The Buffalo Bills announced who the team has placed on the protected portion of their practice squad ahead of their Week 14 meeting with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 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, for the third-straight week, the Bills used all four of their protected spots. Those are:
- DT Eli Ankou
- LB Joe Giles-Harris
- DB Josh Thomas
- DB Nick McCloud
Sometimes we can potentially connect some injury-related dots to these protections. This time, we can’t.
Rather, this week’s hint has to do with the COVID-19 list.
Prior to kickoff last week against the New England Patriots, linebacker AJ Klein was placed on Buffalo’s Reserve/COVID-19 list and he did not play. In a corresponding move, Giles-Harris was called up from the practice squad.
Previously the Bills had protected defensive tackle Brandin Bryant on their PS and Giles-Harris replaced him this week for the first time. That appears to be in direct correlation to Klein’s status.
Klein can only return to face the Bucs if he is vaccinated and provided two negative test results for COVID before the game.
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 roster up until Sunday morning prior to kickoff every week.
[lawrence-related id=92908,92863,92893]