The Buffalo Bills will play one of the most meaningful regular-season games of the Josh Allen/Sean McDermott era when they face the New England Patriots Sunday in Foxboro.
It’s a significant game because of what it means to this season and also in how it plays into the larger narrative of both teams.
Put simply, a Patriots win gives New England the AFC East title for the first time since 2019, snapping the Bills’ streak of five consecutive division titles, a run that showed no signs of being in danger when the season began.
The Bills have been exposed over the course of this season as a team with many flaws. But in Allen’s age-29 season, having spent a slew of draft capital and free-agent dollars on the defence, it all seemed lined up for the Bills to make it six division titles in a row.
That streak seemed very safe before New England made its annual visit to Orchard Park back on Oct. 5. At kickoff of that Sunday night game, the Bills were the only undefeated team remaining in the NFL at 4-0, while the Pats came in at 2-2 with losses to the Pittsburgh Steelers and Las Vegas Raiders.
That defeat to the Steelers back on Sept. 21, in which they lost the turnover battle by a 5-1 margin, is the last time the Patriots failed to win a game.
It’s been a run built around their sophomore quarterback, Drake Maye, who has demonstrated a stunning level of consistency over the course of the season, having at least 200 yards passing each game, a touchdown pass in all but one, and no multiple-interception games.
The rise of the Patriots, like the rise of the Bills a half-decade ago, has been built around the play of a young quarterback playing beyond his years.
It seemed unfathomable that the AFC East would have a better quarterback than Allen while he is still in his prime. But that’s been the case this season, and it’s why we’re where we are heading into Sunday.
Allen, while not matching his MVP performance of a year ago, remains one of the best at his position and has faced unique challenges this season running an offence that lacks elite receiver talent.
You could say the same thing about last year’s Bills and yet they became the highest-scoring team in franchise history.
But it’s funny how often in football that the thing that worked one season doesn’t end up working the next.
The Bills’ offence has had to change on the fly since that loss to New England more than two months ago, moving away from wide receivers and increasingly reliant on tight ends and running backs as the foundation of the passing game.
Consider that in that loss to the Patriots on Oct. 5, Allen targeted wide receivers with 21 throws.
Over the Bills’ past two games, wins over Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, Allen has targeted receivers just a total of 19 times. In last week’s win over the Bengals, receivers accounted for just 69 of the Bills’ 434 yards of offence.
So, this is a different offence than the one New England saw the first time around – one that turned the ball over three times against the Pats that day.
Beyond the meaningfulness of this game to the immediate playoff futures of both teams, there’s a larger significance at play as well.
The rise of the Allen/McDermott era Bills coincided with the end of the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick era Patriots. And since 2020, the Bills have owned the AFC East, as well as all the teams within it, head to head.
If New England can beat Buffalo on Sunday, sweeping the season series against the Bills and snapping their streak of consecutive division titles, it will be hard not to see it as a changing of the guard.
Up to this point, all the questions about the Bills and a potentially closing Super Bowl window have been about their internal roster challenges and the existential threat of Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.
But that narrative appears about to be replaced by one about a 23-year-old star quarterback within the Bills’ own division, playing for a coach in Mike Vrabel who knows how to win with a roster that’s built to last.
Sunday isn’t just the biggest game the Bills will play this year. It’s also a look at what’s sure to turn into an annual battle for supremacy in the AFC East and beyond.
