The Bills lost one of their top playmakers on defense Sunday when Matt Milano suffered a broken fibula that required surgery on Monday. Replacing him as a three-down player won't be easy for the team's final three games.
"The good part is Matt did a really good job. I thought he really grew this year. We'll miss him. We look forward to getting him back in the offseason," said head coach Sean McDermott. "(Replacing him) will be by committee. We're still working through that. We've got certainly Lorenzo (Alexander) could fill that role and some other guys with respect to Deon (Lacey) and Corey (Thompson) and potentially Julian (Stanford). So we're still going to work through that."
Alexander has been a much more valuable player up on the line of scrimmage this season, so moving him off the ball might only be a part-time thing in games, which is why the defensive staff is likely leaning toward a committee approach.
Lacey and Stanford have been on the active roster all season serving in a backup capacity. Lacey's skill set appears on the surface to most closely match that of Milano in terms of being able to run and cover. Thompson was just called up to the active roster a couple of weeks ago.
More will be known as the week of practice unfolds in preparation for Detroit.
McCoy and Ivory are day to day LeSean McCoy and Chris Ivory were two other casualties in Sunday's loss to the Jets. McCoy left the game after just a few plays with a hamstring injury. Chris Ivory left in the second half with a shoulder injury after landing on it with all his body weight at the end of a running play.
Both are listed as day-to-day.
Coach McDermott intends to push his decision on whether to add another back to the roster as late into the week as possible to see how his top two backs recover from their respective injuries.
"We'll see how LeSean does as he comes back Tuesday and where Chris is," said McDermott. "We always have Keith who we can use from our practice squad as well."
McDermott and his staff haven't been shy about calling players up from the practice squad when needed.
RB Keith Ford (5-10, 219) has been on Buffalo's practice squad all season after a strong training camp and preseason. The undrafted rookie figures to get the nod in the event that one or both backs aren't ready for Sunday's game against the Lions.
Hauschka has hip injury Stephen Hauschka was awfully sore on Monday. Coach McDermott listed his kicker as day to day with a hip injury. Hauschka was blindsided by Jets DL Henry Anderson after his field goal attempt right before the half was blocked.
While the Jets scrambled to return the loose ball, Anderson took the liberty of hitting Hauschka from behind knocking him to the ground. No flag was thrown for the foul, which left McDermott disappointed.
"It's a shame that he took the hit that he did. I thought that should've been called, but they didn't see it obviously," McDermott said. "But that said, he came out in the second half had a good warmup and felt good about things in the second half there. We'll see how he comes back on Tuesday."
As for Anderson's decision to hit Hauschka from behind, McDermott felt it was out of bounds.
"There's no place in football for it," he said. "It's like a quarterback. He gets hit in the back. Any player who gets hit in the back it should be a penalty and he's a kicker. To me he's afforded the protection."
McDermott was encouraged that Hauschka was able to finish the game. More will be known on the kicker's availability for Sunday as the week wears on.
