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The Buffalo Bills announced who the team has placed on the protected portion of their practice squad ahead of their Week 18 meeting with the New York Jets. 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 all of their four slots and did so on the same exact players as a week ago. Those are:
- DT Eli Ankou
- WR Isaiah Hodgins
- DB Nick McCloud
- DB Josh Thomas
Sometimes we can potentially connect some injury-related dots to these protections. This time, we can’t considering the Bills have a light report and their COVID list is currently empty.
We only have two slight connections. Defensive tackle Star Lotulelei missed the game two weeks ago due to personal reasons. Perhaps that’s why Ankou was protected.
On Hodgins, previously wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders was in and out of the lineup. However, just this week, he was already declared day-to-day so it appears he could be back in the fold.
Hodgins might just be a distant depth piece.
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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