He believes that added muscle will help him showcase more facets of his game. During his rookie season, Bond utilized his speed to his advantage to make plays. Now, he feels like he can be more versatile on the field.
"I think it's just part of the development of the game. If you want to be a great player, you've got to upgrade every facet to your game. So, weight room was one thing that I focused on all offseason this year, be able to play big, get in space more, stuff like that," Bond said. "That's one of the reasons I picked up a lot of weight to be able to catch balls over the middle, be able to block and outside more, just more intermediate in the box things, to add on top of the deep threat ability, for sure."
His coaches are seeing that added work in the weight room start to pay off. Wide receivers coach Christian Jones said Bond is not being pushed off the spot as easily anymore.
"We've got to get him to start using that a little bit more when he's running his routes and he's running these go routes and everything, but you see it in his releases," Jones said. "You can see it in how he plays. He's not afraid to go up and attack the ball. He's not afraid to get guys off of him when he's running his routes. And I think it'll show up in the run game, especially when he put pads on. So, it's been great to see. "
Jones noted how Bond came into the offseason program with a positive mindset. He has fielded questions from Bond about plays during practice, pulling Jones aside to make sure he understood a certain concept correctly.