The Bills and the Patriots will play in the early window on Sunday
The Buffalo Bills and the New England Patriots will play in Week 18 in what will amount to a meaningless game for both teams’ 2024 seasons. The Bills have already clinched the two seed in the playoffs, and the Patriots have long been eliminated from postseason play.
Given that the game isn’t going to matter at all towards the 2024 NFL Playoffs, it’s no surprise that the league decided to play the game at 1 p.m. EST on Sunday. Putting the game in the early window was an easy decision, as the Bills are likely to rest most starters, and the Patriots clinch the top overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft with a loss. Neither team has any real incentive to win.
The NFL released the entire schedule for this weekend, and there are plenty of games that will impact Buffalo’s playoff picture. For starters, the seven seed is still up for grabs, with three teams — the Denver Broncos, Miami Dolphins, and Cincinnati Bengals — all alive for that spot. The Dolphins play the New York Jets this weekend, and that game will happen at the same time as the Bills-Patriots game.
The other two teams, however, play at entirely different times. First, the Bengals play against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Saturday night. That’s an intriguing decision for myriad reasons. For starters, the Baltimore Ravens can clinch the AFC North with a victory over the Cleveland Browns at 4:30 p.m. EST on Saturday. That would relegate Pittsburgh to the Wild Card, where they would have to decide whether it’s worth it to go all-out for the five seed and a date with the Houston Texans or rest players and settle for a matchup with Baltimore as the six seed.
The Broncos play against the Kansas City Chiefs at 4:30 p.m. EST on Sunday. That game could matter a whole lot or not at all depending on the results of the Bengals-Steelers matchup and the Dolphins-Jets game. If Cincinnati and Miami both lose, then the Broncos are in. If either Cincinnati or Miami wins, then Denver has to win to qualify. The Bengals win the head-to-head tiebreaker with Denver but lose it with Miami. The Dolphins win both of the head-to-head tiebreakers as well as the three-way tiebreaker.
So, while the Bills’ game on Sunday won’t mean much of anything, there are games strewn all about the schedule that will determine who Buffalo plays in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs.