The Buffalo Bills should replace the injured Zack Moss with Antonio Williams for the rest of the playoffs.
The big injury for the Buffalo Bills coming out of their playoff win over the Indianapolis Colts was an ankle injury suffered by Zack Moss. There was a fear that it could force him to miss extended time and that fear became a reality as Ian Rapoport reported that Zack Moss would be out for the remainder of the postseason.
Later in the day, Sean McDermott confirmed that Moss would miss extended time during a call with media. He was asked who could replace him and named the other three running backs on the roster with T.J. Yeldon on the active roster and Antonio Williams and Christian Wade on the practice squad.
Sean McDermott on options now that RB Zack Moss is out: "We'll look at guys on our roster that we have a lot of confidence in, T.J [Yeldon], Antonio [Williams], Christian [Wade]. We'll take a look at what our options are."
— Heather Prusak (@haprusak) January 11, 2021
The coaching staff will have options and could look to T.J. Yeldon, as he is the veteran of the position and that could be valuable during the playoffs. However, Yeldon hasn’t played much in the past two seasons and has only 27 carries over that time period.
If the Buffalo Bills want a running back that could replicate what Zack Moss brought to this offense, then they need to add Antonio Williams to the active roster. The undrafted rookie out of UNC joined the team during the offseason and was cut and brought back a few times in the early part of the season.
He has been on the practice squad since mid-October and got a chance to play in his first NFL game against the Miami Dolphins in the regular season finale. In a little under one half of football would end up having the best performance by a running back this year with 12 rushing attempts for 63 yards, two rushing touchdowns as well as a reception for 20 yards.
It is also important to note that his performance against the Dolphins came against most of their starting defense and shouldn’t be dismissed since it was a game the Buffalo Bills were playing mostly backups at that point in the game.
At 5’11” and 215 pounds, he has more power than Devin Singletary and could be the power back near the goal line and in short-yardage situations, a role that Zack Moss settled into this season.
The coaching staff will certainly have a tough decision heading into Saturday’s game and it would be a gamble going with a running back who has played only 28 snaps in his NFL career. However, it could be worth it for an offense that still needs production from the position which Antonio Williams showed he could bring.