Bills Clips
After consecutive years of leading the Bears in receiving, DJ Moore’s production dipped in 2025.
But now Moore is back with a coach who helped him get to one of his most productive seasons, as the Bills traded for him in March — reuniting him with his former offensive coordinator, Joe Brady.
As it turns out, he’s reuniting with quarterback Josh Allen, too, though not necessarily in the traditional way.
“We go, actually, way back,” Allen said in his Tuesday press conference. “We sat next to each other at the rookie premiere, signing Panini cards and autograph cards next to each other. … So, [we were] getting some good conversations back then.
“It’s pretty cool to have him here now.”
Moore hasn’t been on the field with Allen for long, but the two are establishing chemistry. Allen noted that he can already tell Moore is a great teammate.
“He’s really one of the guys,” Allen said. “Obviously, it’s a really natural relationship that we have. Fits in this locker room extremely well, very talkative with the guys. And just very excited to work with him.”
Plus, unlike last year, Allen won’t have to establish chemistry with a key receiver on the fly.
“[Y]ou’re able to do more [in OTAs], to see what works and what doesn’t,” Allen said. “Obviously, again, we go out there, we make mistakes — which is going to happen. Chalk it up to the first couple days of OTAs and be like, hey, we like this, we don’t like this.
“And, again, just continue to work on it and find ways that we can learn how to complement each other and just build that chemistry and camaraderie.”
Moore caught 50 passes for 682 yards with six touchdowns for the Bears last season. In 2020 — his one full season with Brady as his play-caller for the Panthers — Moore finished with 66 receptions for 1,193 yards with four TDs.
Josh Allen said after last season that he would return in time for organized team activities despite offseason foot surgery. He was true to his word.
Allen is participating in the Bills’ offseason program.
“You guys know Josh,” head coach Joe Brady said, via Sal Capaccio of WGR 550. “He’s good to go.”
Allen underwent surgery at the end of January to remove a loose bone chip from his right foot, which he injured in a Week 16 game against the Browns.
Allen’s presence will give him plenty of time to get to know new wide receiver DJ Moore. The Bills traded a second-round pick to the Bears for Moore, who is Buffalo’s new No. 1 receiver.
On September 17, the legendary Al Michaels will call the first game at yet another stadium, when the Bills christen their new home against the Lions. It will be the tenth time Michaels has cut the ribbon on a new venue.
“This was a game Amazon really pushed for because it would be so cool to open a stadium, and it’s also another Zelig moment for me,” Michaels told Richard Deitsch of Sports Business Journal. “In my career at NBC and at Disney, I did the regular season opener in Foxboro [Gillette Stadium]. It was John Madden and I and that was our first game together. We opened up the Linc in Philadelphia. We did the first game in Dallas at Jerry World. I did the first game when they refurbished Soldier Field in Chicago. I did the first regular season game at Levi’s Stadium. And Chris Collinsworth and I opened up SoFi Stadium in 2020, the pandemic year. It was Dallas at the Rams with no fans.”
There will be plenty of fans in the building for the first true Thursday night game of 2026. (Unless hantavirus becomes a thing. Or Ebola.)
“We know how passionate that fan base is in Buffalo and they’ve been able to weather through, in a manner of speaking, all of those years at what used to be Rich Stadium,” Michaels said. “There’s going to be a tremendous buzz going on in that community. I mean, the renderings look beautiful. So that is going to be a fantastic night in Buffalo.”
Michaels also worked the first games at the current stadiums in Atlanta, Minnesota, and Indianapolis.
After finishing the last season of his three-year contract with Prime Video, Michaels and Amazon decided to keep it going for 2025 and, now, for 2026.
“It’s tough to walk away,” Michaels said. “But I do know one thing: If I walk away, I’m going to do it the way John Madden did it and just say, ‘It’s time.’ I don’t need any sort of tour or whatever.”
Frankly, it doesn’t feel like football season has started until I hear Al’s voice. And football season will never feel the same, for me and many others, once Al decides to walk away.
Steve Tasker, a seven-time Pro Bowl special-teamer with the Bills, will be back with the team in 2026.
Via Sam Neumann of Awful Announcing, Tasker will become the sideline reporter for the radio broadcasts of the team’s games.
The change comes as the games move from WGR 550 to WGRF-FM, which was the flagship station from 1998 through 2011. Tasker replaces Sal Capaccio of WGR, who had the assignment for 12 years.
Chris Brown will continue as the play-by-play announcer, with former Bills center Eric Wood providing analysis.
A ninth-round pick of the Houston Oilers in 1985, the 64-year-old Tasker was released by Houston during the 1986 season. The Bills claimed him on waivers; he played in Buffalo through 1997.
Tasker promptly landed at CBS, where he worked from 1998 through 2018. He’s now working directly for the team with which he served as a key contributor during four straight runs to the Super Bowl.
For the Bills, the headline to the 2026 season relates to the christening of a new stadium. But there’s also an important subtitle.
When it comes to their nine road games, they’ve been arranged in an interesting pattern.
Eight of Buffalo’s nine road games come two in a row at a time. And they’ll have four out of five games away from home. TWICE.
The schedule also includes three home games in a row (Week 2, 3, 4), and only two home games after Thanksgiving.
It all adds up to a couple of stretches during which the new venue will be largely unused. Between October 4 and November 22, there’s only one home game. Then, after two home games four days apart, there’s only one home game between Thanksgiving and Week 18.
The configuration becomes just another factor the Bills will have to navigate as they embark on the first season with a new coach but the same-old sky-high expectations.
Here’s the full 2026 schedule for the Bills:
Week 1: at Texans.
Week 2: Lions.
Week 3: Chargers.
Week 4: Patriots.
Week 5: at Rams.
Week 6: at Raiders.
Week 7: bye.
Week 8: Ravens.
Week 9: at Vikings.
Week 10: at Jets.
Week 11: Dolphins.
Week 12: Chiefs.
Week 13: at Patriots.
Week 14: at Packers.
Week 15: Bears.
Week 16: at Broncos.
Week 17: at Dolphins.
Week 18: Jets.
We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
The Rams and Seahawks played three nail-biters during the 2025 season and the NFL is banking on another one on Christmas night.
The matchup of NFC West teams will cap a three-game slate on Christmas this year. The Friday night game on December 25 will take place in Seattle and it will be broadcast by Fox.
Los Angeles won 21-19 at home last November, but lost 38-37 in overtime in Seattle later in the regular season. The final meeting between the clubs came in the NFC Championship Game and was a 31-27 Seahawks win.
Netflix will kick off the day’s games with a doubleheader that starts with the Packers visiting the Bears at 1 p.m. ET. The Bills will be in Denver at 4:30 p.m. ET in a rematch of last season’s divisional round game that the Broncos won in overtime.
With Christmas Eve falling on a Thursday, there will also be a game on Amazon Prime Video that night. The Eagles will travel to Houston to face the Texans, so all four games around the Christmas holiday will feature matchups of teams that were in the playoffs last season.
The Chiefs’ first visit to the Bills’ new stadium will reportedly close out the NFL’s Thanksgiving slate of games.
Per NFL reporter Jordan Schultz, the Chiefs will be at the new Highmark Stadium on Thursday night in Week 12. The primetime game will be televised by NBC.
The two teams have met at least once per season since the start of the 2020 season. The Bills are 5-1 in the regular season matchups, but the Chiefs are 4-0 in their playoff confrontations.
With the game set for late November, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes’s recovery from a torn ACL should no longer be an issue. There will undoubtedly be other injury issues that impact who will be on hand for the latest chapter in the rivalry headed by Mahomes and Bills quarterback Josh Allen, but both teams will hope they aren’t significant enough to rob the game of its usual luster.
The Bills have made a few roster moves on Tuesday.
Buffalo announced the club has signed tight end Shane Zylstra along with a pair of 2026 draft picks: fourth-round receiver Skyler Bell and fourth-round linebacker Kaleb Elarms-Orr.
Zylstra has appeared in 35 games with six starts in his career, all for the Lions. He’s caught 18 passes for 136 yards with four touchdowns.
As a corresponding move to add Zylstra, the Bills released kicker Maddux Trujillo, who had joined the club in January on a futures deal.
The Bills will open their new stadium in Week 2.
The NFL announced Monday that Buffalo will host the Lions on Thursday Night Football on Sept. 17. It will be the first game played at Highmark Stadium.
Prime Video will broadcast the game as part of its Thursday Night Football package.
The Bills are replacing their longtime home, which opened as Rich Stadium in 1973, with a new $2 billion facility across Abbott Road.
The Bills have won their past four home openers dating to 2022, averaging 38.5 points per game.
The NFL will announce the full schedule on Thursday.
