Leodis McKelvin injury: Bills CB to miss first six games in 2015

As part of their maneuvering to reduce their active roster to 53 players, the Buffalo Bills on Friday placed cornerback Leodis McKelvin on the Reserve/Non-Football Injury list.

Reserve/NFI functions the same way that Reserve/Physically Unable to Perform ("PUP") works: if a player starts the regular season on that list, they are only eligible to return to the practice field after the first six weeks of the season are complete. As such, the Bills can expect to be without McKelvin until at least late October, but perhaps longer.

Second-round rookie Ronald Darby will hold the starting cornerback job while McKelvin recovers - and if Darby performs better than he has in his up-and-down preseason, he could lock down the job permanently.

You may recall that McKelvin spent the last month and a half of the 2014 season on Injured Reserve with an ankle injury. He had surgery, and recovered quickly enough to lightly participate in workouts through June. Sometime between then and the start of training camp, however, McKelvin re-injured himself, and spent the entirety of training camp motoring around the practice field at St. John Fisher on a scooter. He only just took off his walking cast earlier this week.