"For the record, Trent Edwards got the first chance to play quarterback during the Bills' first full-squad spring practice Tuesday.

Edwards and his teammates began what amounts to five weeks of practices. Tuesday's session was the first of three "organized team activities" scheduled for this week. All the practices are voluntary up until the last three, which is the Bills' minicamp, scheduled for June 22-24.

"I'm happy to be back out here. I'm happy to get under center and I'm happy to be around my teammates again," said Edwards, who is entering his fourth season. "That's what the beauty of the sport is, that it's a game that relies on trust. You build camaraderie through the offseason. And the way you win football games is through having trust and having those offseason workouts."

Veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick followed Edwards in the quarterback rotation. Brian Brohm was third and rookie Levi Brown fourth in line.

Coach Chan Gailey said all the quarterbacks would rotate throughout the spring.

"We have a schedule for the entire OTAs, both minicamps," Gailey said. "We have it worked out where there will be equal number of reps. These first two weeks, the first six practices, we're giving Fitz and Trent a few more of the reps because Brian and Levi had the whole rookie minicamp. Those two guys had almost 100 reps a piece in that minicamp, so we're trying to catch these two guys up because they haven't had any reps yet. So the first six practices, the majority of reps will go to those two guys, and then it'll start to even out more after these two weeks."

Edwards says he realizes that he faces an equal competition for the starting job.

"We're all sharing reps out there," he said. "It's still early on in the process. We're still trying to get to know the coaches a little bit and they're still trying to get to know us. So there's really no reason for them to point [to] any favorite or any starter right now. They're still trying to get to know our game a little bit. We're still trying to understand the offense."

Edwards hit two nice long passes in seven-on-seven drills, one to Lee Evans and one to rookie Marcus Easley. Gailey was realistic about Day One of on-field work.

"We don't need to cancel practice," he said. "We have a lot of work to do in the throwing game. We're rusty and we have to continue to work route running as well as throwing the football. I could tell we haven't thrown the football. We've thrown it individually but not with bodies flying around and that's a lot different.""