With the Eagles slipping to 2-4 and the Commanders sliding to 1-4-1, the two teams have a Week 8 prime-time date looming. And if the league is considering a flex (as it reportedly was out of last week), the clock is ticking.
By rule, Tuesday, October 20, is the deadline for moving the Sunday night game.
The problem is the absence of clear options. Ravens-Bills makes the most sense, but the Ravens play the following Thursday night. Vikings-Lions is a possibility, if the NFL is willing to commit now to flexing Lions-Vikings in Week 15 out of Sunday night.
Colts-Jaguars wouldn’t have as much sizzle as Eagles-Commanders, given the wide-open nature of the NFC East. The Jaguars are off this week, so they’re guaranteed to enter the game at 4-2. The Colts, who face the Vikings on Sunday and who have fired their G.M., could be 2-5 by Week 8.
Browns-Steelers and Chiefs-Broncos are presumably off the table because the first game between the rivals was televised in prime time. (By rule, at least one game of a home-and-home division rivalry must be televised on Sunday afternoon.)
It’s ultimately the league’s decision. By tomorrow night, everyone should know what it is.
Bills Clips
The Rams are bringing in a pair of veteran kickers for a workout on Tuesday.
Mike Garafolo of NFL Media reports that Brandon McManus and Matt Prater will try out for the team. Blake Grupe was placed on injured reserve Monday after suffering a knee injury during Sunday’s loss to the Cardinals.
Grupe was playing his first game for the Rams. Harrison Mevis opened the season as their kicker, but was let go after missing one field goal and having another one blocked in Week 5.
McManus appeared in 25 games for the Packers the last two seasons and went 44-of-51 on field goals. He played for the Jaguars in 2023 and spent his first nine seasons with the Broncos.
Prater spent the last 19 seasons in the league and was Buffalo’s kicker. He was 18-of-20 on field goals during the regular season, including the 82nd from at least 50 yards of his career. That’s the NFL record from that distance.
Veteran cornerback Tre’Davious White is returning to the Bills.
White will sign with the Bills’ practice squad, and after spending some time getting ready he’ll be promoted to the active roster, his agents told Adam Schefter.
The 31-year-old White originally joined the Bills as their first-round draft pick in 2017. He then left in free agency to sign with the Rams in 2024 and was traded to the Ravens that same year. He signed with the Bills again in 2025 and started 16 regular-season games and both playoff games for the team last season.
White has been a free agent since March and there hasn’t been a lot of news around him, but now he’s returning to what has been his home for most of his NFL career, for one more go.
The Bills have their bye in Week 7, but when they come back, they will not have one of their key defenders.
The NFL announced on Monday that safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson has been suspended one game for spitting at an opponent during Sunday’s win over the Raiders.
Gardner-Johnson was ejected from the contest.
The league notes Gardner-Johnson was suspended for unsportsmanlike conduct, with his actions violating Rule 12, Section 3, Article 1, which applies to “any act which is contrary to the generally understood principles of sportsmanship.”
Gardner-Johnson is in his first season with the Bills. He has registered 26 total tackles with two passes defensed and one interception so far this season.
Bills head coach Joe Brady called Gardner-Johnson’s actions “uncalled for” in his postgame press conference.
“It can’t happen,” Brady said. “It’s going to be addressed. The team is way more important.”
Buffalo will host Baltimore in Week 8. While Gardner-Johnson may appeal his suspension, he’s currently eligible to return for the Bills’ Week 9 road matchup against the Vikings on Monday Night Football.
The Rams entered the season as overwhelming favorites to win the Super Bowl. After starting the season 2-4, their odds have fallen.
But they may not have fallen as far as some would expect for a team that just lost at home to the Cardinals: The Rams still have the fifth-best odds to win the Super Bowl, at +1000.
The four teams ahead of the Rams are the 49ers at +580, the Bills at +720, the Chiefs at +850 and the Ravens at +900.
Despite their shockingly bad start to the season, bettors and bookmakers still think the Rams have one of the best rosters in the NFL, with a team that should be playing very good football down the stretch. Making the playoffs is no sure thing after this start, but if the Rams do make it, there’s every reason to believe they’ll be a tough team to beat.
Midway through the third quarter of Sunday’s victory over the Raiders, Bills quarterback Josh Allen made another signature play for a touchdown pass.
It was third-and-8 when Allen was pressured, moved to his left, then sent a backhand flip about 15 yards into the end zone to an open Keon Coleman, who made the catch for the score.
It’s nothing new for Allen, who has been an improvising playmaker for years now.
“It’s who he is,” head coach Joe Brady said in his postgame press conference.
Allen noted that he saw Coleman flash open, but it was the crowd — that was full of Bills fans — that really indicated the play’s success.
"[O]nce it comes out, you kind of get hit and tumble around, and it’s so hard in these away games, which feel like home games, once you hear the crowd go crazy, you’re like, ‘I don’t know if it’s a touchdown, I don’t know if it’s an interception,’” Allen said. “So again, he finds himself in the right place at the right time and finds a way to get open.”
Before Allen flicked it to Coleman, there was a moment where it looked like he could run.
“Again, I was just trying to make a play,” Allen said. “They played really good defense. I stepped up in the pocket, felt somebody coming from the left side there, stepped back, and again, quick eyes, saw our guy open and gave him a chance.”
For his part, Coleman said he was just trying to find space where Allen could see him and he wasn’t surprised by the result.
“I watched it, I was right there. I saw him flicking like that,” Coleman said. “I might have robbed Skyler [Bell]. He appeared behind me. He thought that ball was coming in when I just came out north. I just saw him in trouble, bro. Trying to make a play.
“He threw it around the dude. It’s just him, bro.”
That’s just part of the experience of playing with Allen.
“Play [is] never dead until the whistle blows,” Coleman said. “With him, even if a guy comes free hard to get him down — you might get there, but attacking him is a whole different obstacle. So, my job is when I feel that’s going on, you have to get your eyes back to the quarterback and find what we’re doing.”
The ejection of Bills safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson for spitting on an opponent raises an interesting question, as it relates to the additional discipline to be imposed by the league office.
Last year, the NFL adopted a new approach to spitting. It now results in a one-game suspension, sort of.
It started when Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter spit on Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott before the first play from scrimmage in the regular-season opener. Because Carter’s ejection covered the entire game, his punishment — a fine in the amount of a game check — simulated a suspension.
Later in the season, Bengals receiver Ja’Marr Chase spit on Steelers defensive back Jalen Ramsey. The officials didn’t see it, so Chase wasn’t ejected. Instead, he was suspended for the next game.
For Gardner-Johnson, the ejection caused him to miss half of the Week 6 game against the Raiders. Will he be suspended for another full game? Will the league fashion an NCAA-style targeting punishment that keeps him out for the first half of the Bills’ next game?
Because Buffalo has a Week 7 bye, the clock isn’t ticking as loudly as it ordinarily would be. Still, the league has a decision to make given the new precedent that was set in 2025, when the punishment for spitting morphed from a fine into a suspension. And Gardner-Johnson presents the first example of a player who missed roughly half of a game after being ejected.
During Sunday’s game against the Raiders in Las Vegas, Bills safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson was ejected for spitting on an opponent. He addressed the situation after the game victory, without denying any of it.
“I’ve got to be a better player, I’ve got to be a better vet,” Gardner-Johnson said. “I let my emotions get above me, and I hurt my team. They brought me here to play in big games like this. So I’ve got to do better and control my emotions, nothing crazy.”
Asked specifically whether he spit on an opponent, Gardner-Johnson glossed over the question.
“I’ve got to control my emotions,” Gardner-Johnson said. “It was nothing towards competitive. We just — like I said, heat of the moment. Everybody saw what was going on. It wasn’t nothing egregious against nobody. Like I said, we was just competing in the game. A call was made, a flag was made. We went to chirping. And I guess, you know, just being competitive, like I say, nothing towards [Raiders tight end] Brock [Bowers] and nothing towards the team. Like I said, we was chirping, going back and forth. I’ve got to be better and keep pushing.”
How did he process being required to leave before halftime?
“You’ve got to take it on the chin like a grown man, and understand that you can’t be doing shit like that in a game,” Gardner-Johnson said. “No matter how passionate I am, I just can’t be doing shit like that in the game. I cost my team. A player to go down, which is me, as a vet. I’ll be better. I’ll take my consequence as it is. A fine, whatever it may be.”
Gardner-Johnson also said he spoke to coach Joe Brady and apologized to the team. He also acknowledged that his “gesture isn’t warranted.”
For his part, Brady said, “The discipline of our football team has to improve. And that sure as hell can’t happen. The team is bigger than that. The situation is bigger than that. Everything is bigger. And it can’t happen. And it definitely has to be addressed.”
Again, Gardner-Johnson didn’t specifically admit to doing it. Given the context, combined with his comments and his failure to deny doing it, it’s clear that he knows he did it.
The next question is whether he’ll get a suspension to go along with an ejection that resulted in Gardner-Johnson missing half of Sunday’s game.
Bills safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson was ejected late in the first half of Sunday’s game against the Raiders. It appeared that Gardner-Johnson was ejected for spitting.
After the game, referee Shawn Smith explained the decision to pool reporter Case Keefer.
“We had two players jawing back and forth and then our umpire witnessed him spitting on the opponent,” Smith said.
The umpire on Smith’s crew is Tra Blake.
The video seems to show Gardner-Johnson spitting in the direction of Raiders tight end Brock Bowers, with the spit either striking Raiders center Tyler Linderbaum’s hand or Bowers’s leg.
Either way, Blake was right there to see it.
“He saw him spit on the opponent,” Smith said, regarding Blake’s account of the situation. “So, we don’t go into the judgment of where he is spitting and this, that, or the other. He spit on an opponent.”
The situation looked a lot like the incident between Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott and Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter from Week 1 of the 2025 season. After Prescott spit on the ground before the first play from scrimmage, Carter spit on Prescott.
The Raiders hung with the Bills. The game was tied 13-13 at halftime and 23-23 in the fourth quarter.
It never felt like the Bills were in danger of losing, though the Raiders never went away.
Josh Allen led Buffalo to a 33-30 win in Las Vegas as the Bills moved to 5-1. The Raiders fell to 3-3.
The Bills gained 345 yards, with 169 coming in the second half when they scored 20 points.
Allen was 23-of-33 for 255 yards and two touchdowns, including a Houdini-esque 12-yard touchdown pass to Keon Coleman on third-and-8 in the fourth quarter.
James Cook’s 3-yard touchdown run with 4:43 left was the go-ahead score, with Tyler Bass adding a 38-yard field goal with 1:56 remaining.
Bass also made kicks from 44, 28 and 47.
Coleman caught four passes for 59 yards and a touchdown, and Cook had 22 carries for 95 yards and a touchdown.
The Raiders made it interesting on Kirk Cousins’ 44-yard touchdown throw to Tre Tucker with 1:32 left.
The Raiders, though, didn’t have a prayer of recovering the onside kick, something they haven’t done since 2017 against the Chiefs. Matt Gay kicked a drop kick too far, and Khalil Shakir caught it in the air.
Cousins finished 23-of-41 for 313 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. Tucker had five catches for 97 yards and two touchdowns, and Michael Mayer added seven receptions for 95 yards.
