The Buffalo Bills looked done on Sunday. Any hope of catching the New England Patriots in the AFC East looked completely dashed at halftime of the Week 15 contest between the two teams, as New England held a 24-7 halftime lead. The Patriots were at home and controlled the game until Josh Allen hit James Cook for a five-yard touchdown just after the two-minute warning, but an Andres Borregales field goal to end the half seemed like it would get the momentum back on New England's side.
Instead, the Bills came out firing in the second half, scoring the first three touchdowns to go up 28-24. A 65-yard TreVeyon Henderson touchdown put New England back in front, but there was still plenty of time left for Buffalo to score. It did, then held off New England from there to take the win. It was a nice feather in the MVP case for Bills quarterback Josh Allen. A win on Sunday would have clinched the division title for New England, but now the AFC East is a little more open as we head down the stretch. The Bills are alive. Here's how they can win it.
Buffalo's path to an AFC East title
Buffalo Schedule | New England Schedule | |
|---|---|---|
Week 16 | at Cleveland | at Baltimore |
Week 17 | vs Philadelphia | at NY Jets |
Week 18 | vs NY Jets | vs Miami |
New England still holds a one-game edge on Buffalo, with the Patriots at 11-3 and the Bills at 10-4. So, if New England wins out, the Patriots are AFC East champions. Week 16 will be huge for determining if the Patriots go 3-0 to close the season, because it's the last "hard" game left for New England. Yeah, "any given Sunday" and all that, but a road win against the Ravens should basically seal the deal. This team should not lose to the Jets and Dolphins.
But if the Patriots do lose a game, Buffalo has a shot. Its toughest game is against the Eagles, but that game is in Buffalo and the defending Super Bowl champions don't look unbeatable.
The Bills and Patriots split the season series, so that tiebreaker doesn't matter here. The next tiebreaker is divisional record. Both teams have three divisional wins, but New England has two divisional games left to Buffalo's one. So, what that means is that the Bills need New England to lose to a divisional opponent to have a shot. If New England goes 2-1 to end the year, but the loss is to Baltimore, the Patriots win the AFC East. If they lose to either the Jets or Dolphins, we would go to the next tiebreaker, which is common games
THIS is where things can get interesting. If New England loses to Baltimore and Buffalo beats Cleveland, then the Bills have this tiebreaker, but it also might not even matter, because the only way to get to this tiebreaker would be for New England to drop another divisional game. If they don't, they'd have already clinched the division record tiebreaker.
The tiebreaker Buffalo is most likely to win is the conference record one, as the Bills are one game up on New England with just the Browns and the Jets left. It's just going to be tough to get to that tiebreaker.
So, what does this all mean? How does Buffalo win the AFC East?
The Bills have four paths to winning the AFC East. None of them are simple, but they exist.
- Finish with a better record than New England
This is the easiest path, but it would require the Patriots to lose two more games while the Bills win out. Getting two losses from this New England schedule looks difficult.
- Patriots lose both AFC East games and the teams have the same record
If New England goes 1-2 to close the season and both losses are to AFC East teams while the Bills go 2-1 and that one loss is not to the Jets, Buffalo wins the divisional record tiebreaker.
- Patriots lose to an AFC East team and the Ravens, Bills beat Browns and the teams have the same record
Another one where New England needs to go 1-2 the rest of the way, and a loss has to come to a divisional opponent, leading to the common record tiebreaker.
- Patriots lose to an AFC East team, Bills beat Browns and Jets and the teams have the same record
This is really two different scenarios. If New England loses to one of its AFC East opponents but not Baltimore, the Bills still need to go 3-0 to finish with the same record as the Patriots and win the conference record tiebreaker tha way.
Meanwhile, if New England drops two games, Buffalo can afford to lose a game as long as that loss is to Philadelphia, since the Eagles wouldn't factor into the conference record tiebreaker.
Overall, each scenario requires at least one loss to an AFC East opponent for New England. Buffalo is still alive, but New England has the much clearer path to the AFC East title.