The Bills are dealing with another season-ending injury at receiver.
Head coach Sean McDermott told reporters on Tuesday that receiver Tyrell Shavers tore his ACL during the first half of Sunday’s victory over the Jaguars.
Shavers nevertheless played the second half. Via Joe Buscaglia of TheAthletic.com, Shavers was on the field for 22 of the club’s 34 offensive snaps in the game’s last 30 minutes.
He caught one pass for 14 yards on two targets in the contest.
“He embodies what we’re all about,” McDermott said, via Katherine Fitzgerald of The Buffalo News.
Shavers caught 15 passes for 245 yards with one touchdown in 17 games during the regular season.
With Shavers’ injury, the Bills have just three healthy receivers on their 53-man roster: Khalil Shakir, Brandin Cooks, and Keon Coleman.
Now that the Texans have beaten the Steelers in the wild-card round, the NFL has finalized the schedule for the divisional round.
On Saturday, the Broncos will host the Bills at 4:30 p.m. ET on CBS. The Seahawks and the 49ers will play in Seattle at 8:00 p.m. ET on Fox.
On Sunday, the Texans will visit the Patriots at 3:00 p.m. ET on ESPN. The Rams will face the Bears at 6:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
The decision to put the Texans-Patriots on Sunday afternoon fits with the theory that Steelers-Patriots would have been the late game on Sunday. Instead, the Rams and Chicago will meet in the postseason for the first time since the 1985 NFC Championship on Sunday night.
The Bills will not have wide receiver Gabe Davis back for any of their remaining games.
Bills head coach Sean McDermott announced on Monday afternoon that Davis tore his ACL during Sunday’s win over the Jaguars. Davis had two catches for 14 yards against Jacksonville and had 12 catches during the regular season.
McDermott also announced that defensive tackle Ed Oliver and wide receiver Curtis Samuel will be designated for return from injured reserve this week.
Oliver has been out with a biceps injury and also suffered a meniscus injury while rehabbing. Samuel has been sidelined by an elbow injury. The team will issue its first injury report for Saturday’s game against the Broncos on Tuesday.
The NFL has picked the days, but not the times or the networks, for next weekend’s playoff games. The final decisions will be made after tonight’s Texans-Steelers game.
The obvious question is why?
The most logical answer is that, if the Steelers win, the league will schedule Steelers-Patriots for the 6:30 p.m. ET slot on Sunday and that, if the Texans win, Rams-Bears will be played later.
While that doesn’t explain the decision to not attach a time or a network to the Saturday games, it’s possible that the league wants to have one AFC game at night and the other in the afternoon. It’s also possible that the league realizes the failure to assign times for the Sunday games would become more glaring if the league sets times for the Saturday games.
The league has access to all of the data, with projections as to which games will draw the biggest numbers. And it’s the league’s prerogative to wait until all eight teams are set to decide when the teams will play.
The winner of the Texans-Steelers game should be hoping for the 6:30 p.m. ET slot on Sunday, because every hour (and every minute) counts when operating on a short week. Especially for the Texans, who’d have to travel home and later make the trip to New England.
However it plays out, we’ll likely find out as soon as the Monday night game ends.
The bettors believe in the Bills.
With the Patriots beating the Chargers on Sunday night, the Bills will travel to Denver on Saturday to face the Broncos. And the Bills have opened as 1.5-point favorites over the Broncos at DraftKings.
The Broncos are the No. 1 seed. The Bills will have six days to fly home, rest up, prepare, and travel to Colorado. Josh Allen, who got banged up against the Jaguars, will have less time to recover.
Regardless, he’s Josh Allen. He seems to understand the magnitude of the moment, in his first playoff run without Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, and/or Lamar Jackson as potential impediments. And he was the NFL’s MVP in 2024 for a reason.
A win over the Broncos on Saturday would put Allen and the Bills one step away from the franchise’s first Super Bowl since 1993.
