Orchard Park, N.Y. — Some Buffalo Bills fans were hoping that rookie wide receiver Justin Shorter would be activated this week after missing the entire season with a hamstring injury, but the team decided to shut him down.
Bills coach Sean McDermott announced on Wednesday that Shorter remains on injured reserve following the end of his 21-day practice window, effectively ending his season.
Shorter suffered the injury back in the preseason and went on IR on Aug. 30. He rehabbed his way back to football shape and was a full participant in practice last week. McDermott said it came down to a numbers game when deciding whether to activate Shorter to the 53-man roster.
“Sometimes it’s a numbers deal,” he said. “I mean, he hasn’t really played most of the year. It’s tough to come in and do that late in the year. So I thought he did a good job just in terms of getting himself some work in there and sometimes it becomes a numbers thing. Then just making sure that he’s totally ready to go, so a combination of both.”
The Bills drafted Shorter in the fifth round of the 2023 draft and he made a few plays in three games during the preseason. He caught six passes for 66 yards and his lone touchdown on Aug. 19 against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Shorter’s progress has been a popular storyline the past few weeks with how the Bills’ passing game has struggled. Buffalo is averaging just 169 yards passing in their last four games and depth receivers Trent Sherfield and Deonte Harty have been mostly invisible this season. Starting running back James Cook has more receiving yards (429 yards) than Sherfield and Harty combined (200 yards).
Bills quarterback Josh Allen said on Wednesday after practice that the passing game has struggled because he hasn’t thrown the ball well in recent games.
“You wish it was perfect every time you went out,” he said. “When you’ve had success as on offense before, especially in the passing game, when it’s not going your way you’re just trying to find all the answers. But at the end of the day, we’re just trying to find ways to execute and win football games and we’ve been doing that as of late.”
The Bills rushing attack has been generating a lot of yards during the team’s four-game win streak. Cook and company are averaging 171 yards per game on the ground and Allen said that it’s a push and pull situation.
“You can be really good at (running the ball) and it can help you out and you can continue to find ways to win football games,” he said. “But that’s the main thing - is winning football games.”
Shorter’s season is almost identical to that of former Bills 2021 sixth-round pick Marquez Stevenson, who spent the majority of his rookie season on injured reserve. The difference is that Stevenson was activated in Week 14 after he rehabbed his foot injury. He played in the final five games of the 2021 season as the Bills’ primary punt returner. He was released the following year and never caught a pass in a Bills uniform.