Are The Bills In “Emergency Mode” With Their Kicking Game?

For most positions on a football team, there's a backup player. But what does a team do if their kicker can't play?

You often hear teams say that they have a "next man up" mentality. In other words, if one player gets injured and can't play anymore, the next man in line better be prepared to step in and play at their level.

But what do teams do when a player gets injured at a position that requires specific skills, like a kicker?

Tyler Bass is currently injured

Tyler Bass has been one of the Bills who has been on the injured list throughout most of this year's training camp. He's been nursing a pelvic injury. Although we don't know what that is, or how severe it might be. Depending on its severity, he could miss some serious time, or none at all. All that we know is that so far this year, he hasn't been able to kick in practice, and their first preseason game of the year is coming in just days.

We can get by, it's just preseason

There are a lot of people who will argue that it could give the team a chance to work on other things like managing 4th downs close to the goal line and going for 2 after a touchdown, which is true. It does force you to work on those things if you can't kick extra points or settle for field goals when you get to the other side of the 50. But what is the plan for kickoffs? They still have to kick off to start the game right?

The Bills had an unlikely player step up

The next man up turned out to be back up running back Ray Davis. According to Davis, he used to kick field goals for his team in high school and even had a career long 57 yarder back in the day.

He finished the day 2 for 3 with his longest around 38 yards, and is now officially the backup for Tyler Bass on the depth chart.