On Sunday, the 10-2 Buffalo Bills welcomed their longtime star linebacker Matt Milano from an injury after a 14-month absence during a 35-10 rout of the San Francisco 49ers. Three days later, one of the most prominent franchise members from the last seven years canceled potential retirement plans to return for the season’s stretch run.
Micah Hyde, one of the best safeties in franchise history, is back with the organization just in time for their playoff push. Bills head coach Sean McDermott announced the reunion on Wednesday afternoon, saying that the team signed Hyde to the practice squad.
Hyde has been a beloved member of the locker room since arriving to the organization in 2017, constantly looked at as one of the voices of the locker room. Hyde’s addition, as the Bills are in a great position to chase after their first Super Bowl title in franchise history, adds one more trusted voice for the team to depend on.
Micah Hyde is back in the building pic.twitter.com/Nz9qTIYy6L
— Joe Buscaglia (@JoeBuscaglia) December 4, 2024
“The leadership piece, for sure. You guys know Micah,” McDermott said. “I’ve said this when he was here playing. He can go down to the bank at the corner and be the president of the bank just as easily as he could be the captain of the Buffalo Bills. He just has a unique way about him, from a leadership standpoint, of who he is as a person and his presence and the way he’s very adaptable to people and to his surroundings.”
Hyde joins a safety room with starters Taylor Rapp and Damar Hamlin, backup rookie Cole Bishop and practice squad veteran Kareem Jackson. McDermott was very careful to set expectations of Hyde’s role in his return.
“We are fully confident in Taylor Rapp, Damar Hamlin, Cole Bishop, Kareem Jackson,” McDermott said seconds after announcing Hyde’s return. “They’ve all been doing a real good job for us in the roles that they are currently in, and they are going to stay in those roles, and Micah is in a practice squad role.”
As a practice squad member, the Bills could elevate Hyde to the game-day roster three times over their final five games. If he remains on the practice squad in the postseason, they can elevate him for as many games as they’re alive without limit.
Hyde, 33, has always obsessed over bringing a Super Bowl title to Buffalo. And now he’ll have one final chance to help the Bills do just that.
Why was now the time to return for Hyde?
While there was a lot of chatter early in the year of Hyde returning to action, it didn’t seem realistic until later in the season for a few reasons. The likely most important factor is that Hyde has a history of neck injuries, so subjecting himself to a full season of potential re-injury before he calls it a career may not have been a logical scenario. On top of that, at the end of the 2023 season, Hyde — a self-proclaimed family man — talked a great deal about spending a lot of time with his wife and children as he contemplated his future. Getting the chance to have a normal Thanksgiving holiday without the presence of football, along with the ever-present conversation about his neck injury history, kept the likelihood of him returning before December at a small chance.
The kicker to the situation is that the Bills likely had to be in a position to make a title push if Hyde was going to give it one last go-round. Hyde has obsessed about getting to the Super Bowl in Buffalo since he arrived in 2017, so it wouldn’t have made any sense for him to commit to playing, given all his other reasons, without knowing he’d have one last chance to win it all. Now with the Bills at 10-2, already division champions and only one Chiefs loss from sliding into the AFC’s No. 1 seed, Hyde couldn’t have asked for a better situation.
Why there were plenty of signs about the Hyde reunion
The Bills are usually highly intentional in how they answer speculative questions. In most cases, if they are asked about something that doesn’t have to do directly with the players on their roster, they’ve deferred to the popular cliché of “focusing on the players in the building.” But they have not shut it down anytime Hyde has been brought up in a news conference.
In late August, just ahead of the start of the season, general manager Brandon Beane addressed the Hyde situation.
“[We] love Micah and we have not closed the door on that,” Beane said. “And as far as I understand, I don’t think Micah has either. We’ll stay in touch.”
In July, Beane also said that Hyde was “staying ready.”
When speaking on his playing future ahead of training camp, Hyde said that the only franchise he would consider returning to would be the Bills. And without him announcing his retirement or having any kind of public closure, it has remained a possibility all season.
Within the last month, Josh Allen, who is usually well-polished at a news conference, had a rare moment of getting caught by surprise without a go-to answer. Taken aback a bit, Allen said on the potential reunion, “That would be great, but depending on… I don’t know what you want me to say.” Allen later said he has chatted with Hyde, and believed the entire locker room would welcome the safety back with open arms.
And if you’re into signs from the franchise, there were two pretty pertinent ones. They did not issue Hyde’s No. 23 at any stage of the 2024 season, whether in training camp, the regular season or to anyone on the practice squad. And Hyde’s longtime locker stall, prime real estate near the center of the locker room with a lot of space around it, remained vacant all year.
The stage has been set for Hyde’s eventual return since the day the 2024 season began. The team is in as good of a condition as it has been since McDermott arrived, making the opportunity a clear one.
Required reading
- Linebacker Matt Milano showing signs of returning to elite form for Bills
- NFL Coach of the Year odds: Dan Campbell favored, Mike Tomlin and Kevin O’Connell rising
- Super Bowl 2025 odds: Bills, Eagles, Chiefs in dead heat behind Lions
(Photo: Timothy T Ludwig / Getty Images)
