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The Buffalo Bills announced some bad news on kicker Matt Prater on Monday.
Bills head coach Sean McDermott revealed that Prater will not suit up in the Week 16 game against the Cleveland Browns due to his quadriceps injury.
"Not ideal. Matt's done a really good job having that consistency during the year," McDermott told reporters.
It isn't clear how long Prater will be out, but the fact that he was ruled out this early in the week suggests it could be a multi-week issue. The Bills have not confirmed that, though.
With Prater now on the shelf for at least one game, that left many wondering if the Bills could possibly depend on fellow kicker Tyler Bass to take his place.
Here's the latest on that.
When is Tyler Bass coming back?
Unfortunately, Bass will not play this season.
The Bills announced earlier this month that Bass had to undergo season-ending surgery to correct the left hip/groin issue that has plagued him.
Bass landed on injured reserve prior to Week 1 and after a lengthy rehab process, it was decided he would be shut down after things didn't improve.
“He was dealing with it, it wasn’t going away and we thought it was going away, then it wasn’t going away as he tried to get himself back ready,” McDermott said of Bass. “And so the decision against surgery was almost made up for him. So that’s the decision and that’s what we went with.”
With Bass no longer an option, the Bills are going to have to dip into free agency for a kicker, or sign one off another team's practice squad.
The last thing any team wants to do is find a replacement at kicker this late in the season, and that's especially true for a playoff team like Buffalo that is trying to grab a division title out of the grasp of the New England Patriots.
After all, the options are extremely thin and the players who are available are not signed for a good reason.
The Bills struck gold with Prater after Bass' injury and now they'll be hoping to do that again.
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