Bills Make HUGE Move... MAJOR Bills Update

The Buffalo Bills have made a huge move, releasing one of their starting pieces on defense. But with the defense's struggles throughout the early part of this season, is this a move that the Bills can even afford to make? And who is even going to be stepping up in this player's place? Plus, why I think that this is an early indicator that Brandon Bean is going to be active and making a blockbuster trade before the trade deadline next week. So we got a lot to talk about, all stemming from the fact that C.J. Garner-Johnson has been released by the Buffalo Bills this evening. So we're going to break it all down, what this means for the Bills going forward. So welcome everybody to Bills Digest. I'm Ben Volker and here at Bills Digest, we've got you covered with all things related to the Buffalo Bills. So if you don't want to miss a thing, you know what to do. Go ahead, hit subscribe so that you can stay up to date on all bills content, just like. And when I say just like this, I mean the most breaking news that we've got here for you. That being that the Bills have indeed released C.J. Garner-Johnson. And this is from NFL insider Jordan Schultz, who says that the Bills are releasing safety Chauncey Garner-Johnson, a.k.a. C.J. G.J., who has started six games for Buffalo, but he did not play on Sunday due to a one-game suspension for a spitting incident. And yes, C.J. Garner-Johnson has made a lot of headlines during his tenure with the Buffalo Bills, and most of them were not for the right reasons. And on Sunday against the Ravens, C.J. Garner-Johnson was serving the suspension that dated all the way back from a few weeks ago now at this point when he got into that altercation in the Raiders game, ended up spitting at Brock Bowers, was immediately... He was ejected from that game and was suspended for the Ravens game. And believe it or not, the Bills played much better without C.J. Garner-Johnson in there, which was kind of shocking because the Bills brought in C.J. Garner-Johnson to be their top safety alongside of Cole Bishop. But he was not good throughout his time in Buffalo. And I think this. Sentiment here says it all. The play wasn't good. The suspension obviously didn't help. The defense played better without him. And it's not shocking that the juice was not worth the squeeze to keep C.J. Garner-Johnson in a Bills uniform throughout the rest of the season. And here's C.J.'s final stat line for his tenure with the Buffalo Bills. 26 tackles, 1 interception, and a lot more. Off the field drama than it was worth for what they were getting out of Garner Johnson here. Of course, that spitting incident with Brock Bowers and the Raiders, that was a very, very telling indicator on C.J. Garner Johnson's character. They brought him in to be a leader for this defense, and he was anything but. You can go back to the Patriots game when he was running his mouth after the game, calling Efton Chisholm a practice squad player after he caught the game-winning touchdown against the Bills. Like that comment said, the juice just was not worth the squeeze in justifying keeping C.J. Garner-Johnson around in a Bills uniform. And we will talk about what this means for the Bills roster going forward. But first, I got to let you guys know that today's video is sponsored by Kalshi. And on Kalshi, you are trading directly against other users, not the house like traditional sportsbooks. You're buying yes or no contracts on the outcome of events across sports, politics. Or even the weather, for example, on Kalshi right now. We are, of course, taking a look, an early look at this Bills-Vikings game. A battle of two 6-1 teams, but Kalshi is liking the Bills on the road in this one with a 63% chance to win. But let's go a step further here. 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Trade $25 with Code Digest NFL and get $55 added to your account instantly. Thank you once again to Kalshi for sponsoring today's video. And let's take a look at what this means for the rest of the Bills roster, specifically their safety position, because who is even left at safety at this point? Well, the first thing we've got to talk about is obviously Cole Bishop. He was a starting safety alongside C.J. Garner-Johnson to start the season. He is going to be even taking more responsibility now that C.J. Garner-Johnson is cut as the number one leader in this safety room for the time being. He hasn't really lived up to what the Bills expected out of Cole Bishop coming into this season. That's a big reason why we are going to be talking about this trade speculation a little bit later. We know what Cole Bishop is capable of. We saw it against the Ravens when he came in out of nowhere, blew up the quarterback and just changed the momentum and forced a turnover. So no surprise there. Cole Bishop is going to be leading this safety unit. Now, the other options now. Let's start with Damar Hamlin. And look, I know Damar Hamlin gets a lot of flack for his tenure in Buffalo. I know a lot of people have very strong opinions on Damar Hamlin. In Sunday's game against the Ravens, he played very good. Now, I do not think that Damar Hamlin is a starting-level safety, but I do think that he is a very solid backup safety in this league. He just is not physical enough. He's not fast enough to be a number-one guy. But when the Bills do have an injury arise or something crazy like a cut for C.J. Garner-Johnson, maybe we see Damar Hamlin. In a starting role for maybe a week or so. The next option is, of course, Geno Stone. Now, Geno Stone started the season on the Bills practice squad. He did not make the team coming out of training camp, but he was re-signed to the Bills practice squad. And a lot of people were writing off Geno Stone. He did not have a good training camp. He didn't really have a good preseason. Damar Hamlin, it was pretty much between him and Damar Hamlin for the backup safety spot. Damar Hamlin ended up winning. That competition, but the Bills brought him up for the game against the Ravens, due in large part to C.J. Garner-Johnson's suspension. But Geno Stone had a pretty large impact in this game, and he said so after the fact that this team brought him back to life. He said, the past few years, it kind of took a mental toll on me, the things I went through, but this place gave me life. That's great to hear, and hopefully that means that Geno Stone, we get a lot more production out of him. Here's his stats so far this year. It's only one game, so take that with a grain of salt, but he did make an impact in this game. He had six tackles for one game. That's pretty good for a guy coming up off of the practice squad. So that's option number two, and if Stone continues to impress, I could see him leapfrogging Damar Hamlin. Now, the other option is the rookie Jalen Kilgore. He has not played much at all this year. People were expecting him to be active for this Ravens game with the C.J. Gardner-Johnson suspension. The Bills ended up pivoting, going to Geno Stone, bringing him up off the practice squad instead. He wasn't on the injury report, so this was a healthy scratch. Thank you very much, and, um... The Bills, we're still waiting to see what they have in Jalen Kilgore, but if the Bills do not make a very immediate move before this Vikings game, we can almost guarantee that we will see Jalen Kilgore, I think, in some capacity or another come Monday night against the Vikings. I think that this means, this C.J. Gardner-Johnson news, take away the fact that he had a lot of comments and a lot of headlines that were made for his off-the-field performance. I think that this is an indicator that the Bills are going to be shopping for a safety come this trade deadline on November 10th. That will be here before we know it. We've been talking a lot. About these potential safety options, and here's just a list of names. There's a ton of more names out here. These are just the big ones that I'm personally, I would be very, very happy if the Bills went out and got. It went out and got you. You got Cam Bynum with the Colts, Budda Baker with the Cardinals, Derwin James with the Chargers, and my personal pick that I think that the Bills are going to try and trade for as of right now is Amari Hooker with the Titans coming off a three interception game against Joe Burrow. Probably has the lowest asking price out of these four players. And I think that this would be a great fit for the Bills to go out and get Amani Hooker. But any of these guys would be great. And now with C.J. Gardner-Johnson out of the picture, The Bills clearly in need of a new starting safety. Because I don't really think Hamlin or Stone or Kilgore is going to be that guy long term. I think that all the pieces are lining up. For the Bills to make a trade for one of these guys. But we will just have to see how that shakes out. But as of now, I want to hear your guys' opinion. Who should start next to Cole Bishop going forward? Here are your options, obviously. Hamlin, Kilgore, Stone. Or is it one of the veterans that we just mentioned? Or maybe it's another guy that I didn't even mention here today. And I want to also hear from you guys. Do you think that Brandon Bean made the right move? in cutting C.J. Garner-Johnson. Let me know in the comments what you guys think. I think my answer for this one, they got to trade for a veteran. It's got to be Amani Hooker, in my opinion. So that's what I'm going with for this question here. If you guys agree, leave a like on this video. And of course, if you disagree, let me know in the comments why as well. But yeah, a crazy day here for the Buffalo Bills as we continue our coverage leading up to this NFL trade deadline. Hopefully, it means that this is only just the beginning for Brandon Bean. That remains to be seen. But regardless of what happens at that trade deadline, keep it right here on Bills Digest because we will have a ton of more content coming your way leading up to that trade deadline and, of course, leading up to the Vikings game as well. So keep an eye out for all of that. As always, thanks for watching. And, of course, go Bills!