The Bills may be without cornerback Christian Benford for Sunday’s game against the Patriots.
Benford was added to the injury report on Thursday with a toe injury. He was listed as a limited participant and head coach Sean McDermott said on WGR 550 that Benford will not practice at all on Friday.
McDermott said that Benford does have not an injury designation at the moment, but his trajectory would seem to leave him questionable to play at best.
Wide receiver Josh Palmer (ankle) and linebacker Terrel Bernard (elbow) will be listed as questionable on the team’s final injury report. Defensive end Joey Bosa (hamstring, wrist) and right tackle Spencer Brown (shoulder) will be full participants in Friday’s practice, which bodes well for the team’s chances of having him against New England.
Bill Belichick has survived a full season in Chapel Hill. Two of his key assistants have not.
Via Pete Thamel of ESPN.com, Belichick has fired offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens and special-teams coordinator Mike Priefer.
Kitchens, the head coach of the Browns in 2019 and the interim Tar Heels coach in 2024, stayed on after Belichick was hired last year. Belichick brought Priefer to UNC after two decades in the NFL, and two years out of football.
Priefer was a member of Kitchens’s staff in Cleveland.
Belichick will now be hiring two new coordinators as he prepares for his second second at UNC. If it doesn’t go much better than his first season, there may not be a third.
And coaching only goes so far. At the college level, it’s about the quality of the players. For 2025, the Tar Heels didn’t have enough good players. They’ll need better players if they want to have a better outcome in 2026.
Thanksgiving weekend concluded with a Monday night game between the Giants and the Patriots. Nielsen has released the official viewership number for the game televised by ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes, and all other windows for the week of December 1 through December 7.
The total audience for Giants-Patriots was 11.346 million viewers.
It’s no surprise that the number was sluggish. For starters, it wasn’t simulcast by ABC, which necessarily carves into the total audience. Then there’s the fact that the Giants are having (another) down year. Also, it was essentially over by halftime.
For the week of December 1 through December 7, the Fox late afternoon game (primarily featuring Bears-Packers) averaged 27.943 million viewers. Sunday Night Football between the Texans and Chiefs finished second, with 21.762 million.
The Giants-Patriots game finished eighth among all sports broadcasts, behind every other NFL window (Sunday afternoon and Thursday night), the Big 10 championship (18.332 million) and the SEC championship (15.747 million).
One of Buffalo’s key defensive players was added to the team’s Thursday injury report.
The Bills noted cornerback Christian Benford was limited in practice with a toe injury.
In his fourth season, Benford has scored a defensive touchdown in each of Buffalo’s last two games. In Week 13, he returned a fumble 17 yards for a score and last Sunday he returned an interception off Joe Burrow 63 yards for a go-ahead touchdown midway through the fourth quarter.
In 12 games this year, Benford has 39 total tackles with two interceptions, two fumble recoveries, and 2.0 sacks.
Benford was one of two players added to Buffalo’s Thursday report, as backup quarterback Mitchell Trubisky did not practice with an illness.
Otherwise, the team’s injury report was largely the same as on Wednesday. Linebacker Terrel Bernard (elbow), defensive end Joey Bosa (hamstring/wrist), offensive lineman Spencer Brown (shoulder), and receiver Joshua Palmer (ankle) all remained limited.
Safety Cole Bishop (calf) and tight end Dalton Kincaid (knee) remained full.
After missing Wednesday’s walk-through due to a personal matter, tight end Dawson Knox was back as a full participant on Thursday.
The 11-2 Patriots and 11-2 Broncos are tied for the best record in the NFL. They’ve each won 10 games in a row.
And they’re both underdogs at home in Week 15.
The Patriots, who can clinch the AFC East by completing the sweep of the Bills, are 1.5-point underdogs against Buffalo. Coach Mike Vrabel undoubtedly will find a way to use that to poke and prod his players — even if the Bills had nothing to do with the setting of the line.
Ditto for the Broncos. They’re 2.5-point underdogs at home against the Packers. That one is a bit more defensible, since the Broncos have played plenty of games against overmatched foes, with very few truly convincing wins. (Still, coach Sean Payton likely will have a thing or two to say to his players about the betting line.)
The spreads are driven in part by wagering patterns. Bettors still don’t believe in the Patriots and Broncos the way they could, or perhaps should.
In contrast, the gamblers continue to cling to the idea that the 6-7 Chiefs, who are 5.5-point favorites against the 9-4 Chargers, will emerge from their current funk.
However it goes, it adds a little spice to the 15th weekend of regular-season football, with all three games having postseason significance to both teams.
