{"id":657132,"date":"2026-01-05T23:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T23:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/657132\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T23:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T23:54:12","slug":"matt-prater-injury-update-bills-kicker-could-play-in-wild-card-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/657132\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Prater injury update: Bills kicker could play in Wild Card game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buffalo Bills<\/a> head coach Sean McDermott had some positive news regarding kicker Matt Prater during his media availability on Monday.<\/p>\n

Prater, 41, returned from a right quad injury in the Bills\u2019 35-8 win over the New York Jets after missing the team\u2019s previous two games. At some point in the first half, Prater reaggravated the right quad injury. McDermott was told at halftime that Prater could no longer kick. This led to punter Mitch Wishnowsky handling kickoffs and the team going for two after every touchdown in the second half.<\/p>\n

Losing Prater in the regular-season finale led many to believe that Buffalo would need a new kicker for the playoffs. That may still hold true, but McDermott told the media that Prater is currently day-to-day and could potentially kick on Sunday in the team\u2019s Wild Card matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars.<\/p>\n

McDermott added that the Bills will host multiple kickers this week. This will give the Bills a backup plan if Prater cannot kick against the Jaguars.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unknown who the Bills will bring in for tryouts at this time, but the team hosted Younghoe Koo, Gavin Stewart and Maddux Trajillo back on December 23. One or all three could take part in Tuesday\u2019s tryouts along with other options.<\/p>\n

Prater converted on 18-of-20 field goals (90%) in the regular season. The veteran kicker also made 46-of-49 extra points (93.9%) in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott had some positive news regarding kicker Matt Prater during his media availability…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2048],"tags":[215,214,53,2086,7,4704,6,10140],"class_list":{"0":"post-657132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-bills","8":"tag-bills","9":"tag-buffalo","10":"tag-buffalo-bills","11":"tag-buffalobills","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-highmark-stadium","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-week-18"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115845193058313811","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}