The Buffalo Bills have dealt with myriad injuries at the wide receiver position this summer. Truthfully, they’ve dealt with injuries everywhere, but at wideout, there seems to be a bigger issue involving players who have a good chance at making the roster this season.
As for how many receivers will make the roster, there really isn’t any way to tell that as of yet. The Bills won’t keep fewer than five, but they are unlikely to keep seven, too. With twelve receivers in camp, the competition for those
final two or three spots on the roster will be intense.
Some players have contracts that indicate what the Bills think about them, but what happens when a player doesn’t live up to that contract? It creates a dilemma for the club. Do they keep a player with a bloated contract? Or do they eat some dead money and move on, allowing other players the chance to step up and earn time?
In today’s installment of “90 players in 90 days,” we discuss a receiver whose play — or lack thereof — has landed him on the roster bubble in spite of his big contract.
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Name: Curtis Samuel
Number: 1
Position: WR
Height/Weight: 5’11”, 195 pounds
Age: 29 (30 on 8/11/2026)
Experience/Draft: 9; selected by the Carolina Panthers in the second round (No. 40 overall) of the 2017 NFL Draft
College: Ohio State
Acquired: Signed with Buffalo on 3/14/2024
Financial situation (per Spotrac): Samuel enters the second year of the three-year, $24 million contract he signed last March. If he makes the 53-man roster, Samuel carries a cap hit for the year of $9.065 million. If he’s released, Buffalo will carry $12.085 million in dead-cap money spread across two seasons. This year, Buffalo’s dead-cap number would be $8.635 million, with the remaining amount hitting the cap next season. If he’s traded, the only dead-cap amount for the Bills is $1.725 million, or the value of his void year in 2027.
2024 Recap: Samuel dealt with turf toe for most of last season, which is a major issue for a receiver who makes his money on speed, quickness, agility, and sharpness in his cuts. Between that, learning and fitting into a new offense, and Buffalo’s general strategy of allowing every pass-catcher to eat, Samuel had one of the worst statistical seasons of his professional career.
He caught 31 passes for 253 yards and one score. Samuel saw 46 targets in the passing game. He also ran the ball five times for 14 yards. In the postseason, he looked much more comfortable, logging six catches for 81 yards and two scores on eight targets.
He played in 14 games, making two starts, as that lingering turf toe issue combined with shoulder and rib injuries caused him to miss some time in the regular season.
Positional outlook: Samuel is one of a dozen receivers competing for a spot on the 53-man roster. Khalil Shakir, Joshua Palmer, Keon Coleman, Elijah Moore, Tyrell Shavers, Laviska Shenault Jr., Deon Cain, Kristian Wilkerson, Grant Dubose, Stephen Gosnell, and K.J Hamler (sent to IR on 8/21) are the others.
2025 Offseason: Samuel is, once again, dealing with injury. He’s had a hamstring issue that’s hampered him for most of training camp and the offseason. Samuel has yet to appear in a preseason game, but he’s now logged two consecutive practices ahead of the final preseason game.
2025 Season outlook: While it’s unclear what the Bills will do, I think it’s clear that most fans would love for the team to find a way to move on from the oft-injured wideout and find someone more available to take his spot on the roster. That person could be Shavers or Moore, or perhaps there’s another training camp favorite of yours that you’d like to see on the roster. The biggest obstacle to that, of course, is Samuel’s contract, which makes trading him even more difficult than his light stat line from last season.
Would the Bills eat the dead-cap hit and just move on, leaving them with a receiver group that likely consists of Shakir, Palmer, Coleman, Moore, and Shavers, with perhaps one other player (Shenault Jr., for example) as either a special teams ace or a game-day inactive? It’s certainly possible, and head coach Sean McDermott said as much when he noted that the team has a good idea of who the top three receivers are, but they don’t yet know who the next three could be. If we assume that the top three is Shakir, Coleman, and Palmer, that leaves Samuel in the “next” group fighting for roster space.
Buffalo could choose to keep seven receivers, including Samuel, if they’re comfortable with their depth elsewhere. They could also cut it smaller and keep only five, but given that they aren’t completely sure about Shakir’s availability as he works back from a high ankle sprain, that feels risky (in general, I also think that five receivers is too few). Six feels like the sweet-spot where they can keep adequate depth while also building a receiver room with diverse skill sets. In that scenario, Samuel is likely in a group that includes Moore, Shavers, Shenault Jr., and Wilkerson fighting for two or three spots on the roster.
If I were a gambler, I would bet heavily on general manager Brandon Beane calling around and shopping Samuel in a pick-swap situation. I would also bet on most teams not biting, preferring instead to wait it out and see if the Bills cut the veteran rather than giving up an asset for him.
The most likely scenario is that Samuel makes the team, doesn’t play up to the value of his contract, and is released in February of 2026. Even if he doesn’t play to the value of a $9 million receiver, he can still create plenty of separation at all three levels when he’s healthy.
I know, I know — the last part of that sentence is the key element. Is it worth releasing a player who showed that he could still be useful last postseason to save $430,000 this season? I don’t think so. I also don’t think Samuel’s presence on the roster takes away snaps from a player like Shavers, who has flashed this offseason. Given Samuel’s contract, if the Bills can’t find a trade partner, the best course of action might be to keep him and see how the season goes.
