The Buffalo Bills announced who the team has placed on the protected portion of their practice squad ahead of their divisional round meeting with the Kansas City Chiefs. The names come to us via the NFL’s transaction wire.
In 2020, the NFL implemented a new rule to help NFL teams deal with the outbreak of COVID-19. With the virus still causing the league to have a variety of safety protocols in place to prevent outbreaks, the protected portion of the practice squad is back.
These players are not allowed to be signed by another team the rest of this week. After game day, all are then fair game to be signed until the Bills name their protected players from their practice squad for the ensuing game.
This week, the Bills are back to using only three of their four slots. The past three weeks all four were used. First, that trio is:
- WR Isaiah Hodgins
- DB Nick McCloud
- DB Josh Thomas
This time the reasoning for only three placements is crystal clear. Previously defensive tackle Eli Ankou was the fourth player protected.
However, he landed on the Bills’ practice squad COVID-19 list.
Otherwise, the rest of the players that were protected don’t give us much insight. All of them have been protected in recent weeks, however, the Bills have been relatively healthy in their secondary and at wide receiver so it’s not expected that any of these will be called up.
For more reference on the protected portion of the practice squad, here is our explanation of it from last season when it was introduced:
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in the United States, the NFL’s owners and players came to an offseason agreement that we’ve seen the first installment of on Tuesday evening. Each team in the league can “protect” four players on their practice squad each week.
The idea is to provide some extra depth for teams in case of a COVID-19 outbreak in a locker room late in the week prior to a Sunday or Monday game. Those four can be called up to the active
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