Bills Rookie Camp Primer

Coaches begin to get feel for who will be ready and who will not for OTAs, minicamp and training camp.

What goes on behind the scenes on Friday and Saturday at the Bills' 2022 rookie camp will go a long way toward determining how the preliminary depth chart will be set up for organized team activities, mandatory minicamp and the opening of training camp at St. John Fisher College in July.

Before all these newcomers even take the field for their first walkthough, they will have to instill confidence in the coaching staff that they can think and play at full speed, or their repetitions will be extremely limited.

These evaluations are determined in the meeting rooms and in video study, where the brightest players always shine with the proper questions and don't need the answers to be repeated.

To that end, first-round draft choice Kaiir Elam did well to endear himself to the powers that be by requesting the team send him the playbook to study on his first flight to Buffalo after being selected.

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If all the others are as enthusiastic, the Bills will have themselves one productive offseason on the field.

The Bills will be particularly interested to see how much dynamic offensive weapons like running backs James Cook and Raheem Blackshear and wide receiver Khalil Shakir are able to absorb.

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Shakir's Boise State coach Andy Avalos this week told One Bills Live that Shakir has shown an advanced understanding of the leverages needed to excel from a variety of roles.

"There's obviously a ceiling that there's still room for him to grow," Avalos said, "but his knowledge of leverage, whether he's in the slot and running routes, based off leverage of defenders, certain coverages and those things, he can see those things and adjust.

"... We moved Shak around a lot too, and so not only is he doing it from a stationary position, but he's doing it from coming off a motion, when coverages are adjusting due to motion, and he's still able to figure those things out pretty quickly."

Suffice to say that the faster Shakir and the rest of the rookies are able to pick things up, the better it's going to be for everyone.

Bills' offseason schedule

• Rookie Camp: May 13-14.
• Organized Team Activities (OTAs): May 23-24, May 26, May 31-June 2, June 6-7, June 9-10.
• Mandatory Minicamp: June 14-16.
• Training Camp: TBA.

Rookie roster

NFL Draft choices

• CB Kaiir Elam, Florida
• RB James Cook, Georgia
• LB Terrel Bernard, Baylor
• WR Khalil Shakir, Boise State
• P Matt Araiza, San Diego State
• CB Christian Benford, Villanova
• OT Luke Tenuta, Virginia Tech
• LB Baylon Spector, Clemson

Undrafted free agents

• OL Alec Anderson, UCLA
• RB Raheem Blackshear, Va. Tech
• DT Prince Emili, Penn
• WR Keith Corbin III, Jackson State
• CB Travon Fuller, Tulsa
• DE Kingsley Jonathan, Syracuse
• OL Derek Kerstetter, Texas
• OL Tanner Owen, Northwest Missouri State
• WR Neil Pau'u, BYU
• WR Malik Williams, Appalachian State
• TE Jaylen Wydermyer, Texas A&M

Tryouts

• CB Ja'Marcus Ingram, Buffalo
• LS Cole Jenkins, Buffalo State
• S Jay Lenard, San Jose State
• DB Cam Lewis, LSU
• WR LeCharles Pringle, Alcorn State
• K Brandon Ruiz, Mississippi State

NOTE: Players participating on a tryout basis are not members of the 90-man roster.

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Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.