Bills Preseason Plan Being Formed Day by Day

Quarterback Josh Allen will sit for a second straight week but has not been ruled out of final exhibition game.

Sean McDermott readily admits to making up his preseason agenda on the fly this year, though it would be hard to blame him.

After all, the Buffalo Bills coach was missing his star left tackle and quarterback Josh Allen's blindside protector, Dion Dawkins, for nearly the first three weeks of training camp with a serious case of COVID-19 that landed him in the hospital for four days.

So putting Allen on the field for the preseason opener at Detroit last week didn't seem to make much sense.

And even though Dawkins has made great strides since his return and will play Saturday on the road against the Chicago Bears, McDermott announced on Thursday that Allen will sit again, which means Mitchell Trubisky starts at quarterback in Chicago, where the boos and booze will flow.

No word on whether Allen will sit out the preseason finale the following Saturday at home. Because the NFL has reduced the preseason to three games for the first time and featured no preseason games last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all this is kind of new to McDermott, who because of this revised dynamic refuses to jump off any bridges until he comes to them.

"We're going to continue to take it one week at a time," McDermott said. "Because of the newness of the way the preseason has kind of been shaped here, we're just going to continue to evaluate one week at a time. So we'll see what next week brings."

Allen's top target, wide receiver Stefon Diggs, also won't play against the Bears as he continues to recover from a knee injury that shouldn't sideline him for too much longer, according to the coach.

Diggs is expected back next week, which means he should have plenty of time to sufficiently prepare for the longest regular season, 17 games, in NFL history. That won't begin for the Bills until Sept. 12 at home against Pittsburgh.

Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.