Buffalo Bills at New England Patriots Week 16 inactives

The Buffalo Bills have a short list of inactive players for this week’s game against the New England Patriots. In a way, that’s a good thing—as the team is extremely healthy late in December. However, the reason the Bills don’t have to de-activate more players isn’t a good one.

Buffalo placed four players on the Reserve/COVID-19 list over the last two days: running back T.J. Yeldon, wide receiver John Brown (whom they activated from injured reserve just to place on the COVID-19 list), safety Josh Thomas, and running back Christian Wade. Yeldon tested positive for the virus, while the other three players were identified as close contacts, thereby necessitating their placement on “the list.”

With only 51 players on the active roster (Brown and Yeldon are 52 and 53), the Bills needed to deactivate just three players tonight, but they went with four instead. They had already declared one player out on Friday, and the other three aren’t necessarily a surprise.

Who’s out for tonight’s game? Here’s Buffalo’s whole list.

QB Jake Fromm

Buffalo’s emergency quarterback is a healthy scratch again. Without a preseason to gain any reps at all, it makes sense that this year is a redshirt year for the fifth-round pick.

QB Davis Webb

For the second straight week, Buffalo called a player up from the practice squad just to deactivate him at game time. Webb is a healthy scratch.

TE Reggie Gilliam

The special teamer known as “Sledge” is dealing with a hamstring issue and a knee issue, so he’s out this week. Tyler Kroft is active after sitting as a healthy scratch for each of the last six weeks.

DE Trent Murphy

A.J. Epenesa went down with a concussion last week, but he passed through the protocol quickly and logged full practices all week. Murphy has not played since Buffalo’s loss to the Arizona Cardinals before the bye week.

Here is the list for New England.