Bills offensive lineman Eric Wood shared some encouraging news concerning his progress as he returns from a serious leg injury. The former first-round pick stated that he participated in practice for the first time since his leg injury suffered in Week 11 last season.
"I just did individual work (Monday) just within the offensive line and hopefully as the week goes on I'll get to go against the defense more," Wood said. "I'm sure it'll be a little sore, but it felt good out here and that was encouraging."
Wood said that he worked with the first unit at right guard during individual position drills Monday and was glad to get some time with the man expected to be lining up to his right come the fall in Cornell Green.
"It'll be kind of like me and Brad (Butler) last year," said Wood. "I'm the young guy and I'm going to learn from him and I'm going to pay my respects to a guy that's been in the league as long as him. He's out here working hard. We respect Cornell a lot. I'm just going to come back and do what I can to help him out, but mainly just learn from him."
The right guard is hopeful that he'll get the green light to do some 11-on-11 team work come the mandatory minicamp which begins on Wednesday.
"I think it'll come down to how I feel," he said. "If I'm sore there's really no point in going out. We've got a lot of time and Miami is the goal. I want to play Week One. It'd be a lot of fun to come out this week and practice, and that's my goal, but if it gets sore and it's bothering me a little bit I'll probably just hold off. The strength is back so that's not a concern. It's just about getting the little muscles in my calf to keep firing and not get sore."
Offensive progressAt times during open practices this spring the offense has had a tough go of it in the team segments of practice with Buffalo's defense getting an awful lot of hands on passes. But of late the offensive players have said are feeling better about their execution.
"I feel everyone is starting to get the concept down of the offense we're trying to run," said James Hardy. "Now we're getting more repetition with it, it's starting to get easier."
"I feel like we're getting better each day," said Trent Edwards. "We're making progress and that's the encouraging part. You always want to see improvements each day and I feel like we're seeing that from every player, every position on the team. It's nice that we're grasping concepts and we're understanding the playbook."
With respect to his own game Edwards feels he's getting a better handle on things.
"One area where I feel I'm getting a lot better at is just calling the play, hearing it from Curtis (Modkins)," said Edwards. "He'll call the play on the script and I feel like I'm doing a better job of repeating it in the huddle. That's where it starts. You're seeing the play in your head, you're calling it clearly and then you're going out and executing it. It's a matter of being confident in your reads and confident in your calls and just going out there and being accurate with the football."
Hardy especially liked the challenge of the speed of the two-minute drill, which he said they ran in practice Monday.
"The two-minute drill is big with the conditioning part of it," Hardy told Buffalobills.com. "You have to think while you're tired. You still have to get open even with defenders coming down and pressing on you harder. So two minute is definitely working for us and it's about getting open and we did some of that (Monday)."
HighlightsFor exclusive highlights of Monday's action go to the media lounge of Buffalobills.com to see all the action.
ScheduleThe Bills close out their OTA practice schedule Tuesday with a 12:05 pm practice. That will be followed by the team's three day minicamp, which begins on Wednesday.
