Pittsford, N.Y. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - Tyler Bass has spent a lot of time on the field of Growney Stadium during training camp while the Buffalo Bills have been on the practice field at the Polisenni Track and Field Complex. Bass missed all of last season with a sports hernia.
Special teams coordinator Jeff Rodgers spoke with the media on Tuesday just before practice in Rochester. He spent the last eight seasons as the special teams coordinator of the Arizona Cardinals.
Rodgers says the Bills are taking it step-by-step with getting Bass ready for game action, and trying to put him in environments that he's going to be in.
"We've done some individual and team stuff, but it hasn't worked out for us to be on the field quite yet," said Rodgers on Tuesday. "But that will happen later on this week and then again at the stadium.
Rodgers says you can't skip any steps to getting a kicker back from injury.
"It starts from ground zero. He's working with two new holders right now (Mitch Wishnowsky and Tommy Doman), and that's a part of that comfort. So it's going to be a rep thing, but he looks like he did on tape and everything is going well so far."
As for Bass, he says the body's feeling good.
"We're excited to get back, and the process has been really kind of recovering, strengthening," said Bass earlier in training camp.
Everything for Bass in camp has been by design, but it may not be for the reason you're thinking.
"It's not, 'Don't let him kick just yet.' There's a finite number of things that we can get done on the field, and field goal protection is not going to be as competitive in practice as it is in a game," Rodgers explained. "We take advantage of the walk through time because of the tempo that it requires, but at some point, guys have got to start working on that stuff."
Bass says he's worked really hard and is ready to go. The problem for Bass last year was he tried to kick through it, but his symptoms just wouldn't go away.
"I finally had an answer to the problem, and I knew it was going to be a hard recovery," Bass said. "It was hard to get out of bed for a couple of weeks, but once I got through that, I showed myself and my body that I can do anything."
Bass has never been injured, so this was all new territory for him.
"I'm grateful for how they handled it, and I'm grateful for [Matt] Prater too, coming in. I learned a lot from him," he said.
To start, Bass won't have a huge home field advantage because of the new stadium. His coach says for kickers, it's not that big a deal.
"NFL kickers are used to going to a stadium that they're not really familiar with when they play on the road," Rodgers said. "There's going to be things that guys acquire knowledge over time, and there will be times once we get back to Orchard Park where the specialists can go over there at certain times of the day and work on their craft."
Rodgers admitted that, of course, Ray Davis will be one of their kick returners, but the punt returning job is wide-open.
"We do have to figure it out, and it doesn't always come down to who has the best skillset with the return job," he said. "You hope it does, but your roster has to be able to accommodate that. Sometimes it's, 'Is this roster spot worth it if it's the only thing that he does?' But you also have to have people back there that you trust."
On a side note, Bass gave his No. 2 to D.J. Moore after the Bills acquired the wide receiver this offseason. He declined to say if there was anything he got from Moore to give up his number.
He now wears No. 16, because it's the number he wore in college at Georgia Southern.
