The Buffalo Bills made a couple of practice squad transactions on Tuesday, days after the team’s thrilling come-from-behind road victory over their divisional-rival Patriots. The win keeps the Bills in the hunt for the AFC East and in great overall position for playoff purposes.
Kicker Matt Prater — the hero of the Baltimore comeback win back in Week 1, among others — is currently week-to-week with a quad injury, as Bills HC Sean McDermott said on Monday. Prater was the oldest player in the league when the season kicked off (and is now second behind the legendary QB Philip Rivers, now that the Colts have signed him out of retirement) but his leg hasn’t waned yet. In 14 games in his first season in Buffalo, Prater’s gone 18/20 on field goals and 43/46 on extra points.
It’s not the first time a kicker has gone down with an injury for Buffalo this year. The Bills’ usual kicker is Tyler Bass, a sixth-round pick out of Georgia Southern in 2020, is a career 84.5-percent on field goals, plus he’s 96.4 percent for his career on extra points. Bass had what’s been labeled a “left hip/groin” injury since the preseason and hasn’t played at all this year, leading the Bills to sign Prater a few days before the season began. Bass underwent surgery a few weeks ago and will miss the rest of the season.
The Buffalo Bills Signed a New Kicker While Prater is Out
GettyORCHARD PARK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 07: Matt Prater #15 of the Buffalo Bills celebrates with teammates after kicking the game winning field goal against the Baltimore Ravens Highmark Stadium on September 07, 2025 in Orchard Park, New York. (Photo by Bryan Bennett/Getty Images)
McDermott already announced that Prater will miss the Bills’ Week 16 game against the Browns, so a temporary replacement was needed. Buffalo worked out multiple kickers earlier this week and signed Michael Badgley to their practice squad on Tuesday.
Nicknamed the “Money Badger” by fans, Badgley is a eighth-year pro out of Miami who signed on with the Chargers as an undrafted free agent back in 2018. Most recently, he was with the Colts earlier in 2025, replacing K Spencer Shrader after he tore his ACL in Week 5, though he was released when Indy signed K Blake Grupe a couple of weeks ago.
For his career, Badgley is an 83.1-percent on field goals. Interestingly, he’ll wear No. 32 with the Bills, an unusual choice for a kicker.
In a corresponding move, Buffalo released CB M.J. Devonshire from the practice squad. Devonshire was a seventh-round pick of the Raiders out of Pitt in 2024 and has yet to appear in an NFL game.
Can the Buffalo Bills Still Win the AFC East?
The short answer is yes. The Patriots needed to beat the Bills last week to clinch the division, and that obviously didn’t happen.
The long answer is that while there is a path, it’s a difficult one. The Patriots are still one game up with just three to play. More importantly, if they tied with the Bills, they’d currently win the tiebreaker. Buffalo split the season series with New England, but the second tiebreaker for the division winner is division record — and the Bills lost to the Dolphins earlier this season. The Patriots have no such blemishes against the Dolphins or Jets.
To win the division, the Bills either need to be at least one game better than the Patriots, or they need New England to drop at least one of their last two against New York and Miami.
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