YNN

As the Buffalo Bills enjoy these weeks away from organized activity at the team facility, all players are continuing to put in the training, especially since this is such a young team. YNN's Don Heins has a look at wide receiver TJ Graham's plans for training this summer.

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"There's times in a marathon where you can pick up speed here and there, but you have to pace yourself. The training this year is a little different. There's different things I trained on speed work here, better endurance," said Graham.

There's a different direction in guidance - coming from the leadership of his veteran teammate, and the example of another top NFL player.

"Well I've been watching a lot of Stevie (Johnson). This offseason too, Doug Whaley told me to watch some Mike Wallace-type stuff. He said he was in the Steelers organization when they drafted Mike Wallace, and I've watched some tape on that. I've taken a little bit of stuff from there and put it here, and what Steve's taught me the past year, I've put it together."

It's lessons learned over the past year, leading to clear goals for the summer, that can make all the difference next year.

"Last year, I don't feel like I pressed vertical as much as I should have. I didn't get that burst of speed coming out of breaks like I should have. This year, I feel like those are the key points that I need to improve on."

TJ Graham looks to improve on a 31 catch, 322-yard rookie season.

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But there's also a battle brewing for playing time at wide receiver.

Of course Stevie Johnson remains the clear-cut number one guy. Beyond Johnson, however, there's very little experience.

"The competition's going to be crazy because the talent that we have," Johnson said following the final minicamp practice on Thursday.

"Not to take anything away from past years, but the talent that we have now and I think the expectation that the talent brings in. These guys are pretty much like the best of the best coming out of college"

Veteran Brad Smith is joined by a host of young players, including 2nd-year-man T.J. Graham, along with a talented yet unproven class of rookies with the likes of Robert Woods, Marquise Goodwin and Da'Rick Rogers.

"Young means that they're fresh and excited and they're hungry and they want to get out there," offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett said. "And that's all we can ask and they're doing everything we're asking them to do and they just got to keep getting better and better.

"There's a lot of fast guys out there and a lot of guys that can get off press. It's great to have Stevie Johnson out there again and Brad Smith, TJ Graham's done a good job. All of them are coming along."

The competition will kick into high gear when the Bills open training camp July 28 at St. John Fisher College in suburban Rochester.

Defensive coordinator Mike Pettine's scheme is designed to throw a lot of different looks at opposing offenses, which means there's plenty for his own players to learn.

The challenge now is to make it second nature.

"It is a lot, and that was on purpose. We've been very pleased. The inventory, we've put in a lot," Pettine said. We've added, we've tweaked some things and changed some things that kind of existed in the system before to take advantage of what we do. I think as a coaching staff we're very optimistic with how well this group learns."

Two of the newest pieces of the Bills' defense are getting up to speed this week. After missing voluntary OTA's, outside linebacker Manny Lawson and defensive tackle Alan Branch have both joined the team for mandatory mini-camp. The two were signed as free agents in the offseason.

"It feels good to be around here, especially being around the guys and the camaraderie," Lawson said. If anything, it would be conditioning to get my wind up. As far as knowing the playbook and everything, I studied my playbook, so I got that down. All and all just good to be back."

Pettine isn't concerned with Lawson and Branch having to play catch-up.

"They're professionals," Pettine said. "They had their iPads, they had access to what we were doing, the practice tape, the installations. Those two guys would be least of our worries going into training camp."

Branch and Lawson both have some catching up to do, but it's not like they're the only ones on defense tackling a lot of new information.