Buffalo Rumblings
It’s Week 4 and that means the Buffalo Bills had an extra three days of rest before they began preparations for Sunday afternoon’s game against the New Orleans Saints. From the injury information provided by head coach Sean McDermott in his Wednesday morning press conference, it didn’t appear that those extra days helped in terms of injury recovery. However, when the post-practice report was released, four of the Bills’ previously injured players no longer appeared on the daily list.
McDermott rattled off names of those who would not practice on Wednesday, a full six days after Buffalo played the Miami Dolphins: Ed Oliver, Matt Milano, Spencer Brown, and A.J. Epenesa.
Oliver has been dealing with an ankle injury that he suffered after his dominant performance in the Bills’ Week 1 shootout with the Baltimore Ravens. Oliver was injured toward the end of the first day of practice in Week 2 and has been sidelined ever since. Ankle injuries are tricky – this could easily be something that keeps Oliver sidelined until the bye in Week 7. Let’s hope not, but with the three-week span of games on Buffalo’s schedule for Weeks 4 through 6, they could opt to let the veteran sit.
Milano is down with his third major(ish) injury in as many years. While this one is (hopefully) not sending him to Injured Reserve (IR), the fact that Milano still isn’t practicing doesn’t provide much hope that we will see him on the field soon. Milano was seen rolling on the field, and then on the sidelines during the Bills’ Week 2 win over the New York Jets. The Bills didn’t announce an injury, but the next day, McDermott told us Milano was dealing with a pectoral injury. We still have no update as to the extent of the injury, with plenty of assumptions running around the rumor mills that it’s a pectoral strain since the Bills didn’t put the 31 year old on IR.
Spencer Brown is a new name to the daily injury list. McDermott told us this morning that the right tackle suffered a calf injury during Thursday night’s game. Diagnosing a timeline for return from a soft tissue injury is never easy. We will have to keep an eye on how Brown’s practice participation goes this week. If Brown sits on Sunday, will it be rookie Chase Lundt tasked with keeping Josh Allen upright, or will the Bills move Alec Anderson out to tackle, or move Ryan Van Demark over to the right side?
The other new name on the injury list Wednesday, is A.J. Epenesa. McDermott didn’t mention the sixth-year linebacker in his morning media session, but when the Bills posted their daily report after practice, he was there listed as limited with a pectoral injury. Did it happen in practice? Did it happen Thursday night? If Thursday, his limited status is a good sign. However, if not, then that means he wasn’t able to finish Wednesday’s practice and the Bills could without Epenesa...
