The Bills tried to upgrade on No. 2 receiver Donald Jones this offseason.
They showed significant interest in Robert Meachem at the beginning of free agency, and were speculatively linked to Vincent Jackson as well. Signing neither, Buffalo selected speedster T.J. Graham with the 69th overall pick in the draft.
Jones says he’s “fueled” by the attempts to replace him.
“You start to see things like, ‘They need to draft a receiver,’” Jones told Jay Skurski of the Buffalo News. “You see all of those things. As a man, as a competitor, I’m out to prove everybody wrong. It definitely fuels me.”
That all sounds nice, but Jones hasn’t done much to instill confidence yet. He caught 23 balls for 231 yards and one touchdown in eight appearances (seven starts) last season. Jones is averaging under 11 yards per reception in his career, and he’s supposed to be a deep threat. He’s also battled recurring ankle injuries.
Although coach Chan Gailey acknowledges Jones is “probably a little bit ahead” of his competition at this stage of the offseason -- based largely on experience -- he’s leaving the No. 2 receiver job wide open heading to training camp.
“You can ask me about the third week of training camp and I’m going to tell you it’s too early [to name a starter],” Gailey said. “We’ll know exactly where we stand and it all works itself out by the time we get to the first ballgame. We’ve got two or three guys that have done a great job.”