Mike Migliore, Contributing Writer
Prediction: 9-7
The door is wide open for the Buffalo Bills to win the AFC East for the first time since 1995, when Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” was the no. 1 song on the charts. For years, many Bills’ fans’ greatest fantasy was the idea of Tom Brady leaving the Patriots and going somewhere else where he couldn’t torment the Bills. That is finally the case in 2020 as Brady is now wearing a helmet with a giant pirate flag on it and no longer on the Bills’ schedule. Vegas has made Buffalo the favorite to claim the AFC East title. Will the Bills succumb to these new expectations where they are suddenly supposed to be good?
There are plenty of reasons to think the Bills will finally win a division title and be even better than the squad that went 10-6 a year ago. They add Stefon Diggs to a receiving corps that returns John Brown and Cole Beasley. They subtracted a plodding Frank Gore from the roster and added talented rookie Zack Moss in his spot behind Devin Singletary. They also return the blue-chip pieces of one of the league’s best defenses, all while adding Mario Addision, Quinton Jefferson, Vernon Butler, AJ Epenesa, AJ Klein, and Josh Norman.
Unfortunately for the Bills, they will not enjoy the same schedule they had in 2019. Buffalo goes from having one of the 10 easiest schedules in the league last season to one of the five toughest (projected) schedules in 2020. Teams like the Giants, Washington, Broncos, and the Devlin Hodges’ Steelers have been replaced by the 49ers, Seahawks, Chiefs, and Ben Roethlisberger Steelers. The Bills struggled last season when they took a step up in weight class on the schedule, going 0-5 against teams that won their division a year ago, including the playoff loss to Houston.
Speaking of the playoff loss to Houston, which Josh Allen will show up for the Bills this season? Is it the guy who looked pretty sharp in the first half of that game, or the guy who threw up all over himself as Deshaun Watson and the Texans mounted their comeback in the fourth quarter? The Bills will ultimately go as far as Allen can take them, but there’s still not enough evidence to suggest that Allen will suddenly vault into the upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks.
The Bills are also due to be hit hard by the injury bug, something they have avoided in the last two seasons. If the Bills’ depth is tested, it could result in big regression for the team’s win-loss record.
Still, the Bills have one of the most talented rosters in the league and the benefit of an extra playoff spot to fight for. Under Sean McDermott, the team has seemed to overachieve every year he’s been here. But with a gauntlet of a schedule and the uncertainty of COVID-19 hanging over everything, it’s tough to predict the Bills to be better than they were last season.