It has been a busy last few days for the Buffalo Bills since the team wrapped up their 2021 preseason schedule against the Green Bay Packers on Saturday.
Bills general manager Brandon Beane and his staff had some tough decisions to make with his group of players in Buffalo leading up to Tuesday's 4 p.m. ET deadline to trim the roster to 53 players. While some players will return to the group, whether it be the active roster or to the 16-man practice squad, there will be many players who end up hitting the free agent market looking for new jobs.
After a few days off from practice, the team returned to action on Wednesday in front of the fans for an open session at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park. The focus now finally shifts to Week 1 of the regular season on Sunday, Sept. 12 when the Bills will welcome the Pittsburgh Steelers to town to officially open the 2021 campaign.
With the attention now towards the season opener in 11 days, Beane knows the expectations surrounding this Bills team in 2021 are, perhaps, as high as they've ever been in Western New York.
"No body on the outside is going to put more pressure on ourselves than we do, and we expect a lot out of ourselves," Beane said. "Sometimes that's not tallying wins and losses. Sometimes you can be a better team, but the way you dealt with injuries in the season, a tough run of the schedule, whatever it is. Everybody is prognosticating how good teams are going to be, but teams are so different every year. ... We might look like a tough matchup for someone in November, but we might not be playing our best football then or we might be dealing with some injuries.
"We have a lot of expectations. I can't tell you what that's going to result in with wins and losses. Every year will have its ups-and-downs, but hopefully we have not only the talent, but the right people in our building to help deal with the adversity. It's a 17-game season, [which is] something new as well that we'll deal with."
Beane also addressed a number of other topics surrounding his team going into the regular season, including some of the roster cuts made by the team, injuries, potential adds to the practice squad and more.
You can listen to Beane's entire press conference with the media below:
