The Buffalo Bills are headed into one of the messiest stretches on the NFL calendar, and the timing could not be more unforgiving. They wrapped up their preseason Thursday night with a home win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, and now comes the real roster squeeze: trimming down to the 53-man limit by 6 p.m. EDT on Sunday, August 30.
That means Buffalo has to part ways with at least 38 players, and some of those moves will trigger the waiver wire. The Bills currently hold the No. 26 spot in waiver priority, which leaves them in the middle of the pack if another team wants to swoop in and claim one of their cut players before Buffalo gets another crack at them.
If those waived players clear, their contracts end and they can come back to Buffalo on the team’s 17-man practice squad. Claims on players waived during final cuts will be processed and awarded on Monday, August 31, 2026, and only after that can teams officially start building practice squads.
For a new coaching regime trying to sort out the 2026 roster, the margin for error is thin. Buffalo still has Josh Allen at quarterback, and FanDuel Sportsbook has the Bills with the best odds to make the AFC playoffs at -330, along with the second-best odds to win Super Bowl LXI at +1000.
The Bills also have 50 players who would be subject to the waiver system if released at any point this season. That group includes plenty of players who are far from locks, but also several names that look too important to casually expose.
Buffalo is not expected to put the bulk of its recent rookie class on the wire, nor young players with meaningful roles like Cole Bishop, Ray Davis, Maxwell Hairston, Deone Walker, and others. The players most vulnerable are usually the ones in depth roles.
Here’s the full list of Bills players who would enter the waiver wire system if released:
WR Skyler Bell
OT/OG Jude Bowry
OLB Cade Denhoff
P Tommy Doman Jr.
CB Jordan Dunbar
DL Zane Durant
LB Kaleb Elarms-Orr
OG Bruno Fina
ILB Theron Gaines
CB Davison Igbinosun
S Jalon Kilgore
WR Ja’Mori Maclin
OLB TJ Parker
CB Toriano Pride Jr.
OG Ar’maj Reed-Adams
WR Max Tomczak
CB Kani Waler
OG Da’Metrius Weatherspoon
DB Te’Cory Couch
RB Frank Gore Jr.
WR Stephen Gosnell
C Sincere Haynesworth
ILB Keonta Jenkins
TE Keleki Latu
DL Zion Logue
CB D.J.
Miller
WR Quentin Skinner
ILB Jimmy Ciarlo
DL Travis Clayton (International Player Pathway)
CB Maxwell Hairston
DB Jordan Hancock
TE Jackson Hawes
DL Landon Jackson
OLB Andre Jones Jr.
OT Chase Lundt
S Wande Owens
DL T.J.
Sanders
DL Deone Walker
RB Ian Wheeler
ILB Joe Andreessen
S Cole Bishop
OG Nick Broeker
DL DeWayne Carter
WR Keon Coleman
RB Ray Davis
OT/OG Tylan Grable
CB Anthony Kendall
ILB Otis Reese IV
OLB Javon Solomon
C/OG Sedrick Van Pran-Granger
The waiver wire itself is straightforward, even if the roster decisions are not. Teams must finalize their initial 53-man rosters for the 2026 season, and some players are waived while others become free agents immediately.
If a player has fewer than four accrued seasons and is waived, he goes through the waiver process, and any claiming team takes on his current contract. If nobody claims him, he becomes a free agent and can sign with any practice squad he wants, including the one he just left.
The order for claims is based on the original 2026 NFL Draft order, without trades factored in. Every team submits claims at the same time, and the club with the highest priority gets the player.
Players with four or more years of NFL service do not go through waivers at all. If they are released, they become unrestricted free agents right away and can sign wherever they choose.
Most of the players who end up being waived are the ones who are not yet eligible for unrestricted free agency. That includes players who would be Exclusive Rights Free Agents with less than three years of service, as well as Restricted Free Agents with three years of service.
As things stand, the Bills sit 26th in the waiver order. The full preseason and early-season priority list runs from the Las Vegas Raiders at No. 1 all the way to the Seattle Seahawks at No. 32, with Buffalo in the middle of that group as the roster cutdown deadline arrives.
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