As the Buffalo Bills see their 2020 training camp drag on and slowly approach some real football, the team’s assistant coaches chatted via video conference on Friday.
Offensive coordinator Brian Daboll and his defensive counterpart, Leslie Frazier, dished their thoughts on all-things Bills-related… at least on their own respective sides of the ball. Both of them provided a bit of insight into some topics as the team preps for the start of padded practices on Monday.
With that, here are some things we learned from Daboll and Frazier this week:
A Joe Gibbs appearance
It’s not surprising to hear that the Bills brought in a guest speaker. We’ve seen it happen plenty of times this offseason already. Former QBs Peyton Manning and Brett Favre have had talks with Josh Allen and the quarterback room. Recently retired linebacker Lorenzo Alexander has gave his insight to the current linebacker corps. But according to Frazier, the Bills did have one interesting meeting. It was with Pro Football Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs.
The former Washington coach chatted exclusively to the team’s coaching staff, too. It doesn’t seem like a frequent thing that happens, that a coaching staff admits they can use some outside help. Typically you see these types of player meetings like with Manning and Favre, but not from a coaching perspective. It appears Sean McDermott & Co. don’t have any sort of sense of knowing it all type of attitude.
So what exactly could they learn from Gibbs? Well, he was Washington’s coach in 1982. That year they won the Super Bowl in a shortened season. Due to COVID-19, the pandemic has caused a shortened offseason for the Bills and NFL. Gibbs has some experience to share about winning under tough circumstances.
“We wanted to get a feeling from him what it was like,” Frazier said. “He did a really, really good job on just impressing upon all of us to… embrace this moment and look at it as an opportunity because you know some teams aren’t going to prepare as well as other teams.”