All of last season, the Buffalo Bills had maxed out on the number of players they can protect on their practice squad each week.
On the 16-player unit, a team can lock in four them, in a sense. But this year, the Bills have only been doing so with three.
What gives? Now we know.
According to WGR-550′s Sal Capaccio, a team is allowed to add a player to the protected portion of the practice squad at any time throughout the remainder of the week.
Essentially, instead of protecting four, Buffalo has been using three incase something like injury happens. If a team does four originally, they cannot take one off and place another there. It’s all about flexibility.
The best example might be a quarterback issue in the Bills’ case.
Buffalo only rosters two, Josh Allen and Mitchell Trubisky. However, if one of those two gets hurt during a practice, then the Bills can add Jake Fromm or Davis Webb to the protected portion later in the week.
But an injury doesn’t have to happen for the Bills to protect a player, they can just fill that fourth spot at any time up until Saturday.
As an example, the Cleveland Browns just did this.
Per the NFL’s transaction wire on Tuesday, the Browns protected DT Sheldon Day, QB Mick Mullens and DE Curtis Weaver. On the ensuing wire report on Wednesday, LB Elijah Lee was then protected.
According to the set of wire reports released last week, the Bills did not go on to protect anyone else later on in the week. Buffalo just rolled with three.
The end being as soon as Sunday’s game ends.
From that point forward, all protected players then become unprotected until a team places them back on this portion of the PS on Tuesday.
That few day window allows a player to be signed by another team’s active roster. This is what happened with Buffalo seventh-round rookie Jack Anderson earlier this season.
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