For a top draft pick, the bench is an unfamiliar and unwelcome place, but it’s become Keon Coleman’s reality in Buffalo. The situation surrounding Buffalo Bills wide receiver is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Despite being the team’s top draft pick just a year ago, Coleman has recently found himself on the sidelines as a “healthy scratch” for key matchups against the Cleveland Browns and Philadelphia Eagles.

His absence is particularly striking because he is not injured; rather, the coaching staff is making a deliberate choice to leave him out of the lineup. When asked if there is still a future for Coleman in Buffalo, Coach McDermott gave a cautious response.

“No, we do. I mean, every week, we’re trying to find the right combination, and continuity is important. So, we’d love to have that right week to week. But depending on how the game plan turns out and so on, and some of those things, I think those are the questions we start every week with: ‘Hey, who do we have available? What does the game plan look like? And then we go from there,” he said.

Coleman’s downward trend seems to be fueled by a mix of off-field discipline issues and a lack of game plan necessity. Earlier in the season, Coleman was benched after being late to a team meeting, leading head coach Sean McDermott to emphasize that the young receiver needs to earn the “trust and respect” of his teammates. He was later benched in week 16 again, stating it was completely the coach’s decision.

While he has shown flashes of talent, his stats tell the story of a player struggling to find his rhythm, with only 36 catches for 355 yards across 12 appearances this season.

While the coach hasn’t officially given up on the second-round pick, the fact that the Bills are prioritizing other receiver combinations late in the season suggests that Coleman has a long way to go to reclaim his role.

While Coach McDermott’s recent comments about “player combinations” might sound a bit vague, his actions and words in Week 16 make the situation much clearer.

McDermott gets honest about the actual reason for not playing Coleman on the field

In Week 16 of the 2025 season, the Buffalo Bills secured a narrow 23–20 victory over the Cleveland Browns in a game defined by a heavy ground attack. Rather than relying on the arm of Josh Allen, who had a relatively quiet day through the air, the Bills leaned on their running backs to grind out the win. However, the most talked-about story of the day wasn’t the final score, but the surprising absence of wide receivers Keon Coleman and Gabe Davis, both of whom were healthy but left off the active roster.

When asked about the decision to bench the two prominent receivers, head coach Sean McDermott described it as a “lineup-based decision.” This explanation suggests that the team’s specific strategy for the Browns game simply didn’t have a role for Coleman or Davis. This is what NFL Network’s Cameron Wolfe reported on X:

“Bills WR Keon Coleman will be a healthy INACTIVE today, per source. This is a coach decision – not discipline related.”

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Because the Bills intended to run the ball repeatedly, they prioritized active players who could contribute as physical blockers on the perimeter, an area where neither Coleman nor Davis is considered a specialist.

Furthermore, the team wanted to make room for Mecole Hardman, who was returning from an injury. In the NFL, activating one player often means another must sit, and the coaching staff decided that Hardman’s speed or special teams value was more important for this specific matchup. While Davis has been a healthy scratch in multiple recent weeks, Coleman’s benching was particularly notable given his earlier two-game suspension for disciplinary reasons.

McDermott was quick to clarify during his Monday media availability that this latest move was not about punishment or off-field issues. He insisted it was strictly about finding the right combination of players for the game plan. Despite these reassurances, the decision to keep both players on the sidelines during a close game has led to significant speculation about their future roles in Buffalo’s offense as the team heads toward the playoffs.