Bills Survive Injury Scare with DJ Moore, but Ed Oliver's Pregame Hip Issue Looms Large

The Buffalo Bills got cooked by the Detroit Lions on Thursday night, but the real damage report is coming out of the medical tent. When a team drops a 41-31 shootout, the postgame focus usually lands on the secondary, but Buffalo fans spent Friday morning refreshing their feeds for injury updates on two of their most important players.

Ian Rapoport reported that wide receiver DJ Moore suffered an AC joint sprain, which the team is officially classifying as good news. Moore was ruled out for the remainder of the Thursday night game, sending live bettors and fantasy managers into a temporary spiral before the relatively mild diagnosis came down.

Calling an AC joint sprain "good news" is peak football brain. In the real world, if your shoulder gets separated, you take a week off work and complain about it for a month. In the NFL, it just means you might only miss a couple of practices before getting shot up with whatever magic potion they keep in the trainer's room.

The Ed Oliver situation is actually the weirder and more concerning one. The defensive tackle tweaked his hip during pregame warmups and was ruled out before the opening kickoff even happened.

Getting hurt in warmups is the athletic equivalent of pulling a hamstring while putting on your socks. Oliver is the 287-pound anchor of that defensive front, and without him eating up blocks, the Lions ran wild for 41 points. He has a lengthy medical file that includes a torn bicep last season, so any lower-body issue is going to make the coaching staff sweat.

Buffalo is sitting at 1-1 after beating the Houston Texans 36-31 in Week 1 and dropping this Thursday nighter. The silver lining here is the schedule. Playing on Thursday gives the Bills a mini-bye to heal up, which is huge for anyone holding Buffalo futures. If Moore and Oliver can get right with the extra rest, the sky isn't falling, but this defense desperately needs its anchor back on the field.