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Tuesday morning was not the first time that Buffalo Bills head coach Rex Ryan disclosed that third-round pick John Miller was working with the first-team offense during voluntary offseason workouts. Not hardly. But it was the first time that he mentioned that Miller has a good chance of opening training camp in late July with the starting offensive line.
"Oh, no question. Yeah, no question," Ryan said on WGR 550's The Howard Simon Show in response to a question about Miller seeing first-team work in camp. "He might be the opening guy there. He's been very impressive."
Ryan then echoed a sentiment that the team has repeated ad nauseam since making Miller, a guard out of Louisville, their second player selected in the 2015 NFL Draft: he is making his strongest impression not on the field, but with his grasp of the offense that Greg Roman is currently installing.
"This guy’s got a big, wide, square body. We are hitting bags and all that stuff, (and) the guy’s technique looks pretty good. But he has really been impressive - for a kid you just took out of college, and now he jumps right in, he doesn’t make mistakes," Ryan said. "That’s going to give him an opportunity to showcase what he can do physically, and I believe that he’s got the right make-up to be an outstanding player."
Ryan also noted that veteran guard (and presumed starter) Richie Incognito has been working at both left and right guard this spring. Miller was a 47-game starting left guard during his college career, but Louisville also flipped their linemen around a lot, so technically Miller has experience on both sides. It'll be interesting to see where he does line up if he does, in fact, begin training camp with the ones; it might behoove the Bills to put him at left guard, between veterans Cordy Glenn and Eric Wood, and then slot Incognito in next to whichever second-year right tackle emerges as a starter, Seantrel Henderson or Cyrus Kouandjio.