Nick Saban wants the Power 5 conference schools to only play each other in football.

Why does Kyrie Irving want to be traded out of Cleveland?

Tyrod Taylor’s name tops the list, and Sammy Watkins is right behind him, players who need to prove something to the Buffalo Bills this season if they hope to have a future with the team.

Taylor acknowledged as much Thursday night following the first practice in Pittsford when he said of Watkins and the Bills, “It’s a big season for him, it’s a big season for all of us.”

With Watkins eligible for free agency now that the Bills declined his fifth-year option, and Taylor working yet again under a contract that the Bills can easily escape after this year if he doesn’t raise his level of play, they need to come through.

But they aren’t alone.

As training camp begins to ramp up this weekend, there are a few other players who need to stand up and be counted at St. John Fisher College if they hope to be key contributors on Sean McDermott’s first team.

Here are my top five:

1. LB Reggie Ragland

The Bills picked him in the second round of the 2016 draft and former general manager Doug Whaley had no qualms saying that Ragland was going to walk off the bus and be a starter, and Rex Ryan felt the same way. And then Ragland blew out his knee barely a week into camp at Fisher, and his rookie season was gone.

Now Ragland is back, hoping this visit to Rochester goes a little better. He’s also playing in a different defense, and that starting role Whaley and Ryan almost guaranteed him last year is quite the opposite. He and Preston Brown are battling for the middle linebacker spot in McDermott’s 4-3, and the veteran Brown may have the inside track based on three years of NFL experiences, and more defensive snaps than any player on the team in that span. Ragland could move out to the weak side spot if no one establishes an identity there.

2. WR Zay Jones

The Bills have a dearth of top-end talent at this position, and they drafted Jones believing he would step right in and replace departed No. 2 wideout Robert Woods. He’ll get every chance, and the rookie who caught more passes than any player in college football history should be up to the task.

But here’s the thing: Playing wide receiver in the NFL is a whole lot different than in college. They have to learn the intricacies of the route tree, the various coverages they will face, they have to know when they’re the hot read, and perhaps just as important in Buffalo, they have to be able to block in the run game, something Woods was adept at. It’s a big ask for Jones.

3. FS Jordan Poyer

He was one of the Bills’ free agent signings, and he was plugged in from the start to replace the departed Corey Graham. But Poyer hasn’t exactly wowed anyone in his four years in the NFL, spent almost exclusively with the Browns.

Originally a seventh-round pick of the Eagles in 2013, Poyer was cut and signed by Cleveland. He has played 48 games (he missed 10 last season due to a lacerated kidney) and he has 124 career tackles and just two interceptions. The Bills really need him to lock down that position because even with the addition of Baccari Rambo this week, there’s not a whole lot of quality depth.

4. RB Jonathan Williams

There was some noise made in the offseason when the Bills let Mike Gillislee get away. Gillislee was a solid backup to LeSean McCoy, and that’s important on this team for two reasons: McCoy is now 29 and he has battled some injuries, and the Bills are a run-heavy team that needs to spread out the workload, so the No. 2 man has to be productive.

Williams, a 2016 fifth-round pick who missed almost all of his last season in college at Arkansas due to a foot injury, has the first crack at winning the key spot behind McCoy. He’ll need to prove that he can not only run, but be effective as a receiver, and not put the ball on the ground like he did in very brief playing time as a rookie.

5. P Colton Schmidt

Laugh if you will, he’s just the punter, but let’s not kid ourselves; the Bills need their punter to be good because not only do they punt fairly often, they need every field position advantage they can get. In short, Schmidt wasn’t very good last year as he finished with a career-worst 42.4-yard gross average, and the Bills were 29th in net punting. Free agent signee Austin Rekhow is in camp for a true competition, and Rehkow can also kick off if need be, so he has that going for him.

Taking my shots

► Adrian Beltre of the Rangers got ejected from a game the other night because umpire Gerry Davis was apparently in a miserable mood, not that I blame him for that — it was 97 degrees in Texas and it took four hours to play a 22-10 Marlins rout over the Rangers. However, it was a pretty bad look for baseball that Davis kicked Beltre out because he wasn’t standing in the on-deck circle and was too close to home plate. And when Davis told him to get back, Beltre comically moved the on-deck circle logo to where he was.

Should Beltre have done that? No. Should Davis, who was umpiring second base, have cared where Beltre was standing? Absolutely no. Watch any game and you will see countless players who aren’t in the on-deck circle because they want to get a little closer to the plate to get a better read on the pitcher. No one seems to care. It was rather absurd, especially when you consider Beltre was five hits shy of 3,000 for his career that night and it cost him an at-bat in front of the home fans.

► Speaking of a bad look, that’s what Kyrie Irving brought upon himself with his request for a trade out of Cleveland. Sometimes, I just don’t get these egomaniacs. Irving is obviously a terrific player, but apparently he’s not happy being the No. 2 man on the team and the sidekick of LeBron James, one of the greatest players in the history of the game.

How can playing with LeBron be a bad thing? All the guy has done is make the NBA Finals seven years in a row (four with Miami and Dwyane Wade, three with Irving and the Cavs) and won three championships. Irving really doesn’t want to play with this guy, and be a part of a team that would likely continue to contend for rings? Then again, there’s precedent. Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal didn’t want to play together despite winning three straight titles from 2000-02.

If it were up to me …

Nick Saban, head coach at Alabama, gets his way regarding the future scheduling for Power 5 conference teams.

Saban proposed the other day that schools in the Power 5 conferences — the SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12 — only play games against each other, rather than scheduling cupcakes early in the season. With that in mind, the College Football Playoff could be extended beyond the current four teams, and the participants — having played more similar-type opponents — would be selected based on a power rating type of system like the NCAA basketball tournament.

Teams would be seeded in the playoff based on a variety of factors including record, strength of schedule, etc., and the various bowl games would be utilized to play out the tournament. Saban said he’d advocate for the elimination of the six-win threshold for bowl eligibility (for the non-playoff bowls) because that would free up schools to schedule tougher, better matchups.

This method would certainly create better games, not only in conference but out of conference. No more 77-0 blowouts. The only downside is that those sacrificial lamb schools would lose out on much-needed revenue. When East Nowhere State goes to Alabama to get blown out, it takes home a healthy paycheck that can then be used to fund some of the non-revenue sports in its program. That’s certainly an issue that would prevent Saban’s plan from ever taking shape.

This week in baseball

On July 25, 1956, Pittsburgh’s Roberto Clemente became the only player to ever hit a walk-off, inside-the-park grand slam to give the Pirates a dramatic 9-8 walk-off victory over the Cubs at Forbes Field. The previous year, his rookie season, Clemente’s first career home run was also an inside-the-parker. In all, he hit 10 inside-the-park homers among the 240 he hit in his Hall of Fame career.

The numbers game

Courtesy of Elias Sports Bureau

► When the Yankees scored a run Tuesday in the process of a triple play being recorded by the Reds, it was just the second time in 40 years that had occurred. The other was on May 27, 2006, when the Mariners scored while the Twins were turning three.

► Didi Gregorius, power hitter? Wednesday, he became the first Yankee shortstop in history to hit four home runs over a three-game stretch. Eight other Yankees shortstops had three homers over three games, the last being Derek Jeter who did it in 1997, 2004, and 2012.

► Wednesday night, all nine players in the Marlins’ starting batting order had hits and RBIs in the 22-10 rout of the Rangers. Only two other teams since 2013 have had games like that: the A’s in beating the Twins, 18-3, on Sept. 11, 2013, and the Nationals on June 2 of this season in a 13-3 win in Oakland.

MAIORANA@Gannett.com