For all intents and purposes, aside from a Week 4 hiccup loss to the New England Patriots, the Buffalo Bills are having the 2026 NFL season they expected. What I mean by that is that they remain one of the AFC's best teams and a clear championship contender amid Josh Allen's latest chance at his first career Super Bowl victory.
Unfortunately for the Bills, they're going to have to beat the Los Angeles Rams on the road on Monday night without one of their best and most important players.
Receiver DJ Moore, who aggravated an early-season shoulder injury in that mentioned Patriots loss, will officially not play against the Rams. That much we know for sure. As for when Moore comes back to the Bills' lineup? That's, uh, more complicated.
Tonight’s inactives.#BUFvsLAR
| #BillsMafia pic.twitter.com/9L1UnZEPvv
— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) October 12, 2026
The good news for Moore and the Bills is that the team considers his injury to be of a week-to-week variety. This means that, theoretically, he could return to the Bills' game against the Raiders next Sunday, October 18th. The more cautious, big-picture approach that would let Moore's injury heal properly, though, would be to hold him out of that Raiders game because the Bills have a bye week the following weekend. That would give Moore roughly three weeks to heal up and likely return for a huge matchup with the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, November 1st.
Who knows how the Bills will approach Moore's injury moving forward. Given their struggles to get over the hump in January during this era, it would probably behoove them to let Moore really recover before throwing him back out there as Allen's top weapon.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: When is DJ Moore coming back to the Bills?
