LeSean McCoy‘s status has vacillated from missing multiple weeks to being back in the Bills’ lineup Sunday. The hamstring injury the standout ball-carrier sustained this week did not stop him from traveling with the Bills to Miami and could be mild enough to allow the seventh-year running back to have a role in Week 7, Jason La Canfora of CBSSports.com reports (on Twitter).
Signs are pointing for McCoy to play in a limited capacity against the Dolphins, per La Canfora, with Mike Gillislee in that case seeing his role expand. Shady is expected to be active for the game, La Canfora notes.
Both are running well on a per-carry basis for a rejuvenated Buffalo outfit, but Shady has amassed 100-plus rushing yards in three of the four games since Anthony Lynn replaced Greg Roman as the Bills’ OC.
We heard earlier this week McCoy could be facing a multi-week absence because of the hamstring setback, so expecting a full workload from the darkhorse MVP candidate might be a stretch. Despite the danger of hamstring injuries on skill-position players, and McCoy’s own history with this type of injury, the Bills did not make a move to add a running back this week. The Bills have Reggie Bush and Jonathan Williams behind Gillislee if McCoy can’t go.
Having rushed for 587 yards (5.6 per carry) this season, McCoy is on pace for his fifth 1,000-yard campaign. He only gained 895 on the ground in his 2015 Bills debut. He missed time in ’15 due to a hamstring ailment, which could induce the Bills to play it safe with their cornerstone offensive threat. But it’s shaping up as a true game-time decision in advance of the 1 p.m. tilt.