Josh Allen, Devin Singletary, Buffalo Bills. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
The Buffalo Bills may be the best team in the AFC East, but do they have what it takes to win the division? Here are some schedule predictions for Buffalo.
With Tom Brady moving on from the AFC East, it leaves the division wide-open for some team to take advantage of. Perhaps the team best equipped to win the AFC East in 2020 is the Buffalo Bills. In three years under head coach Sean McDermott, Buffalo has reach the AFC playoffs twice. Keep in mind this franchise hadn’t been to the postseason since getting Music City Miracle-d.
Buffalo has a strong, defensive-minded culture. McDermott has brought accountability, toughness and a team-first approach to this team on the rise. He has a great staff headlined by coordinators Brian Daboll and Leslie Frazier. With a tremendous partnership formed with general manager Brandon Beane dating back to the Carolina Panthers days, things are looking up for this franchise.
However, the Bills face pressure perhaps for the first time since Jim Kelly was in the twilight of his illustrious career. Buffalo is now the favorite to win the AFC East and could be the third-best team in the AFC behind only the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs in some order. This is a team that needs to host a home playoff game and win it. Otherwise, it will be disappointment.
Here are a few predictions for how the Bills’ 2020 schedule will shake out this fall.
5. Winning record in divisional play
Ultimately, we do not know how the new hierarchy of the AFC East will stack up. What we expect are the Bills to be the favorite, the New England Patriots to take a step back sans Brady and for the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets to be competitive. The question is, who will end up winning the division? Will it be New England again, or will it be somebody else for a change?
Even though the Patriots have been the most dominant team in this division for a decade, they rarely go 6-0 in AFC East play because winning on the road in Miami is always challenging. While they’ve owned the Bills for the better part of two decades, the tide might be beginning to turn. Look for the Bills to split their season series with the Patriots this season, so that’s a start.
As for the four dates between the Dolphins and the Jets, we should expect the Bills to hold serve with one of them, but sweep the other. Buffalo will cultivate quite the home environment this year. This team is built to thrive at home playing ground-control, smash-mouth football. Teams that venture into Orchard Park come out of it with a ton of bruises and most likely an L.
Overall, the Bills are too talented to be anything worse than 4-2 in the division. Going 6-0 is not happening because they’re not sweeping the Patriots, no matter how much better of a roster they have over them. It’s baby steps in breaking the mentality of being the former Evil Empire’s whipping boy. Could the Bills sweep both the Dolphins and Jets? It’s possible, so don’t rule it out.