Buffalo Bills have been rocked by injuries, but that’s life in the NFL

Often, the best NFL teams are the ones that stay the healthiest. There’s nothing to indicate that that overall health of a team is anything but luck based.

And this is, so far, a pretty unlucky year for the Buffalo Bills. Receiver Sammy Watkins returned from a calf injury, only to injure himself again on a touchdown last Sunday. Running back LeSean McCoy missed time with a hamstring injury. His backup Karlos Williams has missed two games with a concussion. Quarterback Tyrod Taylor missed last week’s loss with a knee injury. On Tuesday the Bills placed receiver Marquise Goodwin on injured reserve due to a rib injury. And so on.

Coaches rarely share their honest feelings about injuries. The smarter ones will find a way to weave it into press conferences without it sounding like they’re complaining, but Bills coach Rex Ryan took the rare step of just admitting the injuries have gotten him down.

“I think the thing that’s killing me right now. I mean, it’s frustrating,” Ryan said, according to Syracuse.com. “Injuries are a part of the game, there’s no question about it, but it’s we’ve been so snake bit. It’s just unbelievable to me.

“I think it’s affecting everybody’s morale, mine included. … You have a vision of what this team can be when we’re healthy, and it’s just frustrating because you don’t have your parts. I know we can compete with anybody, but it just seems like we take a step forward and then we end up taking two steps back.”

In the video at the top, Shaun King laments that we’re not seeing the best of the Bills because of injuries, and I agree. It would be fun to see the Bills get back to the playoffs for the first time since 1999, and injuries might rob them of that opportunity. But that’s life in the NFL. Ask the Dallas Cowboys or Pittsburgh Steelers if the league stopped and waited for them to get healthy.

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There’s not much the Bills can do about it, aside from figure out ways to stay in the wild-card race until they get healthy. And McCoy’s return last week helped the offense, and Taylor is optimistic he can play this week against the Jacksonville Jaguars in London.

The Bills are 3-3 and there’s not much they can do about injuries past or the ones that will happen going forward. It stinks for them, but it’s just life in the NFL. Sometimes it’s not fair.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab