The Bills didn’t list running back C.J. Spiller on their injury report last week, signaling that he’d fully recovered from the ankle injury that has plagued him for several weeks.
Spiller sent a previous signal to that effect with 116 rushing yards in the Week Nine loss to the Chiefs, but he did not spend Sunday’s loss to the Steelers filling the role of feature back that he was playing when he was healthy early this season. Spiller played half as many snaps as Fred Jackson, leading some to wonder if there was a recurrence of Spiller’s injury. Coach Doug Marrone said Monday that injury had nothing to do with the split of playing time, however.
“Game plan. How we’re putting those guys in there,” Marrone said, via the Buffalo News. “Doesn’t have anything to do with his ankle.”
Marrone said that Spiller’s role could increase or decrease from week to week depending on what the team plans to do that week. That’s a big difference from last week when Marrone said he was excited to be able to use Spiller more often and may mean that concerns about the ankle still linger because it’s hard to imagine the Bills having so little use for a healthy Spiller.