Orchard Park, NY – When Buffalo Bills rookie first-round pick Maxwell Hairston injured his ankle in the regular-season finale against the New York Jets, fans naturally feared it would cost him his first playoff game this week.
Those concerns are coming closer to reality after Bills coach Sean McDermott said Monday that Hairston, who was seen in a walking boot after the game, likely won’t start Sunday’s wild-card game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Bills are still evaluating the severity of the injury, less than 24 hours after it happened, but McDermott estimated it was more than a week-long injury.
Buffalo welcomed 41-year-old kicker Matt Prater back to the lineup Sunday against the Jaguars. He missed the previous two games due to a quad injury. But after a few extra points and kickoffs, Prater re-injured his quad and left the game.
McDermott said the Bills are bringing kickers to Tuesday’s practice in case Prater is unable to play this Sunday against the Jaguars. The veteran kicker is considered day-to-day.
Many fans were upset that Hairston was even in the game in the fourth quarter and the game was well out of reach. McDermott explained Monday that the Bills were just fighting the numbers game.
“You want to be able to protect everybody in the game like yesterday,” he said. “We normally have four corners on the roster, but about a month and a half ago we went down to three.
McDermott is referring to the loss of veteran Ja’Marcus Ingram, who was acquired by the Houston Texans when general manager Brandon Beane needed to make room for veteran cornerback Darius Slay. The Bills claimed Slay off waivers from the Pittsburgh Steelers, but the 34-year-old chose not to report to Buffalo. He said at the time that he was considering whether he wanted to continue playing football.
With Ingram now in Houston, the Bills would like to get Dane Jackson’s game day jersey, but he is on the practice squad.
“If you look at the practice squad, because of the ups we needed, we went first at linebacker and lost (Terrel Bernard) in the Eagles game,” McDermott said. “And so we felt like we needed another linebacker to go into the game. And then with the defensive ends, getting Joey (Bosa) some rest, Greg (Rousseau) some rest. He picked up (Matthew) Judon, so we had three (ends).
“So, unfortunately, they weren’t able to get Dane up. Dane was out at that point anyway, so we’d have to cut someone to make another corner. So we’re a little inside there, unfortunately. We’d love to be able to turn someone over, but that’s where we’re at right now.”
How about playing another defensive back? The problem was that Cam Lewis was injured in the game and the Bills were primarily playing a 4-3 defense. They didn’t want to risk starters like Taron Johnson or Cole Bishop.
“There were only so many guys we could use at that point,” McDermott said. “You go to wide receiver and put them there; we’ve done that before. We’re trying to protect everybody again. It’s tough.”
McDermott also said Monday that safety Jordan Poyer (hamstring), DaQuan Jones (calf) and linebacker Terrelle Bernard (ankle) are improving.
Leave a Reply