After benching Keon Coleman, Buffalo Bills re-think X-receiver role

It’s been said that the acronym “NFL” really stands for “Not For Long” rather than National Football League. This might be a cliche, but those who say it mean it in myriad ways. For teams, it means that the thrill of victory can be fleeting. For players, it means that their time in the spotlight may disappear as quickly as it arrives.

With the Buffalo Bills’ 44-32 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, we have yet another example of what happens when opportunity arrives. The day began with a benching, as second-year wide receiver Keon Coleman was a healthy scratch for the first time in his career. It came out that Coleman, who has been disciplined by the Bills twice before for punctuality and professionalism in meetings, missed another meeting on Friday. This led to the decision that rendered Coleman as a healthy scratch in Week 11.

With Coleman out, Buffalo relied on a pair of unlikely heroes for his replacement. One was wide receiver Gabe Davis, a veteran with a proven track record in Buffalo before he left to sign with the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was released after one unproductive, injury-plagued season, and he’s been on Buffalo’s practice squad while he recovered from knee surgery. The other person called upon to replace Coleman was wide receiver Tyrell Shavers, a 2023 UDFA who entered this game with eight catches, 151 receiving yards, and one touchdown on his professional resume.

With Coleman on the sidelines, the men who replaced him had themselves a game. Davis caught three passes for 40 yards, including a grab to convert a fourth down early in the contest that led to Buffalo’s first touchdown. Shavers had a breakout day, as he led the team in catches (4) and receiving yards (90). He tied starting wide receiver Joshua Palmer for the team lead in targets with five.

Shavers made one huge play, catching a 43-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Josh Allen when the reigning NFL MVP played some backyard football before launching a strike to his new “X” man. All told, the guys tasked with replacing Coleman caught seven passes on nine targets for 130 yards and a score.

Coleman entered this game averaging four catches for 40 yards per game. He’s scored three touchdowns. If you remove the outlier, which was his eight-catch, 112-yard performance on opening night against the Baltimore Ravens, his averages drop to three catches for 27 yards per game. Frankly, that’s just not good enough. Coleman is Buffalo’s second-leading receiver this season, trailing only tight end Dalton Kincaid in every important statistical category (he trails wide receiver Khalil Shakir, as well, in receiving yards). Is Coleman’s lack of maturity holding him back, or is it something else?

If it’s a work ethic issue, then Coleman needs to wake up, and soon, if he wants to keep on track with the Bills. Nothing is more sobering than watching the players you’re in the lineup over outperform you in a game when you missed time because of your own immaturity. As a coach, it’s hard to look at the production from the “X” receiver spot today, then go back and watch the tape with Coleman playing that same spot, and think that Keon needs to play the snaps he was playing prior to his benching today.

A one-game sample, obviously, is not something to base an entire narrative on; however, the sample size for Coleman is much larger than one game. In his career, his average game is three catches for 40 yards. Again, that just isn’t good enough. We could lean on talks about his athleticism if we’d like, but that hasn’t helped him so far. Consider these NFL Scouting Combine results:

Player A: 4.61-second 40, 38” vertical, 10’7” broad jump

Player B: 4.59-second 40, 33” vertical, 9’11” broad jump

Player A is Keon Coleman. Player B is Tyrell Shavers. We can quibble over their vertical and their broad jump numbers, but if we’re looking at the two as wideouts in the pros, the argument can be made that they offer similar things. In fact, I’d argue that Shavers offers more to the team as a whole, given his usage on special teams. Throw in Davis as a rotational piece, and we’re looking at a full-out issue for Coleman. They’re even similar heights, as Coleman is 6’3” and Shavers is 6’4”.

Players want to fight to remain on the field. That’s why so many of these guys play through injuries that would make most of us mere mortals squeamish. What happens, though, when you give your backups an opportunity through your own stupidity, for lack of a better phrase? And then, to add insult to stupidity, those backups outplay you—significantly—in a game where your team wins?

Keon Coleman is on notice. The Buffalo passing offense didn’t miss a beat without him, and arguably looked better than it has in most games this season. Buffalo’s coaching staff certainly took note of today’s victory, as well, and they’ll certainly hammer home the message when the team has meetings on Monday.

Buffalo invested heavily in Coleman, selecting him with their first draft choice in the 2024 NFL Draft, so there’s more “cost” involved in Coleman panning out than there is in Shavers and Davis. The staff can’t worry about that, though. They need to play the players who help the team win now rather than those who might justify their decisions.

Because, as we know, if the Bills don’t win, we can all describe their coaching staff’s job security with a fairly popular acronym: “Not For Long.”

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