Wild-card weekend: Your guide to the Buffalo Bills' showdown with the Patriots
The Buffalo Bills are back in the playoffs and back in prime time.
The Bills will host the New England Patriots in the first round of the NFL playoffs with a kickoff at 8:15 p.m. Saturday at Highmark Stadium.
Discounting last year's surreal atmosphere when Covid-19 protocols limited attendance to just 7,000 fans, Orchard Park hasn't played host to a true NFL playoff game since Dec. 28, 1996, when the Bills lost a wild card game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Here's some perspective: Jim Kelly's Hall of Fame career ended that day. Josh Allen had not yet completed his first year alive.
Saturday's game will mark an oddity: two night games at home in one season against the same opponent, and three times against the same team in just over a month. The Bills punched their playoff ticket with a win on the road at Foxborough. The last time the two teams met in Orchard Park was a December regular season tilt in some of the most windy conditions ever at the stadium. That one ended with a Patriots victory.
For a generation of fans, Saturday night's rubber match will be a first, though likely not the last under a Bills regime that turned a perennial post-season afterthought into Super Bowl contenders.
Bills Mafia is getting its tailgate parties – and tailgate tables – ready. The temperature will be in the teens, but that is not expected to stop 72,000 fans from turning up the heat on Patriots coach Bill Belichick and his rookie quarterback, Mac Jones.
Bills fans hope this game has a different ending from the last time the Patriots visited. And they hope Saturday is the start of something special.
– Eric DuVall
Who will have the advantage when the Buffalo Bills take on the New England Patriots tonight at Highmark Stadium? Jay Skurski breaks it down ...
The New England Patriots had 60 pass plays of 20 or more yards during the regular season, 10th best in the NFL. The Bills had 51 plays of 20-plus yards, 16th most.
Bills great Darryl Talley reveals secrets of 'Spidey' ski suit before icy playoff game with Patriots
Tips and tricks for playing in frigid conditions are offered by former players on social media and sports talk shows every time a subzero, marquee game is on tap, and this week is no different with the Bills preparing to host the New England Patriots on Saturday in what could be the second-coldest football game in franchise history.
"Make no mistake: All the pressure is on the Bills in this one," writes Jay Skurski. "The Patriots are 1-3 in their last four games, while the Bills are riding a four-game winning streak. We'll see how much momentum means."
Allen arguably carried an even heavier load of the Bills’ offense in 2021 and produced one of the best quarterbacking seasons in Bills history.
In every win and loss, there was good and bad and a lesson to be learned.
The News created a Fan Meter to measure moments ranked on this scale: 1 (panic or gloom), 2 (worry or doubt), 3 (uncomfortable optimism) or 4 (excitement and joy).
The journey to the postseason – which begins Saturday when the New England Patriots visit Highmark Stadium for an AFC wild-card playoff game – has been full of adversity. Some of that is the same type as every NFL team goes through, and some of it has been self-inflicted and unique to the Bills.
Of the players on the active roster, no one was listed with an injury designation on Thursday's practice report.
Playoff home teams that fell in their conference title game the previous season are 44-8 straight up and 34-16-2 against the spread overall.
Patriots coach Bill Belichick is always dangerous as an evil mastermind, but his team is clearly outmanned and outgunned by the Bills, Pete Rosen says.
CBS play-by-play announcer Ian Eagle and analyst Charles Davis, who called Bills-Pats II, Buffalo’s 33-21 road victory on Dec. 26, are back for the rubber match.
With rough weather on deck, the Bills will need a clean day on special teams against the Patriots in Orchard Park.
Starting left tackle Isaiah Wynn (ankle) and key linebacker Jamie Collins (hip and ankle) did not practice.
If the Bills beat the Patriots, it pretty much makes the entire season. Two victories over Belichick in the same year – and sending the Pats packing in the playoffs? That would be a great way to remember the 2021 campaign.
“The snow-covered gridiron reduced the effectiveness of the power running of (Cookie) Gilchrist,” The New York Times said in its report, “but did not seem to hamper Ron Burton or Larry Garron,” the Patriots’ running backs.
Luckily for all of us, there is not a shortage of Bills-themed brews to fill our glass come kickoff.
“I feel like that Tampa Bay game kind of got us back to where we needed to go, as far as having confidence, playing free, and playing like we know what we can play,” wide receiver Stefon Diggs said in late December.
“They beat us at home, we beat them at [their] home. It's a playoff game, Buffalo, New York, on Saturday night,” Bills safety Jordan Poyer said. “I mean, it's just really everything you asked for in a football game, football season, this type of game right here.”
Buffalo held only a walk-through practice Tuesday and listed nobody as injured.
This week's playoff game may turn out to be one of the coldest games the Bills have ever played. Temperatures are expected to be in the single digits at the 8:15 p.m. kickoff Saturday at Highmark Stadium.
Jay Skurski answers readers' questions about Isaiah McKenzie, Ryan Bates, coin flips, hand warmers, coaching hires and more.
In exploring what has made Stefon Diggs so effective, trust is the word that came up more than any other, Jay Skurski writes. It’s clear Josh Allen has it in his receiver, and perhaps just as importantly, Diggs has it in his quarterback.
The Patriots downgraded starting left tackle Isaiah Wynn to out for Saturday's playoff game against the Bills.
Four Bills games topped a 50 rating, with the 54.5 rating for the 29-15 victory over Atlanta the highest-rated game locally since meters came to this market in April 2000.
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Fans from years ago may remember a sign – once a staple at Buffalo Bills games – that read, "The Blue Lights. Auburn, N.Y. Go Bills." Here's the story behind the sign.
