Two division rivals stand in each other’s way of continuing the season Saturday, and one of the young quarterbacks at the center of it knows how hard it is to beat a team twice.
After splitting the regular season series, that goes both ways for the Buffalo Bills and New England Patriots.
New England’s run game helped it win in nasty weather during the first matchup, while Josh Allen’s great game led Buffalo to victory the day after Christmas.
“It’s hard to beat a team twice in a season,” Allen said, via the Patriots. “That speaks for both sides because we are 1-1 on the season. They beat us at home and that’s where we are playing this game. So, we have to be ready for whatever they can throw at us. It’s going to be a 12-round slugfest, in my opinion, and it is going to take all four quarters to win the game.”
Cliche as it may be, Bill Belichick has been around the block a few times. Coaching will be a huge way this game could swing one way or the other.
So both sides will look to control what they can control. Allen’s main focus is along those lines.
“Ball security is the number one priority going into this game,” Allen said. “Trying to end every drive with a kick. Playing a team three times in the season, we know each other extremely well. They know us, we know them, so it’s whoever can adjust quicker. Whoever can show a different look than we saw maybe the first go-around or the second go-around and throw a different wrinkle in again. That’s why coach Belichick is one of the, if not the, greatest coach of all time, just his ability to switch things up for a quarterback and make you see two different things.”
The Patriots coach hopefully has a to-do list of things he saw watching game film, because the Bills benefit from a pretty clean injury report as of Thursday.
Kick off Saturday is at Jan. 15.
