he just tackles everything at every time. Yes. It’s the way he plays. Okay. I will say you mentioned that Dal Concincade touchdown, the catch in the end zone over Max Haristen. Yep. Yep. I thought Haristston for me had a slower start but then finished on a high note. Play of the day. His play. His play at the end. Uh it was a slant route. He was covering on the outside with KJ Hamler. Hamler beat him to the inside. Trabiscy with a throw and it was closing speed like what you saw about all with the draft process and this kind of closing speed was able to cut then back in front of Hamlin Hamler and knock it down. Yeah, it’s for you guys. It’s what you’re used to. Well, I wasn’t a point because I was I literally thought you were. No, what I was going to reference was it was 10 15 yards from us. He was right in front of us. But you are right about that speed. You can see that. Now, there was a play earlier. Well-run play. Josh Allen, Curtis Samuel. Great coverage, I thought, by Haristston. Yeah, better throw, better catch. That’s what happens. But hey, he celebrated, too. You should celebrate. The entire defense did. Babage came sprinting out over there into the end zone. It was, like I said, that was the intensity for a lighter day. A lot of red zone stuff. Uh, but he wasn’t the only one that had a couple nice breakups. Trey White. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. I love Go off, queen. I love seeing Trey White back here at camp. I think for him like he talked about how it feels like home. It was so funny. I caught a moment like right before practice started of Trey with the cameras of Hard Knocks being like, “Come on, let me show you this person and that person and like the personality and just the the aura of Trey White, but to see him make some plays too. I wanted to see that and we got to see that today.” Yeah. Brandon Bean, too. Yeah. Well, he mentioned right about he goes, “I don’t try and I I don’t root for a side.” He goes, “I’m kind of just evaluating.” He goes, “But I’ll admit I was cheering for Trey and he goes, Trey broke up a pass and Bean goes, I caught myself cheering and he goes, he came up to me and I said, way to go, 27.” And Trey told him, “It’s good to be home.” And he goes, “I’m not going to bet against Trey White. He thinks he’s going to get better.” Also, we’ve said we have worries about what is left on the tread on Trey’s tires. But I did think it was interesting because again, he was the fifth wide fifth quarterback in Baltimore. That’s not great. If you’re expecting him to be that two or three here, well, what’s that going to be? Bean also talks about sometimes being comfortable, being home brings out the best of a player. And hopefully that is what they’re going to find with Trey. Yeah. Look, I I’m probably when it comes to the team, I’m probably less sentimental than you two. She still misses Jerry Hughes. Yeah. It’s just now I’ve seen a lot of players come and go. I’m a sentimental girl. You are. It’s like I’m not normally like even this fake news that I cried at Jenna’s wedding is just BS. That’s not me. But from a football perspective, I try to be more realistic about where Trey is. Yeah. I sometimes try to take a bigger look and see who physically flashes on the field. Like who’s that because there’s so many players. I would say today I saw a lot more athleticism in Trey than I expected to see. I agree. And I think he was fired up today. So right now he was with the ones, you know, they alternated. Yeah. But he he really did. And then the other part of that was was just the idea of, you know, it’s going to be a lot for Haristston. Yeah. To get to that spot, but I thought Trey looked good. You mentioned rotation. So they were rotating in Cole Bishop. Yeah. Taylor Rap, Demar Hamlin, like kind of rotating first. They were all Yeah. So, I kind of was like, that is something to me where it was like, okay, there was a time when it was Demar and Taylor Rap out there, not Cole Bishop. So, I thought that was something that and uh I asked friend of the pod even though they wouldn’t let him be on with us, Carl Jones. And I said, um, what about the safeties in that case? Because Carl played division one defensive back and he’s like, they got to be able to play both. the days of thinking, “Oh, this guy’s a strong safety. This guy’s, you know, you need to be able to do everything.” And I think they like that flexibility of saying, “Can you play the deep third? Can you play press in the box? Can you play that way? Can you cover?” That’s what they want to do. They’re different players, but I do think it’s interesting because they do have while Bishop’s trying to earn that spot, both Forest and and certainly Dear have a lot of starts under their belt. So, while it is a position, I think it was ESPN recently that listed that as the, you know, the weakest part of the team, it is a group with a lot of experience at least. And the hope is that Bishop rises up and can be the starter. Who is your pass catcher of the day? For me, it was Josh Palmer. I I was I was pleasantly surprised. Again, it was a lot of red zones, so it was a lot of quick cuts, agility kind of throws and things like that for a bigger guy than what I thought. Pretty agile in and out of his breaks, which I liked. I thought he had really good hands. Uh I thought I was pretty impressed by him today. Yeah, I I like the way he plays when they were coming out. Again, this is very early in three wide receiver sets. It was Palmer, Shakir, and Keon were those guys out there. You know, we’ll see how Curtis Samuels. I already mentioned the one nice catch he made. Let’s see where he fits in in this group, but I think Josh Palmer is going to get a lot of opportunities to play all over the place in this offense because he can play on the outside for them. So, uh, yeah, I’ll go with you on that for the first day. I think after watching him today, it gave me a little bit of like how much and how often they used Gabe Davis, that’s what they kind of wanted to have again. And I think he may not have the physicality and the run blocking, but again, I don’t care how well my wide receivers run block. I want them to get open and catch the football. I thought there was a some ability there that I went, “Oo, that could be a a fun trick.” Gabe Davis. Gabe Davis. Stray. Stray. He’s catching it. Uh, great run blocker. He’s also a better separator than Gabe was question. So, let’s see how it plays out. We also have to talk about Hard Knocks being here. Seeing I inadvertently matched the Hard Knocks t-shirts today. Yeah, but it was cool to see NFL films out here. You saw all the extra cameras and the equipment and the personnel and I just thought that was and Josh Allen even talked about how it does add that extra buzz having all that all that media. I was thinking how wild it’s going to be when that first episode comes on because they are everywhere. They really are. They are everywhere and you know you never know what they’re catching. like they were doing, you know, the cute stuff with Dion and his kids and Trey and all that. They they love that kind of stuff. And by the way, they do that stuff when there’s no cameras here either. Like these guys are great that way. But they’re catching all that stuff. But when we see, and if you want to look back, Patrick Harris, who’s the Penfield, Rochester guy who’s directing it, when they go through all those hours of tape to cut it down is going to be a lot. But I’m going to tell you one thing that’s going to be a lot I think in these shows is the fans here at Fiser because they were like I said they were awesome today. Pat Harris told us that for every one hour of video that airs for Hard Knox episodes there’s 300 hours of raw video to go through. Yeah, cuz they go through like they’ll have media. I have anxiety thinking about that coming from the guy that cuts a lot of this stuff. Yes, this is pretty. No, he’s making it about him. Hold on. Right here. I said Terrell Bernard would be I actually think right here. Yeah, it was right by the way. So, I want to say right now I think Terrell Bernard is a starting linebacker on this team. Wow. So, follow my Have you ever been to great places? No, I was going to say like you know the Liberty Bell, right? You’re standing right in this spot or whatever. I’m standing in the spot where Dan Fates made the Dan is right proclamation of his career. You know what’s right over there? the Jugs machine that there’s the open TTS. I walked by it because I couldn’t find my notebook. Lost the notebook. If you find one at camp, it’s mine. But I was running back from here to there. And I did have one of those I had one of those moments where I was like I had a little PTSD where I was like, “Oh, my face then my face started to hurt.” Yeah, that’s fair. H cracked me up when I saw the drugs machine. Um, we want to thank everyone who got and reached out to us, who saw us today at camp. I’m gonna start with I’m gonna start with Kelly. Well, Kelly, our good friend Kelly, she has the Buffalo Plus mug. We all signed it for today. That was fun. Uh, we had Tim right here. Big fan of Buffalo Plus. He’s one of the security people here in the middle. And Mark on the other side who’s always great to us. I’m pointing a little farther down. And Mark And who? Wait a minute. I let you guys do all the pointing. Now I’m pointing. I let Mark find our friend Sal Mayorana’s recording device. Day one at camp. Wow. Love day. It was tacos. He got it back. But Mark, big fan of the first of all of the stuff that we do. We see him every day when we’re out here. It was funny that when that Maxwell Harrison made that play, I went I’m going to point to where it was. Like just knowing that like we’re going to do the pod recap would be like it’s right over there. It was a good first day. Yes. I feel like this was it’s fun to be back out here. James Cook being back, Josh Allen being Josh Allen. Nothing major to report there. Yeah. But to have Bosa out there and to have rookies seemingly making plays early, like I said, I liked TJ Sanders, Maxwell Harrison making a play. Positive signs. Yeah. All that. It was great. All right. Thank you so much for joining us here. Please be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and share. Reminder, you can always find the audio only version of our podcast available wherever you find your podcast. Just check out Buffalo Plus. And we always do content, but when we’re here, if they practice, we’re putting together a video. We’ll recap it. And as we said, later we’ll be recapping hard knocks as well. But we’re having fun out here. We want you guys, if you haven’t been or even if come to camp to camp, we want you to get an idea of what we saw and what we heard. So, we had a lot of fun day one. Absolutely. Being more active on Instagram, more active on Tik Tok, more YouTube shorts. Our handle is buffalo plus um on Tik Tok and Instagram. So check us out. And then we all have Instagrams personally like do all the things. We appreciate it. And we’re trying to take Buffalo Plus to the moon. So let’s do it. All right. All right. For Dan and Mike, I’m Jenna. I’m going to point back at the camera. We’ll see you next time on Buffalo Plus. [Music]

Football is back. The Bills defensive line stood out in day 1 of Bills camp with Joey Bosa, Maxwell Hairston and Deone Walker all making plays.

Your home for coverage of the Buffalo Bills.

For links to all our coverage and the Buffalo Plus Store: https://www.flowcode.com/page/buffaloplus

Don’t forget, you can also catch all our episodes on your
favorite podcast platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and
more: https://www.flowcode.com/page/buffaloplus

For more behind-the-scenes content and on the field coverage on game day from Orchard Park, follow us at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/buffaloplusdotcom
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buffaloplus_/?hl=en
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@buffaloplus_
X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/BuffaloPlus

Mike’s X: https://twitter.com/MikeCatalana
Dan’s X: https://twitter.com/danfetes
Dan’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danfetes/
Jenna’s X: https://twitter.com/JennaCottrell
Jenna’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennacottrell/?hl=en

Buffalo Plus MERCH: BuffaloPlusStore.com

Website: https://13wham.com/buffalo-plus

Please like, comment and subscribe!

40 comments
  1. I was at this first practice today, I go every year, I felt like this was an extremely light and very short practice. Not a lot happened at this practice, I could tell it was the first of the season. Just some basic light plays

  2. That Jenna/Dan discussion about fractions is a perfect example of why it’s good they’re not in a relationship- they’re always saying the same thing, yet arguing because they don’t realize it 😂

    You guys were both right but Dan was a little “more right” (this time)

  3. I heard the Bills offered Cook 12+ million, maybe if he hits free agency, he finds that the Bills offer was more than fair. Or the Bills win the Super Bowl and Cook is a major contributor to that offense, then maybe someone will give him what he wants. Jenna is right a decimal is a fraction of the whole.

  4. I think we don't go to the Big Show without Cook, & I think Mr. Cook knows he probably won't go to the Big Show without the Bills. Now if all things work out & he has a great season topped off with a great game for the Show, then he's going to get the crazy money tossed at him & that could make him go. Go Bills & welcome back to camp everyone.

  5. Man I love Jimbo, idc about him wanting as much money as he does. I hope he gets paid & it’s with us. He has showed he’s a professional & a real leader by showing up. One thing about him; when it’s time to go to work JiMbO GETS TO WORK!!!

  6. It wouldn't be smart for Cook to sit out, He's a good back and will get paid next year whether it's the Bills or another team. I don't think that the Bills ever spent more than 5 million for a RB and how good the Bills O line is Ray Davis would be just as good if not better

  7. RB is getting less valued than OLines.. So all he ask for $15/yr!? Not sure that is too much to ask. I understand Bills has Salary cap issues but Bills need Cook and should not under value him.

Leave a Reply