Regarding the Buffalo Bills this season, training camp opens with the illusion of certainty. The depth chart seems decided, most of the starters are certain, and the narrative is already written before a single padded practice happens.
But rosters aren’t finalized in the offseason. They’re built in July and August, when the film stops being theoretical, and the competition gets real.
In what here is the first installment of a series meant to break down every meaningful position battle on Buffalo’s
2026 roster we’ll start with the offensive backfield and the offensive line: the engine room of head coach Joe Brady and offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael’s system, and the foundation everything else runs through.
Below we’ll dive into who’s locked in, who’s fighting for their roster life, and where a surprise performance could actually change something. Some of these battles have obvious outcomes. Others are genuinely open. I’ll tell you which is which from my vantage point.
QB: 1 lock, 2 long shots, and a camp arm yet to be named
Starter: Josh Allen
Backup: Kyle Allen
3rd String: Shane Buechele
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Josh Allen isn’t competing for his job. He never has been. He never will be. That conversation ends before it starts.
Everything after him, though, is worth paying attention to — if only because the NFL has a way of making backup quarterbacks relevant when you least expect it.
Kyle Allen enters camp as the presumptive QB2. The Bills signed him in March to a two-year, $4.1 million deal — a modest contract that tells you exactly what this is. He’s a journeyman with 19 career starts, a 62.7% completion rate, and a 2025 season in Detroit where he logged 16 offensive snaps in the entire regular season. Jared Goff never got hurt, Allen barely played, and the Lions moved on. His last meaningful football was in Houston in 2022.
He’s a known quantity: experienced enough to manage a system, steady enough not to be a liability if Josh Allen goes down for a couple of series. That’s the job description if you consider the investment made by the Bills here, and he fits it on paper.
Shane Buechele is the long shot — and I mean that with respect. He’s been in the Bills’ orbit since 2023, survived a neck injury that wiped out his entire 2024 season, came back in 2025, was claimed off Buffalo’s practice squad by the Kansas City Chiefs in December to cover for Patrick Mahomes and Gardner Minshew, then returned to Orchard Park, NY on a future contract.
That resumé doesn’t impress, but he’s shown enough to always be there competing. If Buechele outperforms Allen across three preseason games while Josh Allen sits, does he win the backup job? It’s a long shot. But there is a chance.
The Bills should also bring in at least one camp arm. That player will try to impress the team enough to fight Buechele for the practice-squad spot. Whoever wins that race won’t make headlines in September. But if Kyle Allen’s limitations ever become visible once the regular season starts, the depth sitting behind him suddenly becomes a lot more relevant than anyone planned.
Positional battle interest level: Low. The backup spot is a long shot and the third-string option isn’t exciting at all. I expect Kyle Allen to win the QB2 job and Buechele to make the PS.
RB: 2 Locks, 1 fading grip, and a battle worth watching at the bottom
Starter: James Cook III
RB2: Ray Davis
Third-down back: Ty Johnson
RB4: Frank Gore Jr., Ian Wheeler
James Cook is a superstar. He’s the best running back on this roster and one of the best backs in the conference. That conversation is over.
Ray Davis is locked in as RB2. He out-carried Ty Johnson 113-to-41 as a rookie in 2024 and became an All-Pro kickoff returner in 2025, putting himself in position to get more opportunities in the offense, not less. He’s not losing that job in training camp.
Where it actually gets interesting is the third-down back role. Ty Johnson has held that job for three years in Buffalo, and Josh Allen himself called him the best third-down back in football after the 2024 Wild Card win over the Denver Broncos. That’s a strong endorsement.
But the 2025 regular season told a more complicated story. Johnson ran for just 200 yards on 50 carries — a 4.0 yards-per-carry average, down from the 5.1 he posted in 2024. His snap share dipped, and Davis was increasingly irrelevant in that same role, which means nobody was truly stepping up behind Cook on passing downs. He’s still on a two-year deal, so he’s not going anywhere. But the grip on that third-down role is looser than it’s been.
With Pete Carmichael having a say in the system, James Cook figures to take on a significantly expanded receiving role — think Alvin Kamara in New Orleans, working out of the backfield on routes that create mismatches in space. If Cook is eating more of those third-down snaps by design, Johnson’s usage could shrink further. I’m curious to see if Johnson recaptures his 2024 form in this new offense or if he finally ends up losing his relevance completely.
Then the RB4 battle is the most compelling story in this room. Frank Gore Jr. enters his second training camp with Buffalo having already made his case once. In last year’s preseason, he rushed for 104 yards and caught 11 passes for 109 more — the only player in the NFL that preseason to crack 100 in both categories. The Bills liked what they saw enough to bring him back on a future contract. He’s earned his shot.
And recently the Bills added Ian Wheeler. The Howard product’s path to One Bills Drive is one of the more unlikely ones on this roster: undrafted in 2024, tore his ACL in the Chicago Bears’ third preseason game before ever playing a regular-season snap, spent time on the Saints’ practice squad in 2025, then went to the UFL and became the best player in the league.
Wheeler rushed for 541 yards at 6.62 yards per carry for the Louisville Kings, set the UFL single-game record with four rushing touchdowns in April, then won United Bowl MVP. The Bills signed him two weeks ago. He has never played a regular-season NFL snap. He is absolutely worth watching. The Bills have a knack for those kinds of RBs. Fred Jackson anyone?
Gore and Wheeler are competing for the same job — a practice squad spot at minimum, and maybe a shot at taking over Ty Johnson’s roster spot in the 53. One has preseason tape in a Bills uniform. The other has momentum coming off the biggest game of his career. Whoever wins that battle likely ends up on the practice squad.
Positional battle interest level: Medium-High. Cook and Davis are decided. But the third-down back conversation is genuinely open, and the Gore-Wheeler fight at the bottom of the depth chart is the kind of camp subplot that makes August interesting.
FB: The most wide-open offensive battle
Starter: TBD — Jackson Acker vs. Ben VanSumeren
Before getting to who wins this job, it’s worth asking whether the job itself survives in Brady/Carmichael’s system, with Aaron Kromer now gone. Reggie Gilliam — as good as he was blocking for Cook’s rushing success — topped out at 23% of offensive snaps in 2025, a career high. In 2024 it was 15%.
With Carmichael bringing a more spread-out passing philosophy and tight ends like Dawson Knox and Jackson Hawes capable of absorbing some of those heavy-package reps, the Bills could realistically choose to skip the position entirely and just carry an extra tight end or another weapon in the backfield.
If they do keep a fullback, the competition is genuinely open. Jackson Acker is a 6’1”, 250-pound rookie out of Wisconsin who played halfback, fullback, and tight end over five seasons in Madison — 37 receptions, 415 rushing yards, versatile enough to line up in multiple spots. He has a connection to the building through new defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard, who coached him at Wisconsin. Ben VanSumeren is the more intriguing athlete — 4.45 in the 40, 42.5” vertical, former Philadelphia Eagles linebacker turned fullback — but he hasn’t played meaningful football in two years after back-to-back season-ending injuries in 2024 and 2025.
I lean Acker. He’s healthy, and his versatility fits what Brady and Carmichael want. But I wouldn’t be surprised if neither one makes it and the Bills just go with an extra tight end instead.
Positional battle interest level: High — more for the scheme question than the personnel one. If they keep a FB, my money is on Acker.
OL: 4 locks and 1 wide-open fight
LT: Dion Dawkins
LG: TBD
C: Connor McGovern
RG: O’Cyrus Torrence
RT: Spencer Brown
Four of the five starters return. That kind of continuity is rare and valuable, and the Bills know it. Dawkins anchors the left side as he has for years. McGovern just re-signed on a four-year, $52 million deal. Torrence enters his fourth year in Buffalo having started all three previous seasons at right guard without missing a game — a level of durability that’s been almost impossible to find at that position in Buffalo before his arrival. Brown holds down the right tackle.
None of those conversations are open. And with Torrence now entering the final year of his rookie deal, there’s mutual interest in an extension — Beane has already signaled as much publicly.
LG: The only real starting battle
David Edwards left for New Orleans on a four-year, $61 million deal, and with him went the last piece of the old interior. The left guard spot has been a rotating door in Buffalo since Dawkins was drafted in 2017 — no player held it for more than two seasons before Edwards did it. Now it’s open again.
Alec Anderson is the favorite. The UCLA product came aboard undrafted in 2022, worked his way from the practice squad, and has appeared in all 34 games the past two seasons with six starts. He got his clearest look yet in Week 18 against the New York Jets. He’s the in-house candidate, the continuity option, the guy who knows the system. I think he wins this job — the same way Edwards once won it from Anderson’s current position.
However, Austin Corbett will push him hard. A Super Bowl champion with the Los Angeles Rams in 2021, Corbett spent four years as a starter with the Carolina Panthers — 78 career starts in 94 games, comfortable at both guard and center, Pro Football Focus grade of 67.8 in 2025. Beane was direct about it at the league meetings: “He’s a proven starter.” The concern is injury history — he’s missed time in multiple seasons, including a torn ACL in 2022. If he’s healthy, this is a genuine competition.
Jude Bowry runs a distant third. The Bills’ fourth-round pick this past April out of Boston College (#102 overall) spent his college career at left tackle but has the frame — 6’5”, 314 pounds, 34” arms — that has scouts projecting him as a potential guard at the NFL level. If he can be really impressive soon, he might enter the discussion for a starting spot early.
Backup OL battles: The interior logjam
The backup center race is crowded. Sedrick Van Pran-Granger is the headliner — the 2025 draft pick with real potential who has battled injuries in every season so far. If he stays healthy, he has the potential to be the best interior backup on the roster. Lloyd Cushenberry III brings 80 career starts, was a third-round pick in 2020, and started every game he played over two seasons with the Tennessee Titans. Corbett can play center too, which makes him the most versatile piece on the entire interior — and also the reason Cushenberry’s roster spot is far from guaranteed.
At swing tackle, Tylan Grable is the front-runner for the top backup role. He’s been in the building, knows the system, and has the size to hold down the position. Bowry will push him — the fourth-round pick has the athleticism and frame to play either tackle or guard at the NFL level, and if he impresses in camp, that competition gets real.
At the bottom of the depth chart, it’s a crowded room fighting for the last spots on the 53-man or a place on the practice squad. Chase Lundt — the Bills’ sixth-round pick in 2025 — returns healthy after a knee injury cut his rookie year short at just three offensive snaps. He’s a tackle-only player, which limits his ceiling here, and Bowry already projects ahead of him.
Nick Broeker is on his third stint with Buffalo without a regular-season snap to show for it, and is a guard-only player in a room that prizes versatility. Ar’maj Reed-Adams — seventh-round pick in the 2026 draft — and Bruno Fina round out the group. Fina is an undrafted free agent out of Duke, and yes, the son of Bills legend John Fina, who played 10 seasons in Buffalo and appeared in three consecutive Super Bowls in the early ’90s. The name alone won’t make the roster, but Bills Mafia will be watching. Some of these names make it. Most don’t.
Positional battle interest level: High at left guard, Medium everywhere else. The four returning starters make this the most stable unit on the offense, but LG is genuinely open. The interior backup race has real roster consequences. I believe Anderson wins the LG job, and they carry 10 offensive linemen on the 53-man roster, with Grable, Corbett, Van Pran-Granger, Cushenberry and Bowry as the choices. Maybe Reed-Adams or Lundt in Cushenberry’s place if they impress and the Bills feel like they will lose them via waivers.
Final thoughts
These are the battles that will define Buffalo’s offensive foundation before a single regular-season snap is played. Most of the depth chart is already decided — but left guard, the third-down running back role, the fullback spot, and the scramble for the last few offensive line roster spots will tell us a lot about how Joe Brady and Pete Carmichael plan to build this offense in 2026.
Next up in this series: wide receivers and tight ends, where the competition gets even more interesting. In the meantime, I want to hear from you — do you agree with my projections? Who do you think wins the left guard job, Anderson or Corbett? Does Frank Gore Jr. or Ian Wheeler survive cutdown day? And which of these battles has you most locked in heading into training camp? Let me know in the comments!
Catch up on all this and more with the latest edition of Leading the Charge!
