The Buffalo Bills won’t play football tomorrow. But when they do face the Los Angeles Rams on Monday Night Football they will be without a couple of veteran starters.
After Saturday’s practice, head coach Joe Brady told us that Ed Oliver and Joshua Palmer have been ruled out for Week 5. Oliver is dealing with a knee injury he suffered last Sunday, and Palmer popped up on Friday’s report with a shoulder injury.
Despite those two designations, there’s still plenty of unknowns surrounding Monday night.
DJ Moore is once again listed as questionable – same story as last week. The veteran wide receiver has not missed a game since 2020, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t. Last week Moore went through a similar practice routine, entered the weekend questionable, and then started the game. He didn’t last long as he headed to the locker room after aggravating the shoulder injury he’s been trying to play through. Not great for a Bills’ offense that thought it finally had a true WR1.
Also questionable is Dee Alford, the Bills nickel corner. Buffalo doesn’t have anyone lined up behind Alford on their depth chart, and Sunday saw them throwing Damar Hamlin in the slot.
Landon Jackson gets the questionable designation as well. He’s another one that some may have thought was worse than it ended up being. There were rumors that he could have suffered an ACL injury during last week’s game, but the second-year defensive lineman was able to return to the game, spent one day as a DNP and then had two limited practices this week.
Despite the question marks, there are a couple of things we do know on the positive side of the scale. Brady said that Christian Benford will play. The Bills corner missed last week with a toe injury, but it was apparently not quite as bad as the walking boot he was in two weeks ago might have had us think.
The Buffalo head coach also said that rookie Skyler Bell will be active this week. This will be the first NFL regular season action for the rookie wide receiver. The fourth round pick out of UConn has been saying he’s ready to go for weeks now. Monday, we find out.
