This is one outlet's own report from Yahoo Sports — the article as it was filed.
AIPROPX ReportYahoo Sports · 1h ago
Joe Brady's first training camp practice as Buffalo Bills head coach brought a different atmosphere
PITTSFORD — As Josh Allen ran through the tunnel onto the practice field at St. John Fisher’s Polisseni Track and Field Complex, the cheers were a bit subdued.
Normally the tunnel is engulfed with noise when Allen appears, especially on the first day of training camp. It’s the first time Buffalo Bills fans have seen him in six months, and for the highest-pitched screams, it’s often the only time they get to see him in person all year.
Part of the muffled reaction was clearly the driving rain. By the end of practice everyone accepted they were soaked and young fans lined the fences, bellowing for Allen to sign autographs, to which he always obliges for a long period of time.
Or perhaps it was because Allen ran onto the field around 8:10 a.m. Practice ended around 9:45 a.m., the time former coach Sean McDermott’s St. John Fisher practice used to begin.
Fourth-year linebacker Dorian Williams wondered aloud whether it was the shortest training camp practice he’d been a part of.
Either way, the vibe was different. And it was largely because of the man running it: Joe Brady, who successfully completed his first training camp practice without calamity.
“The vibe, the energy — it’s different,” Allen said. “I’m not saying it’s better or it’s worse, it’s different. As a new head coach, for a team, I think it’s a smart decision to make things different. … Obviously doing the same thing didn’t work, so you’ve got to change it up and find new ways to make it work.”
The drills on the field weren’t much different than McDermott’s because, well, there’s only so many different drills to do. But there were some other noticeable changes, like starting practice at 8:30 a.m., which surely wasn’t ideal for some driving from western Western New York.
But Brady wanted to stretch as much of the day as he could. He didn’t want to push dinner back, so pushing practice up was, to him, the logical solution.
And then there was the rain. It has rarely rained over the past few seasons at training camp, and certainly not that hard for that long. Brady embraced it.
With a variety of coaches, the Bills have canceled practice for rain or moved it into the gymnasium during training camp. In Orchard Park, they move it into the field house, as they did for a couple minicamp practices this year, with the reasoning being to limit chances of players slipping on wet surfaces.
But it was a good obstacle for Brady to throw at his team for the first practice. And it fed into his new phrase, “Put the ball down.”
"There's a mentality I want us to play with,” Brady said. “This is perfect. It's the first day. 8:30 practice. There's rain. That's what I want. It's got to be a tough camp. You get a pulse of the team … but you want it to be hard. This isn't just supposed to be fun. … We want to push them. We want the guys to feel some type of way. I'm excited for us to figure that out, learn and go through it all."
Brady balking at fun was a departure from the guy who usually (and did earlier in his pre-practice press conference) talks about having fun playing football. It was a question many wondered if he could answer.
We have never seen Brady cuss out a player in practice nor has a camera caught him throwing a headset in rage during a game. His predecessors at offensive coordinator, Brian Daboll and Ken Dorsey, frequently accomplished both. Brady is known for being cool and positive.
The player-coach relationship changes going from coordinator to head coach, just as it did when he was elevated from quarterbacks coach. There’s a bit of big brother-ing as an assistant, whereas the head coach hands out the sentence and swings the sword.
Not only did Brady get on a few players during practice Wednesday, but it was a day after he was heard instructing safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson not to livestream from his Twitch account in team areas.
“Joe has a great way about him. … He has a natural presence,” Bills general manager Brandon Beane said. “He can be firm. He’s a good guy, but he will be firm. … I think he’s got a good balance. There will be ups and downs in camp, there will be ups and downs as we build this team. … He’ll have tests along the way, but as a first-year head coach, I thought he had a great plan.”
AIPROPX is an independent multi-source news index — we track, compare, and connect coverage from across the web into one place you won't find anywhere else.
