The meeting with Bills new offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn was brief on Friday. Players were given the weekend off to refresh their minds and bodies after two games in five days. For the men on offense they will need to adjust to a new approach with a new play caller at the helm entering Week 3.
"Rex just told us he was making a change," said Richie Incognito. "He was all in with this team and felt we had to make this change. He talked to us about rallying the troops and being supportive of one another and talked about his confidence in A. Lynn. It was quick. We're all pros and handled it well.
"I'm going to take this weekend to get my mind right and come back on Monday and get to work with A. Lynn and get this moving in the right direction."
The players really don't have any choice. The good news is the anticipation is the offensive scheme will remain largely the same. The changes that will take place will be rooted in Anthony Lynn's personal preferences for what is best to utilize against the opponent each week along with a more focused effort to get their premier playmakers the ball.
"I think we have a lot of talent on offense," said head coach Rex Ryan. "I believe that and I believe we're going to do what we can to put the ball in our playmakers' hands and I think Anthony can do that."
Bills fullback Jerome Felton, who was just re-signed to the roster last week, knows Lynn as well as any player on the roster having been in the running back meeting rooms and on the practice field with the Bills new OC on a daily basis. He's anticipating a detail-oriented approach to the offense moving forward.
"He's like a military guy," said Felton of Lynn. "He's on top of the details and making sure you're doing your job and executing the plays. I'm excited for him. He's been a coach in the league for a long time. This opportunity is probably overdue so I'm excited for him in the future. So we'll get to work on Monday and see how it pans out."
Despite the 0-2 start the players were buoyed by Lynn's brief address to the team on Friday. They believe he'll take painstaking efforts to put the players in position to succeed more often in games.
"His message was we're going to get this right and we have the right people in the room to do it," Incognito said. "We have an offensive line where we can block in any system. We can block zone, block man, block gap. We can get out on the edges and really hurt people there. We have a talented running back stable. We have guys on the edge that can make plays. We have receivers who were making plays all over the field. We have a quarterback that we believe in who can make plays and put us in the right situations to win football games."
And although the concepts in which the scheme is rooted won't change, the players do anticipate that their approach and what they are as an offense will under Lynn.
"We'll have things grouped differently. Our bread and butter (plays) will change," said Incognito. "As we go through the week we'll go through the process a little differently in how we learn it. We'll see. I'll be one of the first to see it next Sunday when we play the Cardinals. We have to find our identity now and obviously our identity is going to change."
A change like this in season is not the norm. Suffice to say it served as a wake-up call. Players know they've got to get adjusted to coach Lynn's new approach, and fast, so that they can produce on game days.
"Jobs are on the line," said Felton. "You either produce or you go somewhere else. We've got to continue to get better, find a way to be successful on offense and win games. That's the most important thing. That's all that matters. It'll be important for us to have a great week of practice this week with a new offensive coordinator and go execute on Sunday."
