It will be their ninth season under coach Sean McDermott and GM Brandon Beane, as they look to make it seven consecutive playoff years. They’ll kick things off in front of a national audience against the Ravens on Sunday Night Football.
With game day approaching, here’s what we’ve seen from the Bills leading into Week 1.
All eyes on cornerback
There isn’t a bigger uncertainty than what’s going on with the Bills’ boundary cornerbacks. The headliner is Tre’Davious White, the team’s No. 2 cornerback, as he rehabs from an injury that the Bills are being primarily tight-lipped about. White’s place in the starting lineup to begin the year was secured when rookie first-round pick Maxwell Hairston suffered an LCL sprain that landed him on Injured Reserve to begin the year.
Making it even more complicated than just White’s and Hairston’s injuries, top cornerback Christian Benford hasn’t practiced since Aug. 21. That includes the team’s only session last week. However, unlike White, Benford was seen doing some work on the side with the strength and conditioning staff.
In the playoffs, the Bills saw what not having Benford could do to their defense. Considering he leveled up his game during the summer, potentially not having him to start the season — on top of the injuries to White and Hairston — could be a massive blow.
While it looks a bit bleak at the moment, the fact that Benford did something on the sidelines during practice last week should be seen as a positive. Having been burned by injuries in the past, the Bills have been extremely cautious when it comes to having their players ready to play when they’re needed the most. Especially when they have ample time ahead of a game that counts toward their standings, most 50-50 calls for practice with key players will result in keeping them off the field.
Benford may have been good enough to practice on Wednesday. There’s a chance the Bills may have just wanted to put him in bubble wrap ahead of the far more important three days of practice leading up to the Ravens game than risk one practice. When you add in the opponent, all the mystery around White for Week 1, on top of the questions at safety, Benford instantly becomes their most important player on defense. The outlook without Benford and White means two of Ja’Marcus Ingram, sixth-round rookie Dorian Strong or practice squad veteran Dane Jackson would be the starters against Lamar Jackson and company.
If Benford can play, it cuts the field in half due to his exceptional talent, and the Bills can then strategize to provide ample support to whoever is on the other side through their usual zone strategies. If White isn’t ready to play, who might get the start at the other boundary spot? The decision likely comes down to either Ingram or Strong. On one hand, Ingram has some game experience and made a pair of big plays last season in Miami. Though he’s been in a battle for a roster spot all summer, and until recently, it looked like his spot was instead going to go to Jackson.
It wouldn’t be surprising if the Bills went with Strong in the starting lineup, as it seemed he had separated from Ingram and Jackson in the bubble conversation over the last couple of weeks. Strong hasn’t been perfect, but he does at least provide some ceiling plays that Ingram didn’t show enough of during camp. On top of that, one of Strong’s strengths in college was his ability as a run defender from the boundary, which, as even casual observers know, will be needed in droves against the run-centric Ravens. Regardless of who plays, the Bills know they have their hands full in a game projected to yield the highest point total of all the Week 1 games.
Keon Coleman quietly surging lately at camp
The path to the offense finding another gear rests on whether second-year player Keon Coleman makes the leap in 2025. The Bills felt very strongly about Coleman’s first half of 2024 — ahead of the wrist injury that, in their estimation, defined the rest of his rookie season. Over those first nine games, Coleman was on a pace to gain 788 yards, which in a very impressive year for rookie receivers would have been fifth highest. Even with the four games played post-injury and the questions about how well Coleman separates, his yards per route run in 2024 were 1.72, trailing only some of the biggest rookie receiver names of 2024. Coleman’s 15.2 air yards per target was also impressive, without any other qualifying rookie receiver having a higher one.
Even with predictive metrics in his favor, there was a consistency question that carried over into the early parts of camp. Coleman would make some really impressive catches over the top of cornerbacks, giving quarterback Josh Allen a dimension the Bills simply lacked from 2020 to 2023. But even while making the difficult look easy, Coleman tended to make the easy look difficult.
There were several dropped passes earlier in camp, raising a legitimate question about whether the up-and-down play would follow him into 2025. Since the Bills returned to Orchard Park for camp, those easy misses for Coleman have been eradicated, and the tough catches kept coming — regardless of the cornerback in coverage.
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As their locked in starting X-receiver, Coleman is going to be on the field a ton and Allen has shown throughout the summer he loves throwing to him in team drills. Coleman has answered some of the early questions about him in camp, and certainly looks like someone who could stress defenses more consistently in a way he couldn’t at the end of last season. It will all depend on Coleman continuing to come down with the contested catch opportunities and minimizing concentration drops on the short-area targets, but the talent is there. It’s been a very impressive last few weeks, and the Bills have to be excited to see what he can do when the lights go on in the regular season.
Khalil Shakir Week 1 expectations?
Despite several questions at cornerback, the good news for the team is that the offense is tracking to be entirely healthy against the Ravens. That includes Shakir, who has been one of Allen’s favorite targets since entering the lineup in 2023. The slot receiver suffered a high ankle sprain on Aug. 1 and remained sidelined throughout the preseason in practices and games. Unsurprisingly, Shakir, who is known within the building for his toughness through injuries, made it back to the practice field on Wednesday, not even four full weeks removed from the injury. With Shakir already getting a day of work in, and still over a week ahead of the Ravens game, it should be wheels up for the Bills to have their entire starting offense barring any new injuries. Given Shakir’s past dealings with injuries, it would not at all be a surprise if he were to step back into his immediate full role of getting 70-plus percent of offensive snaps.
Will Dalton Kincaid’s role grow?
This time last year, many were expecting a massive jump for tight end Dalton Kincaid, the team’s 2023 first-round pick, because of what he showed in a multi-game stretch when Dawson Knox was injured. Many outside the building believed Kincaid could usurp the role fully from Knox, but it was never rooted in reality, given how important Knox is to the team’s run game, and with some of Kincaid’s weaknesses as a blocker. Then, Kincaid’s pair of injuries late in the season exacerbated the frustration stemming from unrealistic expectations at the start of the year. When healthy last year, Kincaid took 66 percent of the team’s offensive snaps to Knox’s 56 percent. Is there any chance that number goes up in 2025 with Kincaid fully healthy again?
The way it has looked during camp, Kincaid’s role growing well past the 66 percent figure shouldn’t be the expectation — at least not to begin the season. Knox’s presence in the offense isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon, and Kincaid still has his hangups as a blocker.
It is possibly complicated even more for Kincaid, as fifth-round rookie Jackson Hawes has had an impressive camp as a blocker, and if active, could get more playing time than former third tight end Quintin Morris (10 percent) did in 2024 before Kincaid’s injuries. This doesn’t take away from Kincaid’s talent. The Bills still believe he can impact their offense. However, until something changes, whether it’s an improvement in Kincaid’s blocking or an injury to Knox, it’s fair to expect more of the same from Kincaid’s early 2024 role to begin 2025.
Operation Healthy Bosa — what’s the plan for games?
The Bills dealt with injuries to a frustrating degree throughout training camp, but the one player who didn’t make a peep was veteran defensive end Joey Bosa. His injury history over the last three years is well documented, and when Bosa’s Bills career began with a calf injury just ahead of spring workouts, it led some to wonder if injuries would define his year in Buffalo. To the team’s credit, the management of his reps all camp led to a flawless end of July into early September. They gave him occasional rest days, along with some practice days when he didn’t do 11-on-11 drills. It was never anything further than that, while still getting ample work during his “on” days.
Now that we’re into the regular season, the plan for Bosa will be even more important. We know that the team intends to start him at right defensive end opposite Greg Rousseau, but how might the Bills manage Bosa’s reps, especially early in games and in the regular season? The goal is for Bosa to be playing at his peak by the time the playoffs roll around, so there will likely be a big effort to make that happen with what they can control.
It would not be a surprise if Bosa doesn’t come close to being a 60-percent snap player early in the season, which is what makes keeping A.J. Epenesa around so important. The Bills learned their lesson in the playoffs that pass rush is everything, and having their most impactful players available is one of their most crucial side missions of the year.
(Top photo of Joey Bosa: Shawn Dowd / USA Today)
