Logic

Sounds like December is the best case scenario, with playoffs more likely.

The Bills were NOT just fine without Milano last year come playoff time. A LB very literally DID determine this team's destiny last year.

When we drafted Dorian Williams in the 3rd last year, everyone cried that it was a wasted pick, as if depth in the NFL is not a necessity. Fast forward a calendar year, and Matt Milano has now suffered a serious injury in back-to-back seasons and is set to be out until the playoffs. This goes to show that drafting depth is NOT the crazy, dumb, bad idea and waste of a pick that many cried about. Now we just need to hope that Williams can step up at WILL the same way that Bernard did at MIKE last year. If he can, Bernard/Williams could very likely be the LB duo that leads this defense for the next five years.

per Cover 1. I realize this could go in the megathread on the subject, but seemed big enough news to warrant its own thread. Move if needed.

Right, yes, misspoke in that last sentence. Coffee hasn't hit my brain yet this morning. Even if they moved him to WILL, he'd still appear to be behind a few others. I understand that the linebacker positions are somewhat interchangeable in the McDermott defense, but not entirely. Either way, I think the Bills would certainly prefer that their second year 3rd rounder steps up and lays claim to the role rather than having to depend on a 29 year old vet minimum journeyman free agent.

Last seen running as the fourth string MLB. It's possible they could move him to WILL, and that he could climb the depth chart. Right now though, he seems to play a different position in the Bills defense than Matt Milano, and -- even if he were moved to MLB -- would seem to be behind Williams and Ulofoshio currently.

Yeah. The silence has been deafening. Time to see what Dorian Williams has got, I guess.

And it would be no less true now than it was then. Facts are facts.

Corey Davis's career best single season receiving yardage total is higher than any current Bills receiver's. Samuel: 851 Davis: 961 Davis has posted season of over 800 and over 900 yards receiving. He is 29 years old. He won't be unseating any of the top four, but no one can convince me that he's not at least a Shavers/MVS level talent.

Not gonna lie, "Thigh Doctor" would be a low key great name for a chicken place.

Thanks. I'm curious to know the difference in expertise level between Banged Up Bills and Thigh Doctor. Are they both MDs? PTs?

There are two prominent accounts that do this for the Bills, and a couple that do it for all teams in the league. Often, it's nothing more than "the test the medical staff is administering is done to test for ligament damage" or "this body language indicates a conscussion" or "the way the heel moves is potentially indicative of an achilles tear". Stuff like that. Most viewers of football don't know what a Lachman Test or Pivot Shift test are, so some people with medical backgrounds point these things out on social media in an effort to inform them, so that they may have some sense of what might be going on with an injured player.

Mentioning what an account on Twitter -- of which there are two prominent ones on Twitter that do this for the Bills -- lists as a few potential things to think about based on the information given, and indicating in my original post that it was merely a guess on this account's part, doesn't qualify as "wild speculation" in my eyes, buy YMMV.

The amount of hate and accusations of attention seeking toward this dude simply because his speculation would be really unfortunate news for the Bills is wild. For the record, he has been right and wrong in the past. He's simply a medical professional who shares his informed speculation on Twitter. He doesn't claim any secret knowledge or mysterious sources and he doesn't state anything definitively, and I've certainly never found him to be an attention seeker. To each their own, but I think "don't shoot the messenger" (or, in this case, the informed speculator) applies here.

The Thigh Doctor fellow on Twitter who analyzes player injury reports says that the fear and the worst case scenario here would be a torn bicep tendon, which some guys do play through, but others get surgery to fix. He's not saying that's what happened, only speculating that it's what he suspects/fears based on available picture/video/reports. *****.

The touchdown pass to Gabe in the 2021 Chiefs playoff game that gave the Bills the lead with 13 seconds left and should've sent them to the AFCCG. It was an aesthetically pleasing throw is it is, but the pressure of that moment and of that drive and the clutch factor of that play is what makes it my favorite. He's had throws with higher degrees of difficulty, prettier looking passes, etc, but THAT play in THAT game was Josh at the height of his powers.

Truth. I hope Daequan Hardy ends up taking the job, so they don't have to waste a roster spot elsewhere, since Hardy would also be useful as defensive depth.

They need bodies for the remainder of the preseason. Samuel Coleman Shakir Hollins Shavers MVS is almost certainly the six they're keeping, unless injury hits or something unexpected happens.

Sea Dragons legend Ben Dinucci to the rescue!

Thanks for taking the time to write this up. Looking at your running back observations reminds me: I said this earlier this offseason and caught flak, but I'm sticking with it: By midseason or thereabouts, Ray Davis will be the starting running back on this team and getting the lion's share of the reps. James Cook will be relegated to the role to which his body type and skillset make him more well suited: Change of pace and third down back. At the VERY least, I expect a 1A/1B situation, but I'm sticking with Davis overtaking Cook as the primary back in this offense.

While the OUTCOMES of preseason games don't matter -- the final scores, the winners and losers -- you still want to see good execution in them. The reps matter. No, you can't glean much when your team isn't gameplanning, particularly if they're going up against a team rolling out stunts and blitz packages and so forth. But you CAN glean things like effort, execution, discipline, etc. For instance...for YEARS prior to the Sean McDermott regime, the Bills would look terrible in the preseason, and we'd all say "it's only preseason", and lo and behold, they'd be awful in the regular season, too. The past five+ years, the Bills have looked great every preseason, and lo and behold, they've been great every regular season. Am I saying that a bad preseason performance means your team will stink? No, certainly not. But I AM saying that the reps matter, the execution matters, and that these games CAN be somewhat informative in terms of where your team needs more work. Saturday's game was atypical for the McDermott era of Bills football. We have not typically seen them get blown off the field like that. Frankly, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise, because it's a pretty young, pretty new version of the Buffalo Bills. They have kinks to work out. If I had one takeaway from Saturday's game, it's that I don't think this Bills roster is nearly as deep as in years past. The reason the Bills tended to win so many preseason games the past few years is that THEIR depth was better than most other teams' depth, so those boring, all-grocery-bagger All-Stars second halves would more often than not be dominated by the Bills. Now? Not so much. The Bears' depth whooped our depth. Will next game be any different? We'll see.

I think it'll be like it always is with these things: The amount of time the offense will get will depend on how good and how sharp they look. If they go out there on the first drive of the game and march down the field on a 6 minute scoring drive, looking crisp and executing well, and punch it in for a touchdown, I think it's realistic to think McDermott would just pull them. If they look sloppier or go three-and-out or something, then yeah, they'll play longer. I don't think it's absolute.

Chiefs will sign him for vet min to be WR5 and Rashee suspension insurance from the slot.

I have no way of knowing this for sure, but I suspect that one of the reasons McDermott is playing the starters against the Bears is that the Bears stink. The opportunity exists to go out there and put together one good, long scoring drive, build some confidence, and then bench the starters for the night. I know that the team being young overall and needing to work on timing and chemistry and in-game communication is part of the calculation, but I'm sticking with my "Bears stink" theory as being part of the thinking as well.