All roads lead to Rochester.
We’re not talking about Interstate 90—at least not exclusively. The Buffalo Bills concluded their 2024 offseason workouts with last week’s three-day mandatory minicamp at One Bills Drive, meaning that training camp is the only event that separates us from the 2024 NFL campaign (alongside a handful of preseason contests). This year’s camp will again commence at Rochester’s St. John Fisher University in late July, with the first of 10 open practices kicking off on July 24.
Training camp will serve as the Buffalo faithful’s first opportunity to see a retooled Bills team that parted ways with several stalwart starters throughout the offseason. The team’s depth chart, at this juncture, looks quite set and stout despite the alterations, but there are still meaningful snaps and roles to be earned, especially as one works down the roster. Players not yet on the fanbase’s radar will have the opportunity to snatch these spots throughout camp.
With that in mind, here are seven currently overlooked Bills that you should keep an eye on throughout training camp.
We’ll kick off with a player that’s no longer ‘under the radar’ for those with their ear to the ground: former Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Chase Claypool. The big-bodied wideout was on top of the world just a few years ago after constructing a breakout rookie season in which he tallied 889 scrimmage yards and 11 total touchdowns; three years, two teams, and a bevy of character questions later, Claypool finds himself fighting to elongate his professional career as part of a revamped Buffalo receiving corps.
He got off to a good start at voluntary OTAs and minicamp, making several splash plays and sticking out with his consistent production. He—perhaps of paramount importance—impressed the Bills’ coaching staff with his work ethic and attention to detail, quelling some of the effort concerns that plagued him in Pittsburgh and Chicago. Talent has never been Claypool’s issue—it’s been building on that talent and consistently transferring it to gamedays at a high level. If he continues to splash and—most importantly—put in effort at training camp, he’s a shoo-in to earn a spot at the bottom of Buffalo’s receiving corps.
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WR Bryan Thompson
From an oft-talked-about name in the receiving corps to one few have heard of.
Bryan Thompson signed with the Bills as an undrafted free agent after falling through the cracks of the 2023 NFL Draft, spending his rookie season on the team’s practice squad. He’s put that year of system experience to good use throughout offseason workouts, consistently flashing when given the opportunity. This culminated with a flashy play on the second day of the team’s mandatory minicamp, a long touchdown grab that cemented Thompson as a player worth tracking at training camp.
Thompson caught 71 passes for 1,263 yards and four touchdowns throughout his collegiate career, never posting gaudy numbers but always serving as a reliable boundary option. He’s a well-rounded pass-catcher who isn’t elite in any particular category, but his skill set is one worth developing. He’s admittedly a long shot to make Buffalo’s 53-man roster given the bundle of outside receivers above him on the depth chart, but if he can build on the strong foundation he built in the spring with a strong camp, he could make the conversation awfully interesting.
Buffalo took swings on two athletically gifted offensive tackle prospects in the 2024 NFL Draft, selecting UCF tackle Tylan Grable in the sixth round before grabbing NFL International Player Pathway Program member Travis Clayton in the seventh. Clayton is almost guaranteed to stick around One Bills Drive next year given his inclusion in the IPP Program, so we’ll highlight Grable, a 6-foot-6 tackle who earned a near-perfect 9.83 relative athletic score in the predraft process.
— Kent Lee Platte (@MathBomb) March 3, 2024Tylan Grable is a OT prospect in the 2024 draft class. He scored an unofficial 9.83 #RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 23 out of 1314 OT from 1987 to 2024.
Splits projectedhttps://t.co/v1YDB3fOdi pic.twitter.com/TKIScaKng6
Grable started his collegiate career at the then-Division 1 FCS Jacksonville State before transferring to UCF, improving drastically between his first and second seasons in Orlando. He allowed five sacks and 25 total pressures as the Knights’ left tackle in the 2022 season, per PFF, improving on this to allow zero sacks and just 10 total pressures in the 2023 campaign. He enters camp as Buffalo’s fifth-or-sixth choice tackle, but he possesses the athleticism that offensive line coach Aaron Kromer values in a player; if he’s able to flash in training camp, he could establish himself as a player too valuable to attempt to stash on the practice squad.
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DE Casey Toohill
Casey Toohill inked a one-year deal with the Bills in the 2024 offseason after starting eight games for the Washington Commanders last season, notching 26 total tackles and five sacks. It was a career-high in quarterback takedowns for the now fifth-year pro, who is now transferring from a Ron Rivera defense to a Sean McDermott unit.
Toohill is perhaps penciled in as the sixth defensive end on Buffalo’s depth chart at this juncture behind Greg Rousseau, A.J. Epenesa, Von Miller, recent signee Dawuane Smoot, and fifth-round rookie Javon Solomon. It’s difficult to imagine the team rostering six defensive ends, meaning Toohill will have to usurp a player—likely Smoot—to earn a roster spot. He’s a year younger and is coming off a better pass-rushing season, but Smoot offers more in the way of leadership. Toohill will need to flash as a pass-rusher to earn a roster spot in camp, but he’s recently demonstrated that he’s more than capable of doing so.
Gable Steveson earns a spot on this list simply because it will be interesting to watch him play football for the first time. The Olympic gold medalist freestyle wrestler inked a three-year rookie deal with Buffalo last month, his mid-May free agent visit to One Bills Drive serving as the first time he had ever laced up a pair of cleats. His athleticism, understanding of leverages, and functional strength are objective—one doesn’t construct a collegiate wrestling record of 85-2 otherwise—and training camp will be his first opportunity to translate these traits to the gridiron in front of the Buffalo faithful. Sean McDermott, an outspoken proponent of amateur wrestling, spoke about Steveson’s talent at last week’s minicamp:
“I think more than anything the quickness, the burst, the power,” McDermott said. “All that you can tell in a small workout, those are the things that you try to identify from a defensive line standpoint, in this case. We were going through it and some of it was making sense during the workout and some wasn’t, so I just tried to put things in wrestling terms, a little bit, some of the overlapping movements, if you will. Maybe that helped a little bit, maybe it didn’t. Again, he’s been working hard.”
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CB Te'Cory Couch
If any undrafted free agent is able to crack the Bills’ 53-man roster, it’ll likely be at the cornerback position, where Buffalo lacks proven depth down the depth chart. There is a 2024 undrafted signee who is already positioning himself for a summer run at the roster: former Miami Hurricanes defender Te’Cory Couch, who came down with an impressive interception on the first day of the team’s minicamp.
Couch was a prominent contributor throughout his five years at Miami, notching 116 total tackles, 21 pass deflections, and four picks. He was deployed from a myriad of spots throughout his time in South Florida; the vast majority of his snaps in the 2020 and 2021 seasons came out wide before he transitioned to the slot for the 2022 and 2023 campaigns. At 5-foot-10, 175 pounds, he’s a bit undersized, but his versatility makes him an interesting name to track at training camp given Buffalo’s dire need for cornerback depth. If he’s able to build on the strong foundation he laid at minicamp, the 24-year-old has a realistic path to the roster.
Buffalo robbed us of a three-way punt-a-palooza at training camp by releasing veteran Matt Haack last month to clear a roster spot for the aforementioned Steveson, but there still figures to be a summer roster battle between Sam Martin and undrafted free agent Jack Browning. The former San Diego State Aztec was solid throughout his time in Southern California, netting average punts of 45.4 and 46.1 yards in the 2022 and 2023 seasons, respectively.
He signed a three-year UDFA deal with the Bills after the conclusion of the 2024 draft, and the idea of having a punter on an uber-affordable multi-year deal is attractive. That said, Browning also was the placekicker at San Diego State, indicating that he’ll have to learn how to hold at the professional level. If he shows ability as a holder and is even comparable to Martin as a punter in camp, he could get the nod given his contract and youth.
