Bills Reveal Details on Damar Hamlin Injury After IR Announcement
The Buffalo Bills are preparing for their Week 6 clash with the Atlanta Falcons, and after suffering their first loss of the 2025 season in Week 5 at the hands of the New England Patriots, they will be eager to get back in the win column. Unfortunately, the team was dealt a couple of tough injuries ahead of their upcoming game.
While it appears as if star defensive tackle Ed Oliver is on track to play against the Falcons, the Bills lost safety Damar Hamlin to injured reserve on Saturday. After the team announced the move, head coach Sean McDermott provided some more clarity on Hamlin’s status moving forward after his tough injury blow.
Sean McDermott Provides Injury Update on Damar Hamlin
The 2025 season has been an interesting one for Hamlin. After emerging as a starter at safety for the team last year, he has played in each of the team’s first five games, but he’s been used as a reserve player instead of a starter, racking up just one tackle during his limited time on the field. Instead, Taylor Rapp and Cole Bishop have been the starters at safety so far this season.
Hamlin is a solid special teams player who has experience in Buffalo’s defensive system, so that makes him a guy worth holding onto as a backup. Now that he’s out, that could lead to the veteran Jordan Poyer getting elevated to the active roster from the practice squad, or the team could simply lean on Sam Franklin Jr. and Jordan Hancock for the time being.
The decision to place Hamlin on injured reserve was a bit curious, as he only recently popped up on the injury report. When speaking on the decision, McDermott revealed that Hamlin suffered a pectoral injury during practice last week, and with a multi-game absence expected, the team opted to place him on injured reserve to open up a roster spot.
“T.J. Sanders and Damar are both out, will eventually both head to IR,” McDermott said on Saturday. “(Hamlin) had a pec situation come up in practice.”
Bills Hoping to Get Back in the Win Column After Week 5 Loss
GettyBuffalo Bills head coach, Sean McDermott, jogging onto the field ahead of the game against the New Orleans Saints on September 28, 2025.
Considering how he lost his starting job this season, being without Hamlin isn’t necessarily the end of the world, but it will force Buffalo to make some changes to the backend of its roster. Poyer certainly is a guy worth calling up from the practice squad, as he has ample experience in the Bills’ defensive system, which makes him a perfect backup option.
Even with Hamlin on injured reserve, Buffalo will still be heavily favored to take down Atlanta, which is fresh off its bye week in Week 5. The Bills have looked the part of a Super Bowl contender through five games, and a key trait that many champions possess is an ability to bounce back after a tough loss. That is precisely what this team will be looking to do when they take the field at 7:15 p.m. ET on Monday Night Football.
ROME ODUNZE’S SECOND-YEAR BREAKOUT COULD SHATTER BEARS’ RECORD BOOKS WITH UNSTOPPABLE PERFORMANCE
Of the many takeaways you could have from the first month of the Chicago Bears‘ 2025 season, arguably the most promising one relates to second-year receiver Rome Odunze. Coming off of a so-so rookie season in which he failed to put up the numbers many of his rookie contemporaries did, there remained plenty of optimism surrounding Odunze heading into the 2025 campaign, and in a small sample size, Odunze has proven it was all warranted.
Through the first four weeks of the season, Odunze ranks 8th in the NFL in receiving yards, 6th in yards per reception (among pass-catchers with at least 20 catches) and 2nd in receiving touchdowns. He’s clearly established himself as the preferred target of second-year quarterback Caleb Williams, and amazing, Odunze finds himself on pace to at the very least threaten multiple single-season Bears receiving records.
While Chicago doesn’t have a track record of producing the most spectacular passing attacks, this is the oldest franchise in the NFL, so if any present player does anything to scale the record book, it’s notable. And while Odunze still has a long way to go to make good on this promising start, even if he ends up falling short, it’s no longer a question as to whether Odunze will become the guy the Bears hoped he would.
Assuming he keeps up at the pace he’s been at so far this season — and again, with only four games in the bank, these numbers could fluctuate greatly over the next three months — Odunze will finish the season with 85 receptions for 1,258 yards and 17 receiving touchdowns.
If those were Rome Odunze’s season-ending splits, he’d finish the year with the 13th-most receptions and 7th-most receiving yards in a single-season in Bears history, and he’d easily break Dick Gordon and Ken Kavenaugh’s shared record of 13 receiving touchdowns. Not too bad considering Odunze is only 23 years old.
Ben Johnson, Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze Are a Trio Bears Fans Can Be Excited About
Even after an offseason in which Bears general manager Ryan Poles attempted to remedy a number of Chicago’s shortcomings, there are still issues with the way this roster has been constructed. But for a second, instead of dwelling on the negatives, let’s celebrate the fact that the Bears have a head coach (Ben Johnson), quarterback (Caleb Williams) and wide receiver (Rome Odunze) trio that’s worth being
Quite literally, this has never been in the case in the century-long history of the Chicago Bears. And now all the sudden, this franchise that has been starved for offensive competency for decades is in the infancy stages of watching a quarterback and wide receiver tandem that, if all things go as planned, will end up with countless career records in Chicago.
Of course, so much of this has to do with Ben Johnson, who has made life far easier for both Williams and Odunze, utilizing the skillsets of both players in appropriate ways, and scheming up looks where Odunze is wide open down the field. That sounds like a low bar, but it’s one that Matt Eberflus couldn’t clear last year with Williams and Odunze at his disposal, and one that various coaches have failed to overcome in previous regimes with their respective QB-WR tandems.
