Players' Concerns About Buffalo Bills' Training Staff Detailed in NFLPA Report Cards

Upon introducing Joe Brady as the Buffalo Bills’ next head coach, it was revealed that the team’s much-maligned athletic training staff would remain in place despite the Bills’ high injury rate over the past few seasons.

The Bills’ President of Football Operations cited the expected alignment and collaboration between the organization’s new leadership team and its remaining athletic training crew as the benefit of maintaining its personnel in that department.

However, there remains an underlying concern regarding the Bills’ operation—numbers.

Bills trainers — Buffalo Bills running back James Cook (4) is tended to by a trainer during the first half of a game against the Atlanta Falcons at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. | Brett Davis-Imagn Images

The problem

Over the weekend, it was reported that the NFL prevented the NFLPA from publishing the results of its team report cards via an arbitration ruling. The 26-page ruling was then obtained by Pro Football Talk, which transcribed a few of its findings, including criticisms of various NFL teams from the 2025 report cards, including the Buffalo Bills.

“The Union dropped the Club in the overall rankings from prior years because ‘issues … previously raised [by Players] … have not been addressed and thus have become greater concerns,” read the ruling, per PFT.

Two of those concerns were outlined in the document.

“The Union claimed Players were concerned that ‘current [training] staffing is inadequate to help them recover,’” it read. “‘And travel continues to be the worst part of their experience’ because they ‘do not have a comfortable amount of space when traveling and the travel schedule itself is a source of significant dissatisfaction.’”

Those findings are alarming, considering the sizable number of significant injuries the Bills have dealt with over the past few years.

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The fact that the NFL doesn't want the contents of the new NFLPA report cards to be published guarantees that one or more members of the union will leak them to the media -- and they'll likely get more attention than ever before. https://t.co/w1cwQCyJvV
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) February 16, 2026

Track record

According to Rotowire, the Bills were the fifth-most-injured team in the NFL in 2025, with 17 players missing a total of 246 games, equating to an average of 14.47 man games missed per injured player. The team’s Injured Reserve list resembled a grocery list by midseason, as many significant contributors were placed on the mend.

That list included star defensive tackle Ed Oliver, who missed 14 regular-season games due to various injuries. Others who missed considerable time included kicker Tyler Bass, who was lost in training camp due to hip and groin injuries, wide receiver Joshua Palmer, who missed five games with knee and ankle injuries, and many more.

While many have called for a change after another frustrating season in the trainer’s room, it doesn’t appear as if one is on the way anytime soon.