Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - There are some touting Sunday's matchup between the Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park a Super Bowl LX preview.
Both teams have already punched their tickets to the postseason, but the Eagles are the only ones who have guaranteed themselves a home playoff matchup by winning their division. While the Bills remain alive to still win the AFC East for a six-straight season, they need to win their remaining two games, while needing the New England Patriots to lose one of their final two matchups against either the New York Jets this week or the Miami Dolphins next week.
Even if the Bills win-out and don't capture a division title, there is still playoff seeding at stake in the AFC by stacking wins to close out the regular season.
"It's a very tight race there as well with the [Los Angeles] Chargers having an identical record as the Bills and a better conference record, which would give them the tie-breaker edge. And then just a game behind the Bills are the Houston Texans, who have the head-to-head tie-breaker on Buffalo. If they finished with an identical win-loss record, they would move ahead of them in the Wild Card seedings as well," said Bills radio play-by-play man Chris Brown with WBEN on Friday.
Over the last few weeks, each game for the Bills seems to be a "tale of two halves" story, with Buffalo performing well for one half of football and then struggling to accomplish much of anything in the other. Brown knows it's a dangerous game to play, especially in this case against the reigning Super Bowl champs.
In order to avoid much of the same this week against a much more challenging 10-5 Eagles team, Brown believes the Bills have to use what has worked well for them all season long - their run game with James Cook, who is now the league's leading rusher with over 1,500 yards on the ground in 15 games this season.
"The Eagles have not been as good a run defense as they were a year ago, they're 21st in the league against the run," Brown noted. "I would anticipate Philadelphia is going to do a very similar thing, because they've had trouble getting their offense on track until they leaned into their run game with Saquon Barkley, last year's Offensive Player of the Year. I think both teams are gonna try to run the ball here early, and then see if they can use some pass game and play action off of that."
The Eagles were one of the most electric offenses in the NFL last season en route to their Super Bowl LIX victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. However, under the leadership of first-year offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo, Philadelphia is tied for 16th in scoring, 22nd in total yards, 15th in rushing yards and 23rd in passing yards.
Despite that, Brown sees how the Eagles are starting to get one of their top weapons back into the mix this late in the season.
"They are getting A.J. Brown more involved the last couple of weeks, he is still their leading receiver, and there was a lot of angst midseason because Jalen Hurts was not connecting with Brown through the course of games nearly as much as fans expected. There was a whole uproar, there was a little bit of a disconnect between the quarterback and their No. 1 receiver. But it appears, at least for now, they've smoothed things over," Brown explained. "A.J. Brown is getting a lot more targets per-game, so the Bills are going to have to come up with an answer for that. I would imagine Christian Benford is going to follow him in man coverage calls, that's kind of been the bills M.O. when facing a top-flight receiver the caliber of Brown."
And while injuries continue to remain a concern for the Bills with two regular season games remaining, the biggest concern for Buffalo this week will be the health of quarterback Josh Allen, who's dealing with a foot injury suffered in last week's win over the Cleveland Browns.
Brown feels based on how Allen's foot is feeling heading into this weekend's contest, it'll determine how the Bills want to draw up their offensive attack against a defense that has been the Eagles' strength all year long.
"How is his mobility? Is he the elusive player that we've all come to know and love, or is his mobility compromised by this foot injury? If he can't get himself out of trouble, you do not want to put him at risk in a game," Brown said. "I'm not saying he's not going to play, he has insisted all week he's going to be fine to play in the game, but I think if his mobility is compromised, you may have to change how you block up pass protection and other things if you know that Josh can't roll out on a bootleg or avoid a blitzer."
Kickoff on Sunday is slated for 4:25 p.m.
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