{"id":661496,"date":"2026-01-07T16:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T16:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/661496\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T16:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T16:03:13","slug":"no-mahomes-no-problems-bills-have-a-new-but-familiar-adversary-standing-in-way-of-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/661496\/","title":{"rendered":"No Mahomes, no problems? Bills have a new (but familiar) adversary standing in way of title"},"content":{"rendered":"

You know the feeling. You\u2019ve been sitting in traffic for what feels like an eternity, plodding along, always in the wrong lane. But then, miraculously, the traffic breaks up, and you have a free and clear open road ahead of you. What else is there to do but floor it?<\/p>\n

You, in this scenario, are Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills, and the open road is this year\u2019s postseason. No Lamar Jackson. No Joe Burrow. And, most significantly, no Patrick Mahomes waiting to wreck yet another Bills season.<\/p>\n

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As the AP noted earlier this week<\/a>, outside of Aaron Rodgers\u2019 11 playoff wins, no AFC quarterback has anywhere close to Allen\u2019s seven postseason victories. CJ Stroud has two, Trevor Lawrence has one, and no one else in the conference even has one. Quarterback wins aren\u2019t the most reliable metric \u2014 Rodgers does not exactly have the best odds to win the AFC \u2014 but they attest to a quarterback\u2019s ability to survive and thrive under postseason pressure.<\/p>\n

[Get more Bills news: Buffalo team feed<\/a>]<\/p>\n

So yes, the road would seem to be clear for Buffalo \u2026 were it not for that retooled, reworked road rocket in an all-too-familiar red-white-and-blue paint scheme streaking up on the outside.<\/p>\n

Six years after Tom Brady and Bill Belichick relinquished their hold on the AFC East, five years after Buffalo began stacking division titles once again, and in the same year that the hated Chiefs finally played themselves out of the postseason \u2026 here come those damn New England Patriots again. There aren\u2019t enough tables in Buffalo to cushion Bills fans\u2019 agony.<\/p>\n

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Buffalo surrendered the AFC East title to Mike Vrabel, Drake Maye and the resurgent Patriots in 2025 after holding it the past five seasons. This isn\u2019t an inconsequential shift; losing their annual home-field advantage means Buffalo can\u2019t freeze out visitors for at least one postseason game. The Bills\u2019 Super Bowl window has been closing for years, but now here come the Patriots, trying to pound that window shut with both hands.<\/p>\n

\"FOXBOROUGH,<\/p>\n

Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills split their series with the New England Patriots this season. (Sarah Stier\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

(Sarah Stier via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

But if the Bills are looking for hope, first off, they don\u2019t need to look any farther than Week 15. In their crucial road rematch with New England, down 21-0 midway through the second quarter and 24-7 at halftime, the Bills rallied with three straight touchdowns and then traded punches en route to a 35-31 victory. It wasn\u2019t enough to reclaim the division, but it was enough to make a serious statement.<\/p>\n

Allen believed that the message coming out of that game was, \u201cWe\u2019re not out of it. We\u2019re going to continue to fight, one play at a time. No matter what the score is, if it\u2019s in the third quarter, it\u2019s in the fourth quarter,\u201d he said after the victory. \u201cWhatever it is, if we\u2019ve got a chance and we\u2019ve got the ball, we feel like we like our chances. That\u2019s that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He\u2019s right; the Bills have made a habit of posting second-half comebacks to win. They set the tone back in the very first game of the season, rallying from 15 points down to Baltimore in the final four minutes of the game to win. In Week 14, Buffalo posted another flurry of fourth-quarter touchdowns \u2014 three in under five minutes \u2014 to flip a 10-point deficit to Cincinnati into a victory. And now that Foxborough win looms large in both teams\u2019 minds.<\/p>\n

Plus, there\u2019s the theory of battle testing. Allen and the Bills have been here before \u2014 many times before, but let\u2019s not belabor that point \u2014 while this is the first playoff journey for Vrabel, Maye and the rest of the Patriots as a unit.<\/p>\n

And\u00a0 if you believe in the validity of regular-season tuneups, Buffalo had to face the they-were-good-at-the-time Ravens and Chiefs, while the Patriots drew the Raiders, Browns and Giants. (Both teams fattened up on the lower half of their division and the mostly easy pickings of the NFC South.)<\/p>\n

A potential Bills-Patriots postseason matchup wouldn\u2019t happen until the AFC title game; Buffalo would face Denver next round if both teams win. But if the cards fell that way, it would be one hell of a game.<\/p>\n

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Both offensively and defensively, the Bills and Patriots finished the season with near-identical top-of-the-league numbers. New England averaged 379.4 yards of offense and 28.8 points per game; Buffalo averaged 376.3 yards and 28.3 points. On defense, Buffalo allowed 293.1 yards and 21.2 points, while New England allowed more yards, 295.2, but fewer points at 18.8.<\/p>\n

Last season, after yet another playoff loss to the Chiefs \u2014 an AFC championship that was tied with less than four minutes remaining \u2014 Allen meditated on what went wrong once again. \u201cYou got to not just knock,\u201d he said. \u201cYou got to kick the door down, and we didn’t do that.”<\/p>\n

Belichick and Brady are gone, but Vrabel and Maye will be around for a long time to come. The time is now for Buffalo to kick the door down, regardless of who\u2019s standing on the other side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You know the feeling. You\u2019ve been sitting in traffic for what feels like an eternity, plodding along, always…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2048],"tags":[1586,184,215,86,214,53,2086,346,227,1222,231,833,7,1577,872,895,838,1167,249,6,499,525,169,3025,1369,314],"class_list":{"0":"post-661496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-bills","8":"tag-aaron-rodgers","9":"tag-baltimore","10":"tag-bills","11":"tag-browns","12":"tag-buffalo","13":"tag-buffalo-bills","14":"tag-buffalobills","15":"tag-chiefs","16":"tag-cincinnati","17":"tag-cj-stroud","18":"tag-denver","19":"tag-drake-maye","20":"tag-football","21":"tag-joe-burrow","22":"tag-josh-allen","23":"tag-lamar-jackson","24":"tag-mike-vrabel","25":"tag-new-england","26":"tag-new-england-patriots","27":"tag-nfl","28":"tag-patrick-mahomes","29":"tag-raiders","30":"tag-ravens","31":"tag-the-bills","32":"tag-tom-brady","33":"tag-trevor-lawrence"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115854665675959631","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}