Injuries mount on Bills’ defense, questions at WR remain ahead of Eagles matchup
The Bills will be facing a potent offense and run defense when they host the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles on Sunday.
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Bills linebacker Shaq Thompson, who left the Dec. 21 game against the Browns with a neck injury, has been limited during the practice week. Nick Cammett / Getty Images
With only two games to go in the regular season, the Buffalo Bills are keeping their slim hopes of a home playoff game to begin the postseason alive. A four-game winning streak has certainly helped strengthen their position, but they do not control who gets home-field advantage.
Down one game to the AFC East-leading New England Patriots (12-3), the Bills (11-4) have their work cut out for them. Given that the Patriots have a Brady Cook-led New York Jets team this weekend, the Bills will likely need to win their final two games and hope for help from the Miami Dolphins in Week 18.
It all begins for the Bills on Sunday against the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles (10-5), which is the first of two home games to close out the 2025 season. Even through the winning streak, the Bills are still trying to overcome some questions as the playoffs draw near.
What stood out this week during their preparation for the Eagles game? Here is our Week 17 notebook, with some intriguing comments from the head coach about the state of one position that has been a consistent source of frustration.
WR carousel likely to take another spin
To say the 2025 season at wide receiver hasn’t gone the way the Bills wanted it to would be putting it lightly. The Bills had plenty of hope heading into the season that someone on the boundary would step up and turn a question mark into a strength, but that hasn’t happened. The Bills receiver group has been, without question, the most volatile group from one week to the next. Bills head coach Sean McDermott craves lineup continuity from one week to the next, while understanding that the general injury attrition is a part of the game. But if pieces are healthy, McDermott wants to know who the team favors and what their ideal roles would be if all are healthy. As that focus has become clearer everywhere else on the roster, at wide receiver, it’s become increasingly blurrier.In 15 games this season, the Bills have had nine different receivers active for at least one game. After accounting for game-day inactives, they have also had a different receiver lineup in nine of those 15 games, but even that has become increasingly more volatile since the start of the year, when the Bills realized they had a bit of a problem on their hands. Since Week 4, the Bills have had eight different game-day wide receiver lineups out of 12 games — a change of one or more in 67 percent of their games. That only slightly had to do with injury, but more recently, it’s been all about who they choose to be a healthy scratch. The Bills have had a different game-day receiver configuration in five of their last six games.
On Friday, McDermott was asked about the balancing act between having the continuity of the same five receivers every week versus trying to find the best five for the playoffs. His response was quite illuminating to the team’s thought process.
“We’re very aware — a heightened awareness of that, especially down the stretch. [Continuity is] what we want, and where we’re at are, right now, two different things. That’s just being real with you here,” McDermott said. “But we’re trying to find that in order to get it to [continuity]. It’s just … it’s taken longer than we would have liked at this point. But I remain confident in the guys in that room … and I’m looking forward to them coming out, playing with a chip on their shoulder and getting us into a groove here.”
The Bills now have a whopping seven receivers on their 53-man roster. Last week, Keon Coleman and Gabe Davis were healthy scratches, and despite having Mecole Hardman active, Buffalo did not give him a single snap on offense. Khalil Shakir is a lineup staple every week and is in no jeopardy of being removed from the game-day roster. But the other three — Tyrell Shavers, Joshua Palmer and Brandin Cooks — combined for only 23 yards and two receptions against the Cleveland Browns. The week before, with Coleman in and Hardman out, the non-Shakir receivers were responsible for exactly one reception and 16 yards against the Patriots. The last two weeks have been the two lowest outputs of the boundary receivers of the entire 2025 season.
Looking at the production, the film, and considering what McDermott said on Friday, it seems very possible, if not likely, that the Bills will have a 10th different game day receiver configuration. Davis seems the likeliest for inclusion, given that he’s been a healthy scratch the last two weeks during those two lowest outputs of the year. Past that, it seems completely up in the air. Cooks has uncovered deep, but failed to bring in a well-thrown pass from Josh Allen. Hardman could assume some of those vertical routes from Cooks, but is an overall less accomplished receiver. Palmer flopped in his first game as a high percentage snap receiver, and Coleman’s 2025 up-and-down journey has been well documented. As the Bills are desperately searching for answers, any group of five is on the table on Sunday. But anything they do is merely a Band-Aid scenario to try and find their playoff five. The Bills know that something has to change in the offseason. For now, they’ll just have to make the best of a sub-optimal situation.
Defensive injuries mounting for a week, at least
The Bills’ streak of having at least one member of their 53-man roster unable to practice continued in Week 17. They suffered injuries to three of their 11 defensive starters in the Browns game, and all three are at risk of missing the Week 17 contest against the Eagles. Safety Jordan Poyer, linebacker Shaq Thompson and defensive tackle DaQuan Jones each had an injury or an injury setback against the Browns.Poyer, who has suddenly become a massively important piece of their defense and how they’ve been able to put together some shutdown moments recently, suffered a hamstring injury late in the game. McDermott ruled Poyer out against the Eagles even before Friday’s practice. The other two, Thompson and Jones, still have some uncertainty about their availability on Sunday. Thompson, who started at middle linebacker over the usual starter Terrel Bernard, had to leave the game with a neck injury after only 11 snaps. Thompson has been limited during the practice week, but given his increasing importance and the nature of the injury, it would not be shocking to see him inactive with the playoffs just around the corner. Jones suffered what McDermott called a “little bit” of a setback to a calf injury that has lingered since Week 6. Jones was a non-participant at practice on Wednesday and Thursday, and was not seen on the practice field on Friday, either. With no practice time and the injury impacting his season, the Bills declared him out on Friday, despite leaving the light on for him ahead of Friday’s practice session.
These injuries to three of their most important run defenders seem like pretty bad timing. When the Eagles’ rushing attack gets going, it can take over a game. Without Thompson, the Bills are likely to turn back to Bernard in a full-time role and hope that he holds up better against blocks and at the point of attack. Jones could mean more time for rookie T.J. Sanders, potentially in a starting role, which would allow the team to see how far Sanders has come.
Jordan Poyer was ruled out for the Eagles game before the Bills’ Friday practice.Scott Galvin / Imagn Images
No Jordan Poyer; who starts at safety?
The Bills certainly didn’t plan for Poyer to become one of the team’s most important starters down the stretch of the 2025 season, but after working through several injuries and inconsistencies, that’s just what he’s become. Poyer has formed a very good partnership with second-year starter and emerging defensive star Cole Bishop. This Sunday will be the first time since Oct. 5 that Bishop has paired with anyone other than Poyer. In the time that Poyer has cemented his starting status, the Bills have mitigated some of the risk of starting a 34-year-old safety by taking him out of the equation in obvious passing situations. From Week 8 through Week 14, they had, for the most part, entrusted their fifth-round rookie Jordan Hancock with the very focused role of passing down safety. But that, and the Bills’ overall approach to obvious passing downs, has evolved over the last month of the season.Hancock has barely touched the field over the last two games, getting only two snaps against the Patriots and none against the Browns. Instead, it was Cam Lewis — usually a nickel corner — perched up top at safety in Hancock’s place. That change was a byproduct of a more significant alteration of their third-down defense, which is the reintroduction of linebacker Matt Milano in those situations. Milano has played his best football of the season over the last five games, and it’s encouraged them to use him in a higher percentage snap role. Whether it’s as a blitzer, a quarterback spy or dropping back into coverage, the Bills have recently believed themselves to be a better defense on third downs with Milano on the field. Over the last two games that Hancock has had a minimal role, Milano has seen his two highest snap percentages of the year — playing 87 percent of the snaps in Week 15 and 92 percent in Week 16. The Bills, in general, favor experience in “gotta have it” situations, which has resulted in Lewis subbing in for Poyer rather than Lewis coming in for Milano with Hancock heading in for Poyer.
That third-down hierarchy might have tipped their hand for the Sunday starter. With the Eagles’ talent at receiver and tight end in A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert, Lewis likely gives them a less volatile option on the back end that will still empower Bishop to play all the hunches he does throughout a game that has made him such a defensive strength. The Bills trust Lewis implicitly and in several roles. They could always do a split snap situation with Lewis and Hancock, but have generally veered away from that at safety.
Bills projected practice squad elevations: DE Matt Judon, K Michael Badgley
Bills projected inactives: WR Keon Coleman, OT Tylan Grable, DT DaQuan Jones, DT Jordan Phillips, LB Shaq Thompson, S Jordan Poyer, K Matt Prater
Prediction: Eagles 25, Bills 19
The Bills head into the contest with four straight victories, but will face an Eagles team that is getting healthier and has an additional day of rest. The matchup, which exposes many of the Bills’ vulnerabilities due to injury, looks like it’s veering in the Eagles’ favor. The Bills have had difficulties stopping the run and could be without three of their key defenders in Jones, Thompson and Poyer, with a hit at each level of their defense. On top of that, the Eagles’ pass catchers, most notably Smith, could have a distinct advantage against cornerbacks Tre’Davious White and Maxwell Hairston, giving them a two-dimensional attack.On offense, there will at least be a path to the Bills finding some production from the boundary receiver group, given that the Eagles’ second cornerback situation has been in flux for much of the year. The troubling aspect of the Bills’ offensive attack, though, is that the Eagles are a great run-defending unit, and are getting top defensive tackle Jalen Carter back from injury this weekend. It will be strength-on-strength when the Bills choose to run the ball, which should be a pretty fun battle throughout the game. Ultimately, due to some matchup-shaping injuries, I think there are just a few too many things for the Bills to overcome this week in this Eagles game, despite being at home.