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The only time Bills rookie quarterback Josh Allen ever felt rattled on his first day of practice was shortly after the session ended Friday.

That's when coach Sean McDermott escorted the first-round pick to the sideline and introduced him to Jim Kelly in what became a meeting of the team's hopeful future and legendary past.

"I'm still shaking from meeting him Antonio Callaway Jersey ," Allen said.

Though Allen grew up in central California and played college at Wyoming, the 21-year-old is very aware of who Kelly is and what he means to Buffalo.

"It's all on the wall," Allen said, pointing the four AFC Championship banners the Kelly-led teams won from 1990-'93.

Allen also knows how tough Kelly is in his ongoing battle with cancer.

"I can't say anything else but he's a special man. He's been through a lot," he said. "And to be in the spirits that he is and to come out here and show support for the Buffalo Bills, that just shows to me how much he means to Buffalo and Buffalo means to him. It's awesome."

Kelly made a surprise visit for the start of two-day rookie minicamp some six weeks after his latest operation to have cancer removed from his jaw.

Kelly walked with a cane and had difficulty speaking. He raised his right thumb while he and Allen posed for pictures. Said Kelly: "It's the best thing I can do: Thumbs up."

The Bills are pinning their hopes on Allen to fill what's been their most unsettled position since Kelly retired following the 1996 season.

Buffalo traded up five spots in the draft order to select him with the No. 7 pick two weeks ago. Allen became just the fourth quarterback selected by Buffalo in the first round, and first chosen in the top 10 of the draft order.

He joins a team once again shuffling starters after Tyrod Taylor was traded to Cleveland in March despite helping Buffalo to a 9-7 finish and end a 17-year playoff drought.

At 6-foot-5 and 250 pounds, Allen is a raw, but strong-armed and athletic quarterback. He was a two-year starter at Wyoming, where he completed 365 of 649 for 5,066 yards with 44 touchdowns and 21 interceptions.

Allen was knocked for his relatively low completion percentage of 56.2 and mechanics, something he spent working on this offseason.

McDermott isn't providing any guarantees in saying Allen will compete for the starting job with offseason free-agent addition A.J. McCarron and second-year player Nathan Peterman.

"We've got a plan in place for all of our players, and in this case Josh, in terms of bringing them along at the right pace Jeff Driskel Jersey ," McDermott said.

Allen threw a few wobbly or high passes to his right. He was far more accurate with passes to his left and over the middle. Allen showed off his strong arm, by completing several deep passes, including one to rookie seventh-round pick Austin Proehl.

He was also intercepted once during one-on-one drills. His hard, high pass over the middle slipped through receiver William Scott's hands and to a defensive back.

"I felt like I've made a lot of strides," Allen said. "I felt like I put the ball where it needed to be most of the time. Obviously, there's some throws that I would like back. But as we progress through this rookie minicamp and through the rookie developmental period, I plan to improve every day."

He was pleased in learning how Kelly was overheard praising a few of his throws.

Allen said Kelly first contacted him by text in welcoming him to Buffalo the day after being drafted.

"Hopefully, in the near future we can keep that relationship going," Allen said. "Any rookie that can develop a mentorship with a former quarterback like Jim Kelly, it's going to be huge."

NOTES: The Bills signed fourth-round pick, Weber State cornerback Taron Johnson. That leaves their top-three selections unsigned, including third-round pick, Stanford defensive tackle Harrison Phillips. ... The Bills also signed 12 undrafted free agents including Arizona guard Gerhard De Beer, who is from South Africa. He was a Pac-12 discuss throwing champion and made the switch to football. ... Also signed were defensive linemen Mat Boesen (TCU) and Mike Love (South Florida) Darius Slay Jersey , linebacker Corey Thompson (LSU), cornerbacks Ryan Carter (Clemson) and Levi Wallace (Alabama), running back Keith Ford (Texas A and M), receivers Robert Foster (Alabama) and Cam Phillips (Virginia Tech), offensive linemen Ike Boettger (Iowa) and Mo Porter (Baylor), and Penn State kicker Tyler Davis.

Dwane Casey looks at the roster of the Detroit Pistons and sees a core of players capable of a lot more than the team accomplished last season.

”Our time is now,” Casey said.

The Pistons introduced Casey as their new coach Wednesday, over a week after hiring him to replace Stan Van Gundy. Casey inherits a team built around Blake Griffin, Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson, but the roster has little flexibility and the team gave up its first-round draft pick this year to acquire Griffin.

In other words, Detroit’s performance in 2018-19 may depend largely on what Casey can get out of a group that fell short under Van Gundy.

”I’m telling the guys now: We’re not developing, we’re not two or three years away,” Casey said. ”We want to win right now.”

Casey took the Detroit job after being fired by the Toronto Raptors. He’s a finalist for NBA coach of the year after leading the Raptors to a team-record 59 wins this past season, but he lost his job after Toronto was swept in the playoffs by Cleveland.

”I can hold my head high for what we built in Toronto Clint Boling Jersey ,” Casey said. ”That’s part of the journey. This is a new chapter.”

The Pistons made the playoffs only once in four seasons under Van Gundy, who was also president of basketball operations. Detroit hired Casey to replace Van Gundy as coach, but it’s still unclear what the front office will look like going forward. Ed Stefanski was brought in as a senior executive reporting to owner Tom Gores. His job was to help with both the coaching search and the effort to reshape the team’s basketball operations.

”We’re going through a process here. We’re thinking about, do we want to go a GM route? Do we want to get some younger guys in there and I can mentor them kind of thing? It’s fluid,” Stefanski said. ”I’m going to be very influential in the front office.”

The Pistons went 39-43 last season. They got off to a promising start before Jackson, their point guard, went down with an injury in late December. About a month later, Detroit acquired Griffin in a blockbuster trade, giving up the first-round pick and taking on the star forward’s big contract. That wasn’t enough to push the team into the postseason, and it seems unlikely the Pistons will be able to make any major changes to their roster in the short term.

”I don’t see us making a huge deal right now,” Stefanski said.

If the personnel stays mostly the same, the Pistons will have to hope for better health – and Casey will have to look for areas for improvement. The Pistons were fifth in the league in 3-point percentage last season, but they were only 16th in attempts from beyond the arc.

”We have to get up more 3s. We’ve got to play more of an analytical game,” Casey said. ”Tom teases me all the time about being a modern man. No Peyton Manning Jersey , it’s about wanting to win, more than anything else, and you have to adapt.”

NOTES: Gores just finished his seventh season as owner. He was asked how long he is committed to the team. ”Forever,” he responded. ”This is not an equity deal.” … Stefanski talked a bit about Michigan coach John Beilein, who emerged as a candidate for the Pistons’ job but is remaining with the Wolverines . ”Coach Beilein is an offensive genius in my mind,” Stefanski said. ”I was mesmerized, because I’m a basketball guy, how good he is on the offensive end. … He has a pretty good job at Michigan with, what he’s telling me, a very good team coming back.”

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