The regular season comes to an end today for the Buffalo Bills, but they will find themselves hosting atleast one playoff, possibly two playoff games after today. It’s been quite sometime since we’ve seen the Bills have to play a meaningless game in the regular season. The saying that the NFL is a week-to-week schedule and that anything can happen, that doesn’t apply to the Bills today.
Heading into this game, Bills fans learned that linebacker Terrel Bernard (quad) and wideout Amari Cooper (personal reasons) would be out for this game. Wide receiver Curtis Samuel is the only true game-time decision for the Bills, per the Bills’ Friday injury report.
As Bills fans prepare to watch Buffalo’s backups play a majority of the game, there is just one thing that they need to hope for; everyone to come out of this game healthy. Even if the Bills lose this game, that just means that the Patriots would potentially lose out on the first overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Just get through these next four quarters and get ready for playoff football. With that, we take a look at the final inactives for both Buffalo and New England.
Bills vs. Patriots final inactives
Bills inactives:
-LB Terrel Bernard
-WR Amari Cooper
-CB Taron Johnson
-CB Christian Benford
-DE Greg Rousseau
-OT Dion Dawkins
-DT Ed Oliver
-DT DaQuan Jones
As you can see, all of the Bills' inactives are starters who Buffalo wants to save for the playoffs. The Bills are only going with four wide receivers in Keon Coleman, Curtis Samuel, Khalil Shakir, and Mack Hollins. Buffalo is also going with eight defensive backs. With Taron Johnson being ruled inactive, he will miss out on getting a $250,000 bonus as he only needed one interception to get it.
Patriots inactives:
-CB Christian Gonzalez
-RB Jamycal Hasty
-OL Lester Cotton
-OL Sidy Sow
-TE Hunter Henry
-TE Mitchell Wilcox
The Bills offense won't have to worry about Christian Gonzalez in the secondary, who has been one of the lone bright spots on the Patriots. In addition, the Bills defense won't have to worry about Drake Maye's go-to target in Hunter Henry.
Kickoff from Gillette Stadium is set for 1PM EST where the regular season closes out. The Bills just have to get through this game, and then wait to see what happens in the 4:25PM games in order for them to figure out who they will be hosting next week in the first round of the playoffs.