3 Buffalo Bills Who Are Under Huge Pressure in Training Camp

All members of the Buffalo Bills will report to training camp this week and we couldn’t be happier to get football back. There’s a lot of familiarity, but also a lot of new additions that will be closely watched. Throughout training camp, fans will receive updates or maybe even do some scouting of their own if they’re headed to St. John Fisher University. These practices will give us all a sense of who has a chance to earn starting roles, who will be a quality backup, and who could end up on a new team.

There are three players who face the most pressure heading into training camp. Two of them have the pressure to succeed because of how the offseason has gone and one of them arguably has the pressure to just make the roster after a rough start to his career.

With that, we take a look at the three Buffalo Bills who are facing the most pressure throughout training camp.

The third-year cornerback has an uphill battle to earn a starting role, let alone make the roster. The good news for Kaiir Elam is that this regime of Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott typically doesn’t part ways with the players they bring to Buffalo. At the same time, Elam has been a failure for the Bills to the point that he couldn’t earn a starting job when he was brought to Buffalo to do so in 2022.

The Bills have had a lot of adversity in the secondary over the past two seasons due to injuries. It’s safe to say that unless Elam has the worst training camp of any player on the roster, he’ll be on the roster. However, if he shows no progression and fails to make a serious impact, Brandon Beane will have to seriously consider taking the step of admitting that Elam was the wrong choice in 2022 and moving on.

Ever since Stefon Diggs was traded to the Houston Texans and Gabe Davis joined the Jacksonville Jaguars as a free agent, Khalil Shakir has been referred to as the Bills’ “number one” receiver. Had Shakir not been more involved in the offense once Joe Brady took over the offense midway through last season, it would have been a major problem if Shakir was the number one option in the passing game.

Shakir is the one with the best chance of catching the most targets in this offense (only Dalton Kincaid could lead the way). If Shakir doesn’t live up to the hype that was put on him this offseason, it’s going to be difficult for the Bills to move the ball through the air.

That’s right, Josh Allen is on this list. Allen is obviously one of the top three quarterbacks in the league, but this is the first season in a row where the roster doesn’t look as solid around him as it has in the last four seasons. This is the year Allen can showcase his talents in terms of elevating his teammates around him. There are no big star players around him. Instead, he’s finally the big star with Diggs out of town.

Allen has a new offensive coordinator in Joe Brady and new weapons at receiver. We’ll really see what Allen can do with limited talent on offense. His pressure will be to see how well he can run this offense without any real stars outside of him.