Josh Allen will play ever so briefly Sunday in the Buffalo Bills’ now meaningless season finale Sunday in New England, long enough to extend his consecutive games played streak to 114 counting the postseason. It means something to him, and Sean McDermott is granting him that courtesy.
“In Josh’s case, one of the things that we know is very, very important to him is his consecutive starts streak,” McDermott said Monday. “And it’s important to him for a great reason; he wants to be out there with his teammates. And so he will be out there for a very, very short-lived amount of time and then he’ll be off rather quickly.”
Of course, this means he won’t get much of a chance to add another chapter to his campaign for the NFL’s MVP award, but as far as offensive tackle Spencer Brown is concerned, 16 chapters playing the way Allen has played this year should be more than enough.
“I don’t know what more else he could do,” Brown said Sunday following Allen’s three-touchdown performance in a 40-14 blowout of the Jets that clinched the No. 2 seed for the Bills. The win allows Allen to perhaps keep alive his consecutive starts streak, which is at 113, then take a well-deserved seat on the bench against the Patriots.
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“I saw a graphic where it’s the fifth straight year, only player in NFL history to do it (to total 40 TDs or more),” Brown continued. “That’s consistency, that’s turnover on teams; he does it with anybody that he gets his hands on. I mean, it’s pretty clear cut for me. He’s the only player to ever do that. I don’t vote, but 17 is the MVP for sure.”
It’s not for sure because Lamar Jackson is firmly in the mix and easily could win it, but like Brown, future Hall of Fame edge rusher Von Miller, another biased observer, can’t see anyone but Allen taking home the hardware the week of Super Bowl 59.
“I don’t like to make comparisons; I played with Peyton Manning and Matthew Stafford,” Miller said. “Those guys are special in their own right. But this year, Josh is just doing something totally different and he’s not forcing it, he’s not trying too hard, he’s not looking for it, it’s just him. It’s how it’s supposed to be and it’s amazing to go out there and witness it. I’ve been in the league 14 years and don’t have any comparison to any team or player. This is just something special.”
To his credit, Allen will let others fight that battle for him. He has no control on how the voting will go, and there’s no question that co-frontrunner Jackson has had a great season, too.
All Allen cares about his winning, and come Super Bowl 59 week, he wants to be preparing for the game in New Orleans rather than donning a suit and tie and accepting an award at the NFL Honors show.
And perhaps winning more than Jackson will determine the vote because heading into Week 18, his Bills have won two more games than the third-seeded Ravens, and that’s good enough to give Buffalo the homefield advantage in a potential divisional round matchup with Baltimore in a place where the Bills went 8-0 this season, just the third 8-0 home record in team history.
“Oh, it’s awesome,” Allen said of the home record which, dating back to 2020 in the regular season is now a league-best 35-6 (not counting the London “home” game last season). “That’s as much as a team stat as a fan-based stat, too. The energy … we can feed off what our fans are giving us, and they’ve been the best in the league this year. And going back to since I’ve gotten here, they’ve been fantastic, and I truly believe we have the best fans in the world.”
Buffalo Bills keys to victory
Play mistake-free and give backup QB Mitch Trubisky a chance to compete. The Patriots may have the worst roster in the NFL, and if their no-show against the Chargers at home last week in a 40-7 loss was an indication, it looks like a team that has already packed it in and knows big changes are coming in the offseason, so why bother?
In that scenario, Trubisky playing with a bunch of Buffalo backups who will be trying to set a franchise record with 14 regular season victories might be able to get the job done.
New England Patriots keys to victory
Drake Maye has been one of the lone bright spots in this lost season for New England, and in the Week 16 game in Buffalo he led three touchdown drives and completed 22 of 36 passes for 261 yards with two TDs and one interception.
There are whispers in Boston that embattled coach Jerod Mayo might sit him out and play Jacoby Brissett to insure that Maye goes into the offseason healthy and not having to rehab a possible injury, which actually makes sense. But if Maye does play and he performs the way he did in Week 16, this time against a less-than-whole defense, the Patriots might be able to not only make it a game, but pull the upset.
Matchup to watch
For just the sixth time in his 99 career NFL starts dating back to when his NFL career began in 2016, Patriots TE Hunter Henry did not catch a pass last week in the loss to the Chargers, a team he played for in his first five seasons. He played 30 snaps and was unsuccessfully targeted twice which was simply an exclamation point on how poorly the Patriots played.
This week, if the Bills do as expected and play the bulk of the game with backups, perhaps including rookie LBs Joe Andreesen and Edefuan Ulofoshio, Henry could have plenty of action, especially since he was targeted eight times in the game in Buffalo two weeks ago and caught four for 39 yards and a TD.
Who wins? Patriots 20, Bills 13.
This game is impossible to forecast with so many personnel decisions up in the air for the Bills. Playing their “B” team most of the day would signal that New England could certainly win, especially since their players will be trying to put a good performance on film heading into an offseason when so many things will be changing and many of them could be playing for new teams in 2025.
Still, the Patriots are so devoid of talent that it’s not crazy to think the Bills could go into half-empty Gillette Stadium and do just enough to win, which would give the Bills a single-season franchise-record 14 victories. I’ll base my pick on this: The Bills don’t care, it’s a division game and those are usually competitive, and the Patriots gave them a tough game in Buffalo.
What time does the Buffalo Bills vs New England Patriots game start?
Kickoff is set for 1 p.m. at Gillette Stadium.
Who is favored to win Bills vs Patriots?
The Bills enter the week as a 3-point favorite for the game. The money line is Bills minus-135 (bet $135 to win $100) and Patriots plus-115 (bet $100 to win $155). The over-under is 41.
How to watch Bills vs Patriots game on TV, streaming
Cable/Network TV: CBS. The game will be available locally via the following stations: WROC channel 8 (Rochester area), WIVB channel 4 (Buffalo area), WTVH channel 5 (Syracuse area), WKTV channel 2 (Utica area), WENY channel 2 (Elmira area), WRGB channel 10 (Albany area), and WBNG channel 12 (Binghamton area).
Online streaming services: You can watch games on NFL.com and the NFL mobile app, and you can subscribe to NFL+, the league’s own streaming service, though you can’t cast the games to your TV – you must watch on your phone or tablet.
TV streaming: You can also stream games if you have subscriptions to Spectrum, DirecTV, fuboTV, Sling, Vidgo, Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, and Paramount+.
On the radio: How to listen to the Bills vs Patriots game
You can listen on SiriusXM satellite radio on Channel 385 (Bills feed) and Channel 230 (Patriots feed), and on traditional radio, the Bills Radio Network has stations all across the state. Chris Brown has the play-by-play, Eric Wood is the analyst, and Sal Capaccio is the sideline reporter. The network includes:
- Rochester (WCMF 96.5 and WROC 950 AM)
- Buffalo (WGR550, 550 AM)
- Syracuse (WTKW 99.5/WTKV 105.5)
- Binghamton (WDRE 100.5FM)
- Ithaca (WIII 99.9/100.3 FM)
- Bath (WVIN 98.3 FM)
- Newark (WACK 1420 AM)
- Dansville (WDNY 93.9 FM)
- Elmira (WNGZ 1490 AM)
- Auburn (WAUB 98.1 FM/1590 AM)
- Geneva (WGVA 95.9 FM, 1240 AM)
