Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott and general manager Brandon Beane kicked off the team’s very different 2020 training camp on Sunday, as both had press conferences via video with members of the media.
Due to COVID-19, the team’s training camp is going to be much different all around this year. Both touched on that aspect of camp as well as a slew of other Bills-related topics.
With that, here are seven takeaways from McDermott’s presser:
Managing practices
The current NFL offseason being different isn’t new at all for the Bills. Things haven’t been the same as the club is used to for the past few months. But with the “different” training camp the team is enduring this upcoming month, McDermott might have to consider changing the way he practices players.
In a normal training camp circumstance, players already have worked out together, but this year, all minicamps were cancelled and players typically workout together during the offseason, but COVID-19 has made that hard to do. So moving forward, McDermott discussed how he’ll approach his practices with all things considered, in an effort to not overload players with too much on their plates at once.
“As coaches, it really challenges us to be sharp and be on top of our game. Reps are always important. How we plan practice, we spend a lot of time on that,” McDermott said. “There’s a lot of planning on that and we’ve got to be razor sharp on that end.”
But even with these differences, in January when the season is all said and done, McDermott already made sure he’s not going to be taking the easy route out. He expects big things in 2020 from his team still.
“I’m not lowering my standard and I don’t expect anyone in this building to be lowering their standards. What I’ve seen so far, is an unbelievable display of a standard in our building,” he said.