The Patriots will take on the Bills this Saturday night on Wild Card Weekend for the third time this season.
Buffalo, who won the AFC East with four straight wins to close out the regular season, has opened as 4.5-point favorites.
New England won the first meeting, 14-10, in early December where winds were near 40 mph and Mac Jones only attempted three passes. A few weeks later, Buffalo got the Patriots back at Gillette Stadium when it came away with a 33-21 win. Josh Allen had one of the best games of his career, going 30-for-47 passing with 314 yards and three touchdowns, to go along with 64 yards on the ground.
This is the second time in their history the two teams will meet in the postseason, the last time coming way back in 1963.
Here are a few early thoughts on the matchup.
— Injuries could play a factor for the Patriots as a few players will be worth monitoring over the course of the week. First off, Kyle Dugger (hand) and Dont’a Hightower (knee) did not make the trip to Miami for the season finale, and then Isaiah Wynn (ankle) and Christian Barmore (knee) suffered injuries in the game. Dugger, Hightower and Barmore are three of the defense’s better players, while if Wynn has to miss the game the offensive line may need to do quite a bit of reshuffling.
— It’s quite apparent now how much getting off to a good start leads to success for this year’s Patriots team. They are 8-1 when scoring points in the first quarter this season, and 2-6 when they don’t. Winning the turnover battle also has had a major correlation to wins and losses, as they are 8-0 when winning it, 1-6 when losing it and 1-1 when it’s tied.
— A theme from Patriots players and Bill Belichick after the loss to Miami was stressing how important playing a full 60 minutes is. Usually, teams that struggle with this cannot finish games, but for the Patriots it has been getting off to slow starts and then not making a key play at the end. The margin for error is very slim for this year’s group.
— For the Bills, Allen figures to be the difference-maker in the game. If he’s on top of his game, the Bills will be very tough to beat. It’s also worth pointing out with how good as he was in the last meeting, he was missing two of his top wide receivers in Cole Beasley and Gabriel Davis. Buffalo picked on Myles Bryant with Isaiah McKenzie, so look for offensive coordinator Brian Daboll to try and scheme up more matchup mismatches in this game.
— Buffalo reached the red zone on all seven of its meaningful possessions in the last meeting (excluding the last drive of half and game). Part of that was going 6-for-12 on third down, while the Patriots went just 1-for-10. Belichick pointed to third down as being the biggest factor in the Bills winning, so look for that to change this time around.
— New England’s defense needs to come ready to play and be a factor in the game. Jones has shown he cannot be depended to win a game on his own and with all the playmakers the Patriots defense has, it needs to be better than it’s been. Allowing close to 200 yards rushing to Miami in the season finale is inexcusable. The unit has padded its stats with dominating performances against poor offenses, but it’s been a different story when the opposition is average to above average.
— While wind chills are expected to be below zero, the weather doesn’t appear to be a major issue. The forecast doesn’t call for much wind and what little precipitation that is predicted should be during the day. This favors the Bills, as Allen should have no problem throwing the ball.
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