Bills Special Teams Camp Battle: Doman Jr. Pushes Wishnowsky at Punter

Buffalo’s biggest training camp battle might not be at cornerback or wide receiver. It might be at punter.

The Bills open camp on July 29 with two punters on the roster: incumbent Mitch Wishnowsky and rookie Tommy Doman Jr., whom Buffalo selected with the No. 239 overall pick in the seventh round of the 2026 NFL Draft out of Florida. It’s a quiet subplot, but it says something about how the Bills think about their specialists heading into the season.

Wishnowsky returns, but not without competition

Wishnowsky is back on a one-year deal after handling the punting job for most of last season. He took over in Week 5 of 2025 and never let go of it, finishing with a 45.3-yard gross average and an inside-the-20 rate that ranked seventh in the league, according to Buffalo Rumblings. He enters 2026 at 34 years old.

Doman Jr. just turned 24. He punted at Michigan before transferring to Florida for his final season, and he arrives with a national championship ring from his time with the Wolverines. A seventh-round pick isn’t usually a threat to unseat a veteran. But special teams jobs get decided in camp reps and preseason kicks, not draft slot, and the Bills clearly wanted a young leg in the building to push Wishnowsky.

If Doman Jr. outperforms him over the next several weeks, Buffalo could be looking at a long-term answer at a position it hasn’t had to think much about since Wishnowsky arrived. If he doesn’t, the rookie likely spends this season watching and waiting.

Tyler Bass’s job isn’t guaranteed either

Kicker Tyler Bass didn’t kick a single snap in 2025. He suffered hip and groin injuries in training camp, went 3-of-4 on field goals in Buffalo’s third preseason game, then landed on injured reserve before Week 1. Head coach Sean McDermott confirmed in December that Bass underwent season-ending surgery after the injury never fully healed.

Veteran Matt Prater stepped in and had arguably the best season of his long career, converting 90 percent of his field goals and 93.9 percent of his extra points. General manager Brandon Beane said in late January that Bass was nearing full health, and Beane told reporters he expects Bass to be Buffalo’s kicker in 2026, per SI’s coverage of Beane’s comments. That’s encouraging, but it’s also a “we’ll see” situation. If Bass has any setbacks in camp or the preseason, Buffalo has already shown it can lean on Prater without missing a beat.

Reid Ferguson remains the one certainty

While the punter and kicker jobs carry some uncertainty, long snapper isn’t one of them. Reid Ferguson is set to enter his tenth season with the Bills, a run that started when he signed as an undrafted free agent out of LSU in 2016. He’s the longest-tenured player on the roster and, per Buffalo Rumblings’ 2026 scouting report, the only long snapper currently on the roster. Ferguson is in the second year of a four-year, $6.5 million contract, and barring injury, there’s no real scenario where he isn’t snapping for Buffalo again this fall.

None of this will headline Buffalo’s camp coverage the way the quarterback room or secondary battles will. But special teams games get decided by inches, and how these jobs shake out over the next month will matter plenty once the games start counting.