Six Ex-Bills Return as Patriots Open New Highmark

Six former Buffalo Bills are on the Patriots roster for Sunday’s first visit to Buffalo’s new Highmark Stadium. New England is 1-2. Buffalo is 3-0. Kickoff for the Week 4 game in Orchard Park is 1 p.m. Eastern on CBS.

The headcount is the fun fact. The inactive list is the catch. Guard Greg Van Roten is on injured reserve. Rookie lineman Da’Metrius Weatherspoon is on the practice squad. Fullback Reggie Gilliam, who spent six seasons in Buffalo, is questionable with a knee injury. After a Super Bowl appearance last season, New England has scored 36 points in three games.

Six Former Bills Walk Into a Stadium Most Never Played In

The visiting organization carries Mack Hollins, Gilliam, DaQuan Jones, punter Mitch Wishnowsky, Van Roten and Weatherspoon. Hollins, Jones and Wishnowsky are in position to play. Gilliam spent Friday trying to join them. Van Roten and Weatherspoon will not.

Most of that group never took a regular-season snap in this building. Highmark opened for football this summer. Gilliam’s 94 Buffalo games and Jones’s four seasons happened across Abbott Road, in the old bowl the Bills are leaving behind.

THE SIX ON THE PATRIOTS ROSTER

Buffalo did not dump a championship core. It let veterans walk, cut a punter for a rookie, and declined to keep an undrafted lineman. Foxborough, scraping for bodies after a 6-35 loss at Jacksonville, took the leftovers.

New England’s First Look at a $2.2 Billion House

The Patriots’ own game notes call this their first visit to Buffalo’s new stadium. The club is 30-34 since the 1970 merger in a first regular-season game at a new opposing venue. Buffalo has won both of its regular-season games in the building.

New England beat the Bills 23-20 on Sunday Night Football on Oct. 5, 2025, in the old house, snapping a four-game losing streak in Buffalo. The all-time series still leans the other way. The Patriots have 80 wins over Buffalo, their most against any opponent.

THE NEW HOUSE IN ORCHARD PARK

• The seats: Highmark holds 60,108, about 11,500 fewer than the 71,608-seat bowl it replaces, and the smallest capacity in the league.
• The bill: Bills president Pete Guelli put the cost at about $2.2 billion, with $850 million in public money ($600 million from New York State and $250 million from Erie County).
• The calendar: Groundbreaking was June 5, 2023. The ribbon cutting was June 23. The first regular-season game was Sept. 17 against Detroit.

Elias Sports Bureau notes that New England is the first team to reach a Super Bowl and then open the next season with four straight games against clubs that made the playoffs: Seattle, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville and Buffalo. The Patriots lost 10-13 at Seattle on Sept. 9, beat Pittsburgh 20-3 on Sept. 20, then collapsed 6-35 at Jacksonville on Sept. 27. They have allowed 51 points. Buffalo has scored 101, a 33.7-point average that leads the league. New England is at 12.0.

Mack Hollins Is Drake Maye’s Remaining Sure Thing

Hollins spent one season in Buffalo and led the Bills with five receiving touchdowns in 2024. He signed with New England in 2025 and has been Drake Maye’s safest target while A.J. Brown sits on injured reserve. Through three games he has 12 catches for 156 yards, including 6 of 9 targets for 87 yards in the Jacksonville rout.

Mike Vrabel has treated that connection as the one piece of the passing game that still looks like last year.

There’s nothing more important than the quarterback-receiver. They’re able to think alike. Mack works hard at that. He’s got great energy and was a big part of our success last year.

Mike Vrabel, Patriots head coach, Friday news conference

Maye has 585 passing yards, one touchdown and six interceptions. Josh Allen has 786 yards, five touchdowns and two interceptions. Hollins is not going to close that gap by himself. He is the only former Bill on this roster who still changes a drive chart.

How the Bills Lost Six Players to New England

Each exit was a separate football decision. Lined up, they read as a pipeline.

HOW THEY LEFT BUFFALO

• Hollins: Played out 2024 as a complementary target for Allen, then signed a two-year deal in New England.
• Gilliam: An undrafted pickup in 2020 who lasted six seasons and took a three-year free-agent deal with the Patriots in March.
• Jones: Buffalo declined to re-sign him after a contract that paid $8 million per season; he sat two weeks, then joined Vrabel on Sept. 12.
• Wishnowsky: Lost the punting job to rookie Tommy Doman Jr. in camp and was released on Aug. 30.
• Van Roten: A 2022 rental (16 games, four starts) who signed with New England in August after a visit.
• Weatherspoon: A Syracuse undrafted free agent signed May 8 and waived Aug. 30 after the preseason.

Jones is the one Buffalo still had to think about. The 34-year-old defensive tackle posted 99 tackles and 10 sacks in 51 games with the Bills and played 12 games last season. Ian Rapoport said he signed a one-year deal worth $3.5 million that can reach $6 million, a reunion with Vrabel from their Tennessee years. He has two tackles on 75 defensive snaps and 12 special-teams snaps. Christian Barmore’s shoulder injury makes that rotation less theoretical than it looked in September.

Gilliam has 41 offensive snaps and 37 on special teams, with one catch for four yards. He was limited Wednesday, sat Thursday, and returned to practice Friday. If he plays, it will be the longest Buffalo stay on this list walking back in as a visitor.

Practice-Squad Help and an Injured-Reserve Guard

The last two names explain why the reunion photo will be missing bodies.

THE BILLS-TO-PATRIOTS PIPELINE

1. Aug. 30: Buffalo releases Wishnowsky and Weatherspoon at final cuts.
2. Aug. 31: New England signs Wishnowsky to the practice squad, one day later.
3. Sept. 12: The Patriots sign Jones to the 53-man roster.
4. Sept. 22: Wishnowsky is signed to the 53-man roster as Mike Onwenu goes on injured reserve with a broken ankle.
5. Sept. 29: Van Roten, who started at right guard in Week 3 after Onwenu went down, goes on injured reserve with a thigh injury.
6. Sept. 30: The club signed him to the practice squad, adding Weatherspoon, 23, a 6-foot-6, 319-pound lineman who started all 12 Syracuse games in 2025.

Wishnowsky, 34, punted 13 games for Buffalo last season after earlier stops with San Francisco and a brief Washington practice-squad turn. New England elevated him for the first two games; at Seattle he landed three of his four punts inside the 20 and averaged 44.3 yards. He has 10 punts for 468 yards this season, a 46.8-yard average, five inside the 20 and a long of 73. Career: 106 games, 352 punts, 16,042 yards, a 45.6-yard average.

Van Roten is 36. He filled in when Onwenu broke the ankle against Pittsburgh, then lasted into the Jacksonville game before the thigh injury ended the stay. Ben Brown is in line to start at right guard. Weatherspoon is insurance behind a line that has already lost two right guards.

Doug Marrone Returns to the Franchise He Once Coached

The sixth player is not the only Buffalo ghost on the trip. Doug Marrone, the Bills’ head coach in 2013 and 2014, is in his second season as New England’s offensive line coach, hired on Jan. 28, 2025. He took Buffalo to 9-7 in 2014, the club’s first winning record since 2004, then left. On Sunday he works the visiting sideline in a building that did not exist when he coached there, with a line missing Onwenu and Van Roten.

Joe Brady, Buffalo’s former offensive coordinator, now runs the home sideline. The coaching tree moved too. The players just made the transfer easier to count.

New England Walks Into Buffalo Without Gonzalez and Barmore

Cornerback Christian Gonzalez and defensive tackle Barmore are out with shoulder injuries. Safety Brenden Schooler is out. Vrabel said Friday those would be the only “out” designations, with several teammates questionable, including Gilliam and tackle Morgan Moses. Maye was listed with a right shoulder after Jacksonville and practiced fully. Vrabel said he expects the quarterback to play.

After the Jacksonville game Vrabel did not dress it up.

My concern level is very high for this football team. I just want to coach and improve. We have to take care of the football.

Mike Vrabel, Patriots head coach, after the 35-6 loss at Jacksonville

The defense that held Pittsburgh to a field goal in a 20-3 win, with Elijah Ponder’s 19-yard fumble return and TreVeyon Henderson’s 39-yard touchdown run, now goes on the road without its top corner and a starting interior lineman. Jones, the former Bill, is part of that thinner front. Hollins is part of a thinner passing game. Wishnowsky will punt in a stadium where he worked last season in the other color.

Sunday starts at 1 p.m. Eastern. Hollins, Jones and Wishnowsky will wear visiting white in a 60,108-seat house Buffalo opened this summer. Gilliam is trying to walk in with them. The other two stay home.