The Buffalo Bills will see Josh Allen and other starters taking the field at the team’s preseason opener on August 10.

Bills head coach Sean McDermott announced on August 8 that Allen, who has played sparingly in the preseason in past years, will be playing close to a quarter in the team’s first preseason game against the Chicago Bears.

McDermott said it was important for the starters to get up to speed ahead of the start of the season, and that meant getting Allen onto the field.

“It’s really, to me, it’s getting them ramped up and ready to go for the season,” McDermott said, via ESPN’s Alaina Getzenberg. “It’s an important step, hard to simulate the speed of the game and so getting that in preseason is important, going through warmups and the energy that comes with playing a game in front of fans, and being able to manage that. So, there’s a lot of reasons for it, like I said, it’s just another step.”

No Set Plan for Josh Allen’s Playing Time

McDermott said there is no specific plan for how much time Allen will play over the course of the team’s three preseason games this year. The Bills coach hinted that Allen could use the time to gain chemistry with a new set of wide receivers brought on this offseason.

“We’ll just take it one week at a time,” McDermott said. “So, you know, there’s a number of new faces on our offense also, including his receiving corps and so some of that is baked into this. But the biggest thing is individually we’ve got to get ourselves ready to go and go from there.”

The Bills have several new faces on offense, with top receivers Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis departing this offseason and the team adding several veterans including Curtis Samuel, Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Chase Claypool. The preseason will also be the first live-game action for wide receiver Keon Coleman, the team’s top draft pick.