For the Bills, it's Been All Quiet on the Western New York Front
Like all of the NFL's 32 teams, the Buffalo Bills have had to make dozens of roster adjustments based on the week-to-week health of their players this season.
Unlike most teams, they really haven't had their share to this point.
Just four players (cornerback Tre'Davious White, guard Ike Boettger, defensive tackle Justin Zimmer and defensive end Bryan Cox Jr.) are on the injured reserve list. That's the fewest in the league.
And nobody — repeat, nobody — is on the COVID-19 list as of Thursday. That's obviously also the fewest in the league.
By contrast, their opponent this coming Sunday, the New York Jets, rank third in the league with 17 players currently on injured reserve and a league-leading 62 total players for the season. They have five players on the COVID-19 list as of Thursday.
Losing White (torn ACL) could prove to be costly for the Bills, though it hasn't been yet. He's one of the league's top players at his position and in 2019 was a first-team All-Pro.
But Zimmer is a rotational player, Boettger a reserve (though highly respected) guard and Cox a player who likely would not have made the team anyway after suffering his injury in the preseason.
A few players, like wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders (knee), guard Ryan Bates (knee), defensive end Efe Obada (ankle) and defensive tackle Ed Oliver (ankle) have some nagging injuries ahead of the Jets game. But none are considered serious and all are classified as day-to-day by coach Sean McDermott.
Sanders and Obada did not practice Thursday. Bates was limited and Oliver practiced without restriction.
"It's unfortunate that we lost the three guys we did for the year," McDermott said. "Good players, all of them. good players, all of them in Tre and Ike and Zim, but we're always, always saying our prayers at night to keep guys healthy and protect the guys that are on the field. And then I think we do overall a good job as an organization ... with the resources that [owers] Kim and ... Terry [Pegula] give us in our sports medicine part of our building and enabling us to serve the players in a healthy way. And the medical staff does a great job with the sports science and strength and conditioning staff in terms of helping me put a schedule together that helps us stay healthy.
"But even with that, sometimes it is pure luck, and so you take it where you can get it."
McDermott pointed to the sky falling heading into the the rematch with New England on Dec. 26. The Bills were missing wide receivers Gabriel Davis and Cole Beasley, guards Cody Ford and Jon Feliciano and defensive end A.J. Epenesa due to COVID-19 protocols and defensive tackle Star Lotulelei for personal reasons but still won convincingly to turn their season around.
The New England game was the opposite of that," he said. "We go into the New England game a few weeks ago and we're missing a number of guys. So it's part of the course of the business."
Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.
