Press Coverage

By Tim Graham

For the first time in voluntary offseason workouts, Buffalo Bills receiver Stevie Johnson was on the field. He had been forced to watch previous practices because of a lower back injury.

"It definitely feels good to just be out there on the field, even through the little pains I have," Johnson said.

"It's getting better every week. They gave me a six- to eight-week thing to even get on the field, and it's only been about three, so I feel good."

Continue reading "Stevie Johnson returns to practice after back injury" »

By Tim Graham

Buffalo Bills receiver Stevie Johnson already is sidelined.

Johnson sat out the second day of voluntary workouts after straining his back before Tuesday's opening session under new head coach Doug Marrone.

"It's kind of wild," Johnson said. "It came out of a cut during warmups, just a little tweak."

Johnson called the injury "nothing too serious, just day-to-day." He will have treatment Thursday morning and then determine if he'll participate in the final voluntary workout until organized team activities begin May 13.

Continue reading "Back strain keeps Stevie Johnson out of voluntary workouts" »

By Tim Graham

Whatever the Buffalo Bills' offense will look like under new coach Doug Marrone, keeping it under wraps apparently is important.

I asked quarterback Kevin Kolb what he learned about the Bills' offensive plans when interviewing with the team.

"We've got to be a little careful," Kolb said with a laugh Monday at his introductory news conference.

Continue reading "If Kevin Kolb tells you about new offense, he might have to kill you" »

By Tim Graham

A month ago, much was made of Syracuse quarterback Ryan Nassib's remark that playing for the Buffalo Bills would be "a match made in heaven" because he could continue to play for head coach Doug Marrone and offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett in upstate New York.

Bills fans, more than others, love when a player suggests he wants to play for their team. That doesn't happen very often.

It reminds me of when Bernie Kosar worked the system so my hometown Cleveland Browns could snag him in the supplemental draft -- on purpose!

Continue reading "Ryan Nassib likes idea of Bills, but Eagles his 'dream come true'" »

By Jay Skurski

Buffalo Bills head coach Doug Marrone had no doubt Nathaniel Hackett would be his offensive coordinator if he took a job in the NFL.

Marrone confirmed that yesterday when I asked him if he had interviewed anyone else for the position.

"No, I knew right away that if this was the situation, Nathaniel was the one I wanted to be with," he said.

In today's print edition, Hackett talks at length about his experience. 

I asked Marrone why he felt comfortable hiring an offensive coordinator who just turned 33 and has never called plays at the NFL. Here was his full response:

"When you look at Nate’s background, when you talk about experience, again it doesn’t fall into that criteria of what you’ve described as being in this league and coaching in this league as far as experience of whatever you may have to need. Five years, 10 years, I don’t know what your criteria is, but I can tell you what my thoughts were.

"My thoughts were obviously I’ve been in the same position before and hired Nathaniel at Syracuse, and I was looking for someone that had a background in the system that I believed in, what I wanted to do. And I had some of those same questions that you have, and then when I really researched it and started going around and I thought about -- everyone obviously knows my background and I worked for his dad at the New York Jets -- I realized that here is someone that has been around the system his whole life, that’s been around the locker rooms, that’s been around the schedules, that’s had access to things that not a lot of people do, with the training  tapes and things like that. Then after that going to Tampa Bay and being with coach Gruden, the same type of terminology. Because I don’t want to get locked into the parameters of 'hey, what is this system?'

"The terminology there, and then obviously comeing back up here to Buffalo, all those things and that type of experience I wanted to get first hand from Nathaniel when I brought him in. And I brought others in at that time, too, to interview for the offensive coordinator job. To me, it just jumped off that type of experience and how well it was."

Give Marrone credit. He was certainly prepared for the question. The coach also talked about the play-calling duties with the Bills.

"We worked through that all when we were at Syracuse, and I was extremely happy with where we were going and where we were developing," Marrone said. "So for me, personally, with my  beliefs on offense, it was very easy for me to make the decision that I wanted Nathaniel here. We've gone though three years together of the growing pains of what we want to do and where we want to be in an offensive system."

By Jay Skurski

Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett just turned 33 years old.

The majority of those years, however, have been spent in locker rooms. With long-time coach Paul Hackett as his father, Nate's been a student of the game since his formative years.

"When I was 8 years old, I remember being a ball with the Dallas Cowboys, just being in awe of Tom Landry," Nathaniel Hackett said today, in his first meeting with Bills reporters. "I've just always been around the players."

Hackett handled himself well in talking with reporters. The answer he gave to the first question asked of him lasted 690 words.

"I think the big thing is, you have to always want to learn. You have to be a historian of football," he said. "Technology these days, I can go back and look at 1984 cut-ups in black and white and try to learn how plays evolved. Watching the K-Gun from Jim Kelly from when I was here [as offensive quality control coach in 2008-09], looking at all that video. Joe Montana playing, who's a friend of our family, I mean you look at all those different things. You just want to keep pushing yourself to learn and learn. Almost like get your Ph.D. in football. I think that's something I've been very lucky to be a part of and be able to gain that experience through that time."

Hackett's first job in the NFL came with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers under coach Jon Gruden, as offensive quality control coach in the 2006 and '07 seasons.

"My two years there, they were very extreme. I like to think about it as it was the Harvard of football," he said. "When you're there and you have two years of NFL experience, I mean, it's amazing.  The amount of pass drawings I drew, I want to say I drew up about 15,000 pass plays.

 "Then going to the Bills, I got an opportunity to work with protections, with all kinds of different things, run game. As a quality control guy, a lot of people say, 'What is that?' I kind of looked at it as a coordinator in training, because you're responsible for making sure every single thing is perfect, from scripts, schedules, all the drawings.

"You can't just know the pass game. You can't just know this technique or that technique. You have to understand how the line works, how they draw things, how they're going to be looked at. Because if you draw something wrong, they're going to look at you and say, 'Well, that line was right there. That's what you wanted me to do.'

"So I think when you're doing that and you're doing that every week, watching all the film, breaking it down, getting everything ready, you understand the pressure to get it ready for those coaches. I think that just leads you into this kind of a role."