Buffalo Elevated Practice-Squad Corners to Stop Lamar Jackson. The Numbers Say Good Luck.
The Bills added defensive backs from their practice squad Saturday. That is the sentence that captures everything about where this team stands heading into Week 8 against Baltimore. Not a trade. Not a waiver claim. A practice-squad elevation—the last resort of a roster that has been one injury away from a secondary crisis since September, and has now arrived at the crisis itself.
Tre'Davious White is back with the organization, but he landed on the practice squad, not the 53-man roster. The depth chart lists A.J. Woods and Te'Cory Couch behind him, and neither has logged meaningful snaps this season. That is the entire cornerback room. Against most offenses, you manage it. Against Lamar Jackson returning from a three-game absence with something to prove, you are essentially asking players with no observed game production to contain one of the most dangerous quarterbacks in football. The mismatch is not subtle.
What makes this harder to absorb is the context I've been tracking all season. Tre'Davious White—the nominal starter, the one name on this depth chart with any production to speak of—has been operating well below what you'd expect from a starting corner even when healthy. And he's not on the active roster. The Bills' cornerback situation is not just thin by count, it's thin by quality at every level. There is no viable depth behind a starter who himself represents a compromised answer.
The Ravens, meanwhile, get their quarterback back. Lamar Jackson missed three games with a high ankle sprain, and Baltimore is activating him for this one. They also get T.J. Tampa back from IR on their own side of the ball. Buffalo gets practice-squad callups. The asymmetry here is the story—not the Bills' 5-1 record, not Josh Allen's 18 combined touchdowns, not James Cook III's 648 rushing yards. All of that is real and all of it matters. But football games are won and lost on both sides of the ball, and the Bills are walking into M&T Bank Stadium with a secondary that has been a structural liability since training camp.
My read on what happens Sunday: Buffalo's offense is good enough to keep this close. Allen has already shown this season that the close-game collapses of January 2025 are not destiny—the wins over Las Vegas and Los Angeles, both decided by three points, are evidence of that. But "close" is exactly where a thin cornerback room gets exposed. When Jackson is healthy and operating in space, he finds the matchup he wants. He will find it here. The Bills' scheme has papered over the depth gaps for six weeks. Against this opponent, with this quarterback, on this day, the paper may not hold.