Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott delivered some grim news on Friday morning before the team’s final practice of the week and two days before the Bills face the Pittsburgh Steelers in what amounts to a must-win game for Buffalo at Acrisure Stadium.
According to the 51-year-old, 10th-year head coach, the Bills will be without four starters for Sunday’s game, with the Bills fighting to hold on to the seventh and final playoff berth in the AFC.
Perhaps most importantly, the Bills will be missing not just one but two starting offensive linemen, Dion Dawkins and Spencer Brown, which is likely to make it a long day for reigning NFL MVP quarterback Josh Allen, whose 28 sacks are already the sixth-most endured by any QB in the NFL.
The last time the Bills played a game with two of their regular starting offensive linemen out injured, according to data posted by WROC-TV sports director Thad Brown, came on November 7, 2021, Allen’s fourth year. The Bills lost that game to the Jacksonville Jaguars 9-6. Allen was sacked four times in that game.
Kincaid Listed as Questionable
But Allen may be missing another important piece of his offense â again. After sitting out the last two Bills games â a loss to the Houston Texans following a win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers â third-year tight end Dalton Kincaid is questionable to take part in Sunday’s game against Pittsburgh, according to McDermott.
Kincaid suffered a hamstring injury in the third quarter of the Bills’ shocking Week 10 loss to the Miami Dolphins . The 2023 first-round draft pick was quickly ruled out of that game and has not played since.
On Wednesday, McDermott said that Kincaid had “a chance” to play against the Steelers, in the CBS nationally televised game at 4:25 p.m. ET. With the “questionable” classification, it appears that McDermott and the Bills’ staff believe that Kincaid still has a “chance” to take part in the game.
Kincaid Limited in Friday Practice
Kincaid was also described as a limited participant in Friday’s Buffalo practice session. According to a 2025 study of more than 2,000 NFL injuries, players with hamstring injuries who also have limited participation in Friday practice â the final session before the Sunday game â ended up playing in the game 61.1 percent of the time. Kincaid did not practice on Wednesday and was limited both on Thursday and Friday.
But injury expert Kyle Trimble, a physical therapist who analyzes and documents injuries to Bills players on his aptly titled website Banged Up Bills , was more skeptical.
Going through recent Bills history, Trimble â writing in a social media post Friday â found “only a few instances of that practice pattern with a hamstring.”
Rare For Bills Players in Kincaid’s Position to Play
In three such instances â running backs LeSean McCoy in 2017 and Devin Singletary in 2019 and linebacker Shaq Thompson earlier this year â the players were ruled out of that week’s game.
Trimble found three cases in which hamstring-injured players did, in fact, participate in the subsequent game. But one was a punter, Sam Martin, in the 2023 postseason. Another, running back Taiwan Jones in 2021, played exclusively on special teams.
Only wide receiver Robert Foster in 2018 played following a hamstring injury and the “DNP, LP, LP” practice pattern, according to Trimble’s findings.
“Iâd bet against Kincaid playing this week,” Trimble concluded â a prediction which, if it proves true, would serve as another blow to Buffalo’s passing attack.
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