When Bills coach Rex Ryan appeared recently on PFT Live on NBC Sports Radio, I asked him whether he’d consider signing running back Ray Rice, given that they spent Rice’s first year as a player and Rex’s last year as a coordinator together.
“For us, we kind of have a loaded backfield, so there won’t even be a consideration there, because [of] the type of depth we have,” Ryan said at the time. “And I think that’s probably what a lot of it is. I was with Ray in Baltimore [and] I really liked him when I was there. . . . We don’t have any interest and we never went into great detail about it because of the type of depth that we have at running back.”
With that depth suddenly being depleted given the lingering hamstring injury to Fred Jackson and the new hamstring injury to LeSean McCoy, there’s a chance that will change. As noted when first sharing the coach’s quote on August 9, however, there was a forcefulness to Ryan’s response, suggesting that the door is shut.
The door would definitely be shut if someone else signs Rice, and the possibility that the Bills could become interested in Rice could be the spark the Browns need to finally add him to the roster.