Jim Leonhard already 'blown away' by football culture at Bills camp

The Bills parted ways after last season with head coach Sean McDermott.

The culture he left behind during his Buffalo tenure, however, still resonates.

During the first week of Joe Brady’s first training camp as the team’s new head coach, it was pointed out by the man hired to install a new defense from McDermott’s.

New defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard, brought in to replace the scheme McDermott ran for nine seasons, showed up at St. John Fisher expecting a rebuild of habits as much as coverages. He got something else.

“I was just blown away. Professional habits within the meeting room,” Leonhard said to the press. “Very few places I’ve been had that when you walk in the door.”

Brady told reporters on Wednesday that camp would carry new vibes and new expectations under his staff, and the roster around him reflects it — Bradley Chubb rushing off the edge on defense, along with a rookie class headlined by T.J. Parker, and a defensive front converting from McDermott’s four-man base into Leonhard’s 3-4 hybrid.

But there’s a difference between changing what a team does and changing who a team is. McDermott’s tenure ended without a Lombardi Trophy, which is a big part of the reason he isn’t here. What he did build was a room where players held themselves accountable, where former Bills kept finding their way back to Orchard Park, and where professionalism was more important than raw talent on the depth chart.

The specific thing that impressed Leonhard is the specific thing his defense requires to function. He’s watching players talk through checks and adjustments without a coach prompting them.

“Any time you have that, you’re so far ahead,” Leonhard added “That’s gonna carry over. There’s no way that doesn’t carry over to the field.”

That is not a throwaway compliment.

A 3-4 hybrid front lives on pre-snap communication — front declarations, late rotations behind them, edge players like Greg Rousseau and Chubb reading the same picture as the safeties. Buffalo is asking a veteran defense to learn a new language on a compressed timeline while chasing a title. Every rep a player spends communicating or teaching another player is a rep that helps Leonhard’s cause.

McDermott’s teams won the AFC East over and over and kept running into the same wall. The change at the top happened because Buffalo needed a different ultimate outcome in the playoffs, and on defense, where the former head coaches players struggled to get crucial stops in meaningful downs and games.

Yet the traces of McDermott’s program and constructive contributions are still visible, setting his predecessors up to succeed. New coordinator and new faces on personnel, and the meeting rooms still run themselves.

There are position battles to sort and installs to finish, but the coaches are able to hit the ground running.

This article originally appeared on Bills Wire: Jim Leonhard already ‘blown away’ by football culture at Bills camp