Buffalo's receiver room is now thin enough that the front office is shopping free agents before the preseason ends

Keon Coleman is questionable with a foot injury, Tyrell Shavers is on the PUP list and won't be available for Week 1, and the Bills are already scanning the free-agent wide receiver market. That's where things stand heading into the final stretch of the preseason — a position group that opened camp with questions and has answered most of them badly.

The depth chart tells the story plainly. DJ Moore is the starter, Dante Pettis is the backup, and Trent Sherfield is third. Pettis, signed July 30, brings experience but produced at a fraction of what a starting receiver should last season. Sherfield has barely registered. If Coleman misses time into the regular season, that's the room Josh Allen is working with — and Allen threw for over 4,200 yards in 2025 behind a receiving corps that was, at least at the time, healthier than this.

The Bills noted the gap when they brought Pettis in, and I wrote about Coleman's foot when it happened Monday. What's changed is the framing: this is no longer a camp-depth concern. The news that the front office is actively considering free-agent additions before Week 1 signals they've looked at the roster and decided it isn't good enough as constructed. That's a reasonable conclusion.

The question now is what's actually available. The material news flags that the Bills may consider signing a free-agent wide receiver, but the market this late in August is thin by definition. My read is they add someone — the need is too obvious to ignore — but whether that someone meaningfully changes the calculus behind Moore is a separate matter entirely.