The daily injury report out of Orchard Park, NY just keeps growing. But it wasn’t all bad news for the Buffalo Bills as they started preparations for their Week 6 Monday Night Football date with the Atlanta Falcons.
Let’s start with the good news: quarterback Josh Allen is not on this list. Allen looked to be in pain Sunday night as he limped around in the second half of Sunday night’s loss to the New England Patriots. Head coach Sean McDermott didn’t mention the MVP’s name during the portion of his Monday
afternoon press conference when he ran through the list of players seeking medical attention this week. When pressed about Allen, and also tight end Dalton Kincaid who had appeared to injure a hand in Sunday’s loss, the Bills’ head coach simply said that they were dealing with soreness.
However, while Allen was not on the injury list – and neither was center Conner McGovern who left the game briefly with a hand injury – Dalton Kincaid was. It’s not a hand injury, as some had guessed, that is ailing the Bills third year tight end but an oblique injury. Kincaid was limited, but an oblique injury is not ideal – remember January 2021 with Stefon Diggs playing through an oblique injury? or 2023 with Christian Benford going on Injured Reserve with the same injury? Hopefully the injury Kincaid is dealing with is of the minor kind and we will continue to see him on the field.
If Kincaid isn’t a full go this week, it looks like rookie tight end Jackson Hawes is. Hawes landed on last week’s report with an ankle injury but appears to have recovered as has right tackle Spencer Brown who missed Week 4 and played in Week 5 with a calf injury.
The other good news is that both defensive tackle Ed Oliver and linebacker Dorian Williams were practicing. The pair was limited, but they were out there doing work. That’s great news since their defensive partners (T.J. Sanders and Matt Milano) were not.
Also limited on Thursday were safeties Taylor Rapp and Damar Hamlin. While Hamlin is dealing with a pectoral injury, Rapp has a nose injury. There are a lot of questions circulating about how a nose injury could limit practice – and plenty of reminders that Josh Allen returned to play in a game in which he broke his nose. While I have no more information than anyone else, I can tell you that if the game in which Allen broke his nose had been a practice, he wouldn’t have continued and he would have been listed as “limited” because he participated in a portion of the day’s activities. So, it’s entirely possible that Rapp was injured in practice and we will be back tomorrow. It’s also just as possible that he won’t be (taking a page from McDermott and the non-committal answers here).
Wide receiver Curtis Samuel has found his way back to the daily injury reports, somewhere he’s spent a lot of times since arriving in Buffalo two summers ago. This time for Samuel it’s a combination of neck and rib injuries. Samuel was joined by left tackle Dion Dawkins who also made his first appearance on the injury list this season. The Bills’ left tackle is dealing with a thumb injury.
The bad news – other than the pectoral injury Matt Milano tried to play through was made worse and now has him back to being inactive and that T.J. Sanders is still dealing with a knee injury – is that the Bills aren’t activating practice windows for anyone on Injured Reserve. To be honest, it’s not surprising. It’s a 21-day window and after Monday night, the Bills have a week off. It would be a waste of time to bring them back now when they won’t have anyone to practice with for a portion of those 21 days. They can continue working with trainers and staff as they are now.
However, when asked specifically about the possibility of rookie cornerback Maxwell Hairston and kicker Tyler Bass playing at all this season, McDermott’s answer was his typical “we’ll see.” When pressed further, all he would commit to saying is that they are “headed in the right direction.”
So there you have it: the good, the bad, and the usual for the Bills’ daily injury news.
