Patriots 19
Bills 24
Doing my best Bruschi impersonation, the O-line is going to be overmatched, the Bills will get to Tom early and throw him off of his game, the outside running game will be gameplanned for and bad McDaniels playcalling will ruin the rest of the game offensively.
Here are some reasons the Patriots will underperform today:
- The Patriots best O-lineman Mankins is out verses one of the tougher Front fours in the league right now, we've all seen how this team did in the perseason without Mankins out there.
- Edelman and Hernandez are out, Gronkowski is banged up and will be asked to block; Edelman is a huge part of the run game and Hernandez speaks for itself. Once the patriots start being mauled on the Oline, Gronk will have to stay in and support like last week.
- Expect to see a whole lot of Danny Woodhead again: Danny is just a better blocker than Ridley, and i feel like that will be relevant in this game
-The Defense will come out strong like they did against Baltimore, but the lack of offense wont force the bills out of their gameplan and they will eventually be able to run the ball and use playaction to move the ball well enough, they will also utilize their tight end in the middle of the field to gain huge chunks of yardage late, holding an opposing offense to under 30 usually equals a win for the patriots, but the offense lets them down.
Obviously i hope im wrong, but this game will be won or lost based on how the flawed O-line is able to handle the bills front 4, the bills arent a great team, but they are probably the next best team in our division, unless you think the patriots can go 6-0 in the division this year.
Speaking of 6-0 in the division, since 2001, the patriots have lost at least one divisional game each seasons except for in 2007, the Bills in most peoples mind are the 2nd best team right now in the AFC East, so it seems not only logical, but reasonable to suggest that our divisional loss would be here on the road while the patriots are still trying to find themselves and work out the kinks.
The Bills have built their team to beat the Patriots and this is their time to put up or shut up, the patriots meanwhile dont have a great idea what they are walking into. generally at the end of the year, the patriots have a good idea what to expect because of all of the tape they have on an opposing team by that point, i have a feeling the bills will be doing a whole bunch of things the Patriots haven't seen yet in this game, while the patriots who have already been limited by injuries, wont be able to pull many rabbits out of their hat.
