NFL Notes: 49ers, Bills, Jets

49ers

49ers S Eric Reid said he’s excited to become a full-time strong safety in new coordinator Robert Saleh’s defense.

“I feel like I was made for this position with my body type being a bigger safety, so I’m excited about this year,” Reid said, via Nick Wagoner of ESPN. “[Hitting is] my favorite part of the game. I used to get mad at myself if I didn’t have at least one big shot, so to have that type of mentality for everybody, I tell the guys all the time I don’t do a lot of talking; I let my pads do the talking. So for somebody else to get a big hit will make me want to get a big hit, will make the next person want to make a play and it’s just infectious. To set that type of culture, I think it’s awesome.”

As for his contract situation, Reid has yet to hear anything from the 49ers, but he could see the team approaching him about a new deal with a strong start to the season.

“I look at it from the business standpoint,” Reid said. “I majored in business at LSU before I left. They have me under contract. They don’t have any reason to talk to me right now because they still have me. I imagine that if I play well in the first half of the season, they’ll reach out to me. Maybe they’ll reach out to me before training camp; I don’t know. It’s whatever route they decide to take, but look at it as a business; treat it as a business. I have a job to do, so I’m gonna do it.”

Bills

Bills former first-round DE Shaq Lawson told reporters that he plans to live up to his college production after a disappointing rookie season impacted by a shoulder surgery.

“Of course, yeah,” Lawson said, via the Buffalo News. “I’m going to live up to that. That’s what they want me to do. I’m going to give them a reason why they drafted me here as a first-round pick.

“It’s time to bring what I had back when I was in college.”

Lawson explained that their old defense forced him to think a lot, as opposed to reacting and playing fast. However, the Bills’ new defensive scheme is similar to what he played in at Clemson.

“When I got up there, I was thinking a lot,” Lawson said. “I had to make sure I didn’t mess up an assignment, because it was very difficult. The playbook we had last year was difficult to learn.

“The (new) defense is simple. … It’s the same thing I ran at Clemson. I picked it up a lot faster, and I’m very comfortable right now and I’m ready to play ball.”

Jets

The Jets parted ways with a number of veteran players this offseason, which many have interpreted as a clear sign of them tanking for a quarterback next year.

However, DL Sheldon Richardson explained that they put too much into all of this to just tank a year.

“Tanking for what?” Richardson told Darryl Slater of NJ.com last week. “Whatever. I mean, I don’t tank nothing. So that’s all opinions outside of this organization. We don’t come here — and we’re not going to go through training camp, and have 14-hour days — to go tank a season. I’ll be damned.”

According to Richardson, everyone on the Jets feels like they’ve got something to prove and they aren’t going to sell themselves short in the process.

“Everybody here feels like they’ve got something to prove,” Richardson said. “Everybody. We’re not selling ourselves short. We’re not trying to tank a season or nothing like that.

“Some of the moves we just made were questionable in our own locker room, and they messed with us a little bit last week. But you’ve got to get through it. Guys have bounced back already. It was shocking [after the Harris and Decker cuts] and we felt it a lot. Both sides of the ball felt it. Our leaders are gone now, so now it’s time for new guys to be a leader.

“We don’t have big names, but big names become big names. They didn’t come in as big names. They made their names. It’s just that simple.”