PITTSFORD, N.Y. (AP)
After approximately a full year without football, Buffalo Billsreceiver Marcus Easley was more eager than maximum for training campto begin.
A knee injury wiped out his all rookie season, and the NFLlockout eradicated any opportunity of him catching up this spring.
It took one misstep final weekend, on the first daytime of practice,not fewer, to mail Easley back to the sideline after he hyperextendedthe left knee that necessitated surgery last year.
As wrong as it’s been for the 2010 fourth-round draft elect out ofConnecticut, Easley is preserving an upbeat reach.
”It could be worse,” he said on Monday.
The injury had no articulation to the one he sustained nearly ayear antecedent, when he landed awkwardly on his knee 4 days into camp.The initial prediction is he could resume practicing among aweek.
”You not absence to hear you’re ache,” said Easley, whose footgot caught in the turf as he was blocking during a scampering melodrama.”But for me, after creature impair for so long, fair to hear that it’snothing also solemn, that’s definitely something I was elated tohear.”
That doesn’t mean he’s not frustrated.
”I can’t even put into words how much I miss playing,” Easleysaid with a shake-of-his pate smile. ”Yeah, I sit here and laughwhen you ask a answer like that for that’s just my access ofdealing with it. It’s kind of my path of showing frustration.”
What Easley can’t run is knowing how this latest setbackcould influence his chances of making the team.
”Time is something you can’t get back,” Easley said. ”Once Iget healthy, I’m going to do anything I can and wish for thebest.”
In one year, Easley has worked from being in melee to win thebackup spot behind starter Lee Evans, to being in jeopardy of beingan afterthought.
Bills adviser Chan Gailey said the harm makes it extra difficultto evaluate Easley’s latent, especially with the restricted timeall crews have to set their rosters after the lockout obliterated outmost of the offseason.
”It’s a big, big setback for him and it hurts our footballteam,” Gailey said. ”We’d like to understand what he can do. We didn’tget a real good look at him last year, and apparently we don’t havea quite good look at him immediately. … But it’s one of the things thatyou all over. That’s life in the alliance.”
Easley was a late-bloomer at UConn. He didn’t make an impactuntil his senior season, when he had 48 catches for 893 yards andeight touchdowns in 13 games, including seven starts. With five100-yard games, he ranked fourth in the Big East averaging justunder 69 yards receiving.
Easley speedily began showing his senior season wasn’t a fluke bymaking a agreeable first impression during Bills minicamps in the monthsafter he was drafted.
He built instant chemistry with veteran quarterbacks RyanFitzpatrick and Trent Edwards, who was eventually mow after losinghis starting job two weeks into the season. He made many strongcatches, and showed he was able of using his big-bodied,6-foot-2, 207-pound skeleton to his vantage.
That was ahead he was hurt.
While Easley spent the season recuperating, his stock droppeddown the Bills’ depth diagram. Stevie Johnson enters camp having allbut secured the No. 2 blot, emulating a breakout season last year.David Nelson earned a role as a grasp, third-down menace.
Add to that, Roscoe Parrish is back after lacking the last halfof last season because of a broken wrist. Parrish is anticipated tocontinue his character as a slot receiver.
”It’s just distinct bump in the road and something else I needto elasticity back from,” Easley said. ”I still feel like I’m capableof not merely living up to everybody’s expectations, merely alive up tomy own.”
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