Vince Young took a major step forward in the battle to become Buffalo’s No. 2 QB in Friday’s preseason loss to the Minnesota Vikings. Young was 8 of 14 for 123 yards and tossed a pretty 64-yard completion to rookie WR T.J. Graham.

That performance -- combined with improved play in practice -- has given him the edge to win the backup role, coach Chan Gailey said Monday.

“Vince Young has performed well enough in the last two games to warrant more work,” Gailey said. “He’ll get the majority of work with the two’s this week. He’ll get most of the reps with the second group when they go in Saturday night. We need to see how he can handle more gameplan, more playing time, more everything. It’s not an indictment on Tyler (Thigpen), it’s just Vince has done some good things and we know where Tyler is. We’ve got to evaluate Vince more.

“He’s got the edge or I wouldn’t have given him more reps, because he’s made more things happen. So you gotta give him credit for that. But we need to see how much he can handle.”

Pears update: The Bills received some good news regarding RT Erik Pears (groin), but it remains to be seen if Pears will be ready to start in the team’s season opener against the New York Jets. “They did some more tests on him and it was nothing major. So we’re going to hold him this week and let him get well and hopefully he’ll be back the next week. I expect him to be around -- whether he gets enough reps to start, I don’t know, but I expect him to be around," Gailey said.

What stood out at practice? Young had some nice throws during afternoon practice. He displayed good touch on a TD pass to TE Fendi Onobun in red-zone work and later connected on a strike over the middle with WR Ruvell Martin. ... Tyler Thigpen received fewer reps as the third QB. He nearly had a pass picked off by S Nick Saenz in team work but came back with a play-action TD to WR Naaman Roosevelt. ... QB/WR Brad Smith worked strictly as a receiver at practice Monday. Smith usually practices at QB. ... Both the first and second offensive units had successful two-minute drives to end practice. QB Ryan Fitzpatrick guided the starters to a touchdown, and Young found WR Derek Hagan on the left side of the end zone for a score among the backups.

What’s next? The Bills return to the practice field Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. ET.

For more updates on the Bills follow correspondent Mark Ludwiczak on Twitter @CBSSportsNFLBUF and @MarkLud12.