Buffalo Rumblings
The Buffalo Bills play against the New England Patriots on Sunday, but the question many are wondering right now is who’ll be on the field to stop former Buffalo Bills wide receivers Stefon Diggs and Mack Hollins set to catch passes from quarterback Drake Maye.
In total, Buffalo listed two players as “did not practice,” and five others as limited. Of the eight players listed on the report, six of them are defensive players.
The good news for the Bills is that defensive tackle Ed Oliver and linebacker Matt Milano continue to work back into playing shape. Both have missed multiple games with this being the first week of practice since mid-Week 2 for Oliver and the start of Week 3 for Milano.
Buffalo’s defense needed a boost in some form last week as they struggled to contain New Orleans Saints quarterback Spencer Rattler or tackle anyone for that matter. The Bills survived but will need to do much better this week to keep their home win streak, and current undefeated season, in tact.
The concern if Milano isn’t ready to play is that linebacker Dorian Williams has now missed two days of practice, having entered the week with a knee injury. As we discussed yesterday, this will force Buffalo’s coaches to bring a practice squad linebacker up to the active roster on Saturday. They’ve already elevated rookie linebacker Keonta Jenkins twice, so unless they want to use his final elevation, it will be fellow rookie linebacker Jimmy Ciarlo who gets his first game-day uniform Sunday.
The Bills’ defense had their work cut out for them as they opened Week 5. There’s reputation, record, and standing on the line and, surely, they got more than an earful in meetings on Monday about the tackling issues. Now, on Thursday, they have two more injuries to navigate around.
Rookie cornerback Dorian Strong, who has split time with cornerback Tre’Davious White and has recorded nine tackles over the first four games of his career – including four last week against the New Orleans Saints, was listed with a neck injury. Neck injuries are always scary, and Bills Mafia has some PTSD from watching Eric Wood end his career early and Micah Hyde miss almost an entire season from such injury.
While we have no information about the type of injury Strong’s dealing with, the fact that he was fine on Wednesday and not on Thursday forces us to assume this was a practice-related injury. Regardless of what the injury is, it’s severe enough that he wasn’t able to practice today. The Bills do have veteran cornerback Dane Jackson on the practice squad and may be forced to decide: Jackson or Brandon Codrington, whose main role has been special teams, not defense.
The other new name on Thursday was rookie defensive tackle T.J. Sanders, who’s listed on the depth chart as Oliver’s replacement. We know that the Bills run a rotation on their defensive line with the hope of keeping fresh legs on the...
