Bills and Dolphins list a combined 11 players with injury designations ahead of Sunday

The medical teams for Buffalo and Miami are busy this week

The Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins have a combined 11 players with injury designations heading into their Week 9 clash. The Bills have only ruled out one player ahead of Sunday’s AFC East showdown: fullback Reggie Gilliam. However, their wide receiver corps has a couple of looming question marks.

Reggie Gilliam has been dealing with a hip injury all week, and on Friday morning, Bills head coach Sean McDermott said that the injury took place in practice. This would explain Gilliam’s move from a limited practice on Wednesday — the day the injury must have taken place — to not practicing at all the past two days.

Now, the only fullback on Buffalo’s roster (both active and practice squad) has been ruled out for Week 9. While Gilliam doesn’t see a lot of offensive snaps (only 9 of 76 last week), he is used frequently at the goal line and is a major part of the Bills’ special teams units — 21 out of 23 snaps in Seattle.

As for the other players on Buffalo’s roster who now have injury designations for the weekend, two of those are wide receivers. Wide receiver Curtis Samuel missed the team’s trip to Seattle last week as he stayed behind to continue treatment for a pectoral injury he suffered in the first quarter of Week 7. Samuel was limited in practice and was not seen in a red jersey this week. However, he is listed as questionable for Sunday.

Joining Samuel on the questionable list is Buffalo’s newest addition to their wide receiver room: Amari Cooper. Cooper injured his wrist in Buffalo’s 31-10 win over the Seattle Seahawks last week. This could be the reason that he caught just one pass for three yards even though he had a full week to review the Bills’ offensive playbook and had said he hoped to be able to be more involved. In his first week in a Bills uniform, and with just three days to learn what he could about the offense, Cooper had four catches for 66 yards and a touchdown.

On the defensive side of the ball, there’s concern about the availability of cornerback Christian Benford. A 2022 sixth-round draft pick, Benford earned the starting spot over Kaiir Elam (Buffalo’s first-round draft pick the same year) last season, and has since locked down the position.

On tap for the Bills Sunday are wide receivers Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddle. If Benford, who’s also dealing with a wrist injury, is unable to start, it could be a game changer. Unfortunately for the Bills, Benford progressed downhill throughout the week, starting out as a full participant before winding up limited later in the week.

The good news, however, is that linebacker Terrel Bernard is ready to play. Bernard missed two games early in the season — including Buffalo’s first game against the Dolphins in Miami — with a pectoral injury. While he’s still receiving attention for that, the more concerning ailment has been an ankle injury that saw him leave Week 7’s game early.

After missing a couple of days of practice last week, the Bills left Bernard behind so he could get some additional treatment for his ankle last weekend. Buffalo’s middle linebacker has been limited in practice this week, but never in a non-contact jersey. The Bills enter the weekend with head coach Sean McDermott confident that his defensive captain will be on the field Sunday.

---

For the Dolphins they will be without tight end Julian Hill, defensive end Zach Sieler, and cornerback Kader Kohou — although that was expected as head coach Mike McDaniel mentioned it in his morning press conference.

Adding troubles to their game plan, Miami listed safety Jevon Holland as doubtful for Sunday’s game in Buffalo. The Dolphins’ safety injured his knee in the first half of last week’s game, was ruled questionable to return, attempted to ride a stationary bike on the sideline, and then was downgraded to out. Holland hasn’t practiced at all this week, so that doubtful is almost certain to change to “out” on Sunday.

While the Dolphins will have Tyreek Hill, who has battled a foot injury, on Sunday — whether or not they will have fellow wide receiver River Cracraft is undecided with him listed officially as questionable. Also questionable are fullback Alec Ingold who injured his calf during practice earlier this week and cornerback Storm Duck who also didn’t appear on the week’s first injury report but developed an ankle injury as practices continued.

---

Final decisions on downgrading any players listed as doubtful or questionable don’t have to be made until 90 minutes before game time. That means we’ll know more at 11:30 a.m. EST Sunday morning.