I hope you didn't forget about former Giants wide receiver Sterling Shepard. While New York tries to juggle an abundance of receivers competing for the final spots on the depth chart, not everyone has that challenge -- take the Buffalo Bills, for instance.
They seem to have the exact opposite problem.
A foot sprain to will-he, won't-he third-year receiver Keon Coleman has thrown the Bills' receiving corps into sudden disarray during the preseason. With Coleman's status up in the air, Buffalo faces a tricky situation that could derail the start of their season if left unaddressed.
Relying on Joshua Palmer, Mecole Hardman, and rookie Skyler Bell as depth pieces isn't going to cut it for a team looking to get Josh Allen a Super Bowl ring.
That’s where a former Big Blue fan favorite could have entered the equation as a potential break-glass-in-case-of-emergency option. And FanSided's Justin Carter believed Shepard could be worth a look: "Sometimes you just need to go out and add reliable talent to the roster, and Shepard fits that description."
Instead, the Houston Texans beat them to the punch, signing Shepard alongside veteran Zay Jones to fix their own injury problems.
Bills missed out on an easy Sterling Shepard insurance policy
It's easy to forget just how much hope was pinned on Shepard when the G-Men took him 40th overall in the 2016 NFL Draft.
The vision in East Rutherford was clear: pair the Oklahoma standout with Odell Beckham Jr. to form the league’s next unstoppable tandem. For a while, it worked. Shep burst onto the scene with an eight-touchdown rookie season, looking like the perfect sidekick for OBJ.
Over his eight seasons in North Jersey, Shepard was the quintessential chain-mover. He finished with 372 receptions for 4,095 yards and 23 touchdowns. Yet, his story with Big Blue remains one of the biggest cases of "what could have been," as a brutal string of injuries cut his prime short and prevented him from becoming the wideout Giants fans thought he'd be.
Instead of calling it a career after his time in New York ended, the 33-year-old spent the past two seasons hanging on like a barnacle with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Serving primarily as a depth piece, he caught 71 passes for 705 yards and two touchdowns in Tampa.
He's no longer a game-flipping weapon who can carry a passing game, but he has carved out a niche as a dependable professional who understands his role.
At this stage of his career, that’s really all a team should ask him to provide. For a team like Buffalo that already has D.J. Moore and Khalil Shakir, Shepard would’ve made plenty of sense as a low-risk depth option, giving Allen another trusted set of hands while Coleman works his way back.
With Shepard now off the board, Buffalo will have to look elsewhere. If they still want to add a veteran target to the mix, former Giants receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster is available after being released by New York, and he could provide a similar insurance policy for this offense.
Apparently, the Giants’ receiver room can still help Buffalo out after all.
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