Bills vs. Chiefs injury updates: key players practicing for Buffalo

Head coach Sean McDermott addressed the media before the Buffalo Bills took to the practice field on Wednesday, and the news he gave was exactly what the doctor ordered—pun intended—for a team that has dealt with a lengthy injury list each of the last four weeks.

“Everyone will practice today in some capacity except the following players,” McDermott said as soon as he sat down at the microphone on Wednesday.

McDermott then listed running back Taiwan Jones (knee) and wide receiver Jake Kumerow (ankle) as the only two players not practicing due to injury, and then added that guard Rodger Saffold and edge rusher Von Miller were receiving their veteran rest days.

That means that a long list of injured Bills were returning to the practice field—a list that includes wide receiver Isaiah McKenzie (out of the concussion protocol), tight end Dawson Knox, linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, cornerback Christian Benford, and safety Jordan Poyer.

Additionally, cornerback Tre’Davious White practiced for the first time this season on Wednesday, his first football activities with the team since tearing his ACL in a Thanksgiving Day game last year. White will not, however, be available for the team’s Week 6 matchup with the Kansas City Chiefs—but many of his injured teammates may very well be.

Kumerow has been on the injury list for two weeks now after an ankle injury on September 25 as the Bills suffered their only loss of the season in Miami. While there is never a great time for a player to be injured, Kumerow went on the injury list as wide receiver Gabe Davis, the Bills’ third-year emerging star who had injured his ankle in Week 2, returned to action.

As for Jones, he is a new addition to the injury list with what McDermott simply said was a “knee.” As with the Kumerow-Davis injury-list swap, while Jones is out, Poyer, who missed Week 3 with a foot injury and Week 5 with a rib injury, is back to practice and it is reasonable to think that Buffalo will be doing all they can to get their 2021 first-team All-Pro back onto the field when they play the Chiefs.

As soon as the Bills took the field for the portion of the practice open to the media, video of White—along with Benford, who suffered a fractured hand in Week 2 but returned to practice today—in red, non-contact jerseys started popping up across Twitter.

While the Bills are sitting nicely atop the AFC East and have had some convincing wins and even the elusive come-from-behind, last-second win they had been unable to secure in past seasons, their season hasn’t been without lows, as their game-time active roster has looked like a rotating door between the playing field and the training room for most of the year thus far.

To finally have just two players not practicing as they head into a matchup that might play a significant role in determining who holds the first seed in the AFC as the season approaches the halfway mark, has provided a much-needed sigh of relief from Bills Mafia—and probably the Bills’ coaching staff, as well.