'Stop hating on the jerseys': Top moments at Bills training camp Day 1

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Josh Allen made an unsolicited plea to the public at the end of his first meeting with reporters Wednesday at Buffalo Bills training camp.

“Stop hating on the jerseys, guys,” Allen said with a smile regarding the alternate uniform the Bills unveiled the other day, one that seemed to draw much more criticism than it did love.

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“I don't know if you guys are hating on them, I don't see anything,” Allen asked the assembled media, “but they're great. I honestly like them. Speaking of new, right? It's a new look, it is. We got to be new and I think these jerseys are kind of symbolic of that and I'm excited to wear them. We had a lot of people that put in a lot of hard work for these jerseys.”

Hand in the air, I am someone who doesn’t like the all gray design with the funky futuristic helmet, and I gladly told Allen that. And then I asked him if he likes this concoction better than the all-white alternate they wore last season in Week 5 against the Patriots.

“We didn't win in the all-white, so, absolutely (these are better),” Allen said. “I've heard a lot of comments about the jerseys. I enjoy them. I think it's very symbolic of what we want to do and what we wanna be. I understand people want the old jerseys and the old helmets and all that. But at some point we are moving forward. We have to move forward and do something new. And that's what we're doing.”

No doubt, as soon as those comments found their way to social media, those gray jerseys with the blue numbers began flying off the shelves at the Bills Store and wherever else they may be available.

Here are some of the other things that were discussed after a wet and sloppy Day 1 at St. John Fisher University.

Opening practice was pretty short

If anyone expected new coach Joe Brady to come out smoking hot on the first day of training camp, they were disappointed. Obviously the Bills weren’t in pads — that won’t happen until next week — but it was also a quick and fairly low-energy workout that lasted barely 90 minutes.

Brady did say before it started, “There is a ramp up period to training camp, right? Every guy's going to come off the field, including myself, probably including all of you guys, and be like ‘that was it?’ There is only so much we're allowed to do based off of some of the time constraints, so I hope that the tempo in which we practice, we're working towards something.”

The best part of every practice is always the 11-on-11 team drills, but that definitely was curtailed because even some of that was run at half speed.

Could the weather have played a role in the length of practice? Probably not because before it started, Brady said he was glad it was raining because it would make things more challenging.

“Who says it's a crappy day?” he said as he looked out at the gray skies and rain. “It's football, there is never a bad day to play football. We play in Buffalo, rain, shine, we don't care. Just put the ball down, let's go play. I think this is awesome. If it's raining, cool, let's go see who can respond. Who can go through the good and the bad. Who mentally is like, "weather got to me." Hey there is gonna be a bad play. Can you put the ball down and go do it again? I think it's perfect.”

CJ Gardner-Johnson snafu was handled

When the Bills reported to camp Tuesday, the new safety live streamed the proceedings from inside the locker room at St. John Fisher for something he’s doing on the social media site Twitch. Brady saw what was going on and he asked Gardner-Johnson to end the stream and respect the privacy of the locker room.

In a social media clip that made the rounds Tuesday, you could hear Brady saying while Gardner-Johnson’s camera was still rolling, “I would say just be mindful. Like, probably not locker room, training room, you know what I mean?”

Gardner-Johnson complied, but he is going to continue to streaming during camp which Brady apparently signed off on.

“He never said I couldn't stream,” Gardner-Johnson told his viewers Tuesday night from his dorm room. “He just said be mindful of the locker room and my teammates, and I said, 'Yes, sir.'”

Wednesday, Brady was asked about it and he said, "There's standards, and there's a personality that I want us to be about. And that's what we handle in team meetings. And if I see things that are not the standard or living up to it, or it is getting in the way of it, then I'll address it. But something like that, that was not an issue. That was not a concern."

Of course Keon Coleman was a topic

Coleman dropped the first pass that came his way, but Allen went right back to him and Coleman made a very nice grab. That’s Coleman in a nutshell, right? Up, down, all around, you never quite know what you’re going to get.

And yet despite all the fluctuation, he still has the full support of Allen, Brady and president of football operations Brandon Beane.

“He's put in the work this offseason, he continues to get better, he continues to master the offense in the role that we're asking him to do,” Allen said. “He's working extremely hard and I think people see that. I respect that about him. He's never once put his head down and pouted and woe is me. It’s always, ‘Hey, I'm gonna figure this thing out.’ And when you have a guy that's willing to put in the extra work that you start pulling for that guy.”

Beane acknowledged the issues that have plagued Coleman during his first two years, both on and off the field, but sounding exactly like he did at the start of the 2025 training camp, he said he thinks Coleman is making strides.

“If you know him the way I know him and the way I think a lot of the guys and his teammates know him, you feel a guy who's really matured, like the light has come on,” Beane said. “He understands some of the things that he could have done better along the way. Was his first two years perfect? No, but if you just talk to him and be around him, you feel a guy growing into his own, comfortable in his skin, and just like I know that I can't do the same things that I did the first two years and expect to have success on the field or in the locker room with my teammates, and his teammates see it.”

Cornerback youth is precarious

One offseason move that was expected but never happened was the signing of a veteran cornerback to provide depth in case there was an injury at the position. Second-year man Max Hairston and rookie Davison Igbinosun are competing to start opposite Christian Benford with the loser becoming the backup on both sides.

Behind that threesome, it’s slim pickings and it would not surprise anyone if Beane doesn’t come to the realization that he’s tempting fate going with so much youth and inexperience.

“We talked about back to draft day, that had been giving me the most angst, which was why I was aggressive for (Igbinosun) to add him to the mix,” Beane said. “And it's a position that, whether it's the luck of the draw or whatever, we've come up short in the playoffs of having all the healthy bodies we need. It's something we'll monitor. I like the depth, but it can get thin there fast. It's a hard position to play in the league.”

I asked him directly, if someone gets hurt, is Tre’Davious White his first phone call and he said, “We love Tre and we constantly keep contact with guys like Tre. We love guys that have been here and have been stalwarts for this team. I'm sure Tre's had teams reach out and we've stayed in contact with him through the offseason and check on him.

“I'm sure he's probably working out somewhere right now, as we all know Tre. That's our job is to keep a running list of players at each position, and you're naturally going to lean to someone who you know has done it recently for you and had success.”

Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades including 37 years as the full-time beat writer/columnist for the D&C. He has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at [email protected], and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: 'Stop hating on the jerseys': Top moments at Bills training camp Day 1

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