ORCHARD PARK – Most people can instantly recall the first job they held. Maybe it was clerk at a grocery store, food preparer at McDonald’s, or painting houses in the summer.
Buffalo Bills offensive tackle Ryan Van Demark has no recollection at all of what he did to earn his first paycheck. Oh, he knows what the job was; he just couldn’t tell you a thing about it.
“Baby model,” Van Demark said the other day with a smile. “My mom took me and my brother into (New York City from their home in Wayne, New Jersey) like every other weekend and then we would do baby model pictures and it was cool. Obviously I don’t remember it, but my mom’s got all the pictures framed from like Ralph Lauren, Toys ‘R Us, all that stuff.”
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Hey, sometimes it really does pay to be a cute little kid.
And sometimes it pays to be blessed with determination and grit which is what Van Demark has needed on his football journey which, at this moment, has him in position to possibly win a backup offensive tackle job on a Super Bowl contender.
“Vandy has really grown in the system and really kind of shown his athletic ability and his ability to kind of play outside there and hold up,” offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey said.
Dorsey said that following the first preseason game against the Colts when Van Demark got playing time at left tackle ahead of veteran David Quessenberry. Since then, things have really gotten interesting because the Bills lost two offensive tackles – Brandon Shell retired and Tommy Doyle blew out his knee in the second preseason game against the Steelers.
Van Demark played 31 snaps in Pittsburgh, graded out very well, and now he might be the frontrunner ahead of Quessenberry and Richard Gouraige to win the swing tackle job.
“It opens up an opportunity for me and an opportunity for some of the other guys here,…
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