The Bills are 5-1, the offense is humming, and yet this feels like the kind of season where Buffalo knows the bar is higher than simply surviving the regular season. With the bye week giving the roster a breather, the front office has a chance to look at a thin free-agent market and ask a simple question: is there anyone left who can help right now?
There aren’t many obvious answers this late in the year, but there are a few names that make sense if the Bills want to shore up a roster that has already had to grind through close games.
Tyreek Hill is the splashiest possibility. Hill recently settled a lingering legal matter, and there’s still the possibility of an NFL suspension hanging over him.
The off-field questions are real, but so is the sense that someone will eventually take the swing. Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer even floated Buffalo as a landing spot during an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show.
" If I had to guess, right now, I'd say Kansas City or Buffalo," Breer said. " I think he's motivated to continue his career.
Now I don't know what percentage of him we're getting, because it's not just coming back from the injuries - and the injury is a really difficult one to come back from. And it's also his age, and your ability to recuperate at that age."
Breer added.
Hill is 32 and coming off a major injury, so the upside comes with plenty of uncertainty. Still, the Bills’ receiver room has been shaky enough that the idea has some appeal.
DJ Moore is the only reliable wideout the team has right now, and he’s dealing with injury too. There’s also the obvious bonus of keeping Hill out of Kansas City, a factor that would carry weight all by itself.
If Buffalo wants help on the other side of the ball, Marshon Lattimore is another name to watch. The Bills have been exposed in coverage all season, and that showed up again when 38-year-old Kirk Cousins put up 313 yards and two touchdowns against them. Buffalo is giving up 285.8 passing yards per game, which ranks second-worst in the NFL.
At this stage, finding a quality corner is almost never easy, and Lattimore is far from a sure thing. He hasn’t been consistent in years and has dealt with serious injuries.
The Washington Commanders traded for him two years ago and quickly had reason to regret it. But he was once one of the league’s top corners, and because of where he is now, he’d come cheap.
If there’s even a little of that old player left, the Bills would get an upgrade.
Then there’s a more familiar option: Matt Milano. Buffalo chose not to bring him back this offseason, but the linebacker spent nine years with the Bills and remains a name worth revisiting with the defense in trouble. Linebacker has continued to be an issue, and Milano would give the team something it badly needs - experience, stability and leadership.
He isn’t the All-Pro he was five years ago, but he’s still a capable veteran. At the very least, he could deepen a shaky linebacker group and offer a steady voice to a defense that could use one.
In Other News...
Bills Bye Week Has Fans Debating One Receiver's Future
With the Bills heading into their Week 7 bye at 5-1 and getting Tre'Davious White back into the mix, the roster conversation has shifted from week-to-week survival to bigger-picture questions. One of those centers on the receiver room, where Buffalo has seen other pass catchers make their presence felt while Joshua Palmers role has stayed relatively limited since he arrived.
Palmer signed a three-year deal in March, so this is not exactly the kind of early-season development the Bills had in mind when they brought him in. Still, the combination of his uneven production and the way the depth chart has shaken out has made him a player worth watching as the deadline chatter starts to build. [Read more 🡒]
Bills Cornerback Debate Just Got More Interesting With Tariq Woolen
The Bills cornerback conversation has a new wrinkle with Tariq Woolen entering the picture, and it is easy to see why Buffalo would spend time on the outside defender. Woolen has the kind of length and size that stand out immediately, and his past production has already shown he can be a real factor on the boundary. For a defense that is always weighing fit as much as raw talent, that profile naturally puts him on the radar before the trade deadline.
Buffalos interest would come down to more than just traits, though. Woolens contract status and modest salary make him a plausible deadline target, while the Bills would also need to sort out how he would fit schematically alongside the corners already on the roster. The bigger question now is whether the price stays in a range Buffalo can justify, because the kind of move this would be could say plenty about how the front office views its current outside cornerback options. [Read more 🡒]
Bills Have A Quiet Strength That Could Matter In January
The Bills have gotten real value from a special teams group that has quietly helped shape field position through the first half of the season. Tyler Bass has been steady on field goals, rookie punter Tommy Doman Jr. has done a nice job of pinning opponents deep, and Ray Davis has added juice in the kick-return game. Even the hidden-yardage moments have mattered, with the coverage and return units giving Buffalo a little extra margin on Sundays.
Greg Rousseau also supplied one of the groups most memorable plays with a blocked kick, the kind of snap that can swing a game before the offense ever gets rolling. Greg Dortch has mostly been limited to punt returning, so the units overall impact has come from a broader collection of small wins rather than one big spotlight grab. That kind of quiet efficiency can be easy to overlook in October, but it tends to loom much larger when the games tighten in January. [Read more 🡒]