We have not seen Josh Allen take a snap since January 26th. When you’re a Bills fan, you’re always hungry for more, and if we thought he could play every week without his arms falling off, we’d probably advocate for a 52-week season. But this is football. It is 18 weeks long, plus playoffs, and as long as that is true, we will always have the offseason.
Pivotal Dates include the opening of free agency, the NFL draft, the Rookie Minicamp, and now, the schedule release.
Earlier this week, I released my ideal Super Bowl-winning schedule, only taking into account patterns that the previous 5 Super Bowl winners’ schedules had in common.
On Wednesday, May 14th, the NFL released the schedule in full.
Let’s break down the upcoming schedule.
| Date | Week | Opponent | Time |
| September 7 | 1 | Baltimore Ravens | SNF |
| September 14 | 2 | @ NY Jets | 1 pm |
| September 18 | 3 | Miami Dolphins | TNF |
| September 28 | 4 | New Orleans Saints | 1 pm |
| October 5 | 5 | New England Patriots | SNF |
| October 13 | 6 | @ Atlanta Falcons | MNF |
| October 19 | 7 | ***BYE*** | ***BYE*** |
| October 26 | 8 | @ Carolina Panthers | 1 pm |
| November 2 | 9 | Kansas City Chiefs | 4:25 |
| November 9 | 10 | @ Miami Dolphins | 1 pm |
| November 16 | 11 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 1 pm |
| November 20 | 12 | @ Houston Texans | TNF |
| November 30 | 13 | @ Pittsburgh Steelers | 4:25 |
| December 7 | 14 | Cincinnati Bengals | 4:25 |
| December 14 | 15 | @ New England Patriots | 1 pm |
| December 21 | 16 | @ Cleveland Browns | 1 pm |
| December 28 | 17 | Philadelphia Eagles | 4:25 |
| January 4 | 18 | New York Jets | TBD |
Home Games
Bills fans will be happy to see that 4 out of the first 6 games will be at home, including an awesome three in a row from week 3-5.
Only 3 of the final 7 will be at home, with the Christmas weekend game being against the Eagles.
This leaves the final home game in week 18 against the Jets, making this the regular season farewell we’ll say to the Ralph. Interestingly enough, this is a flex time, likely only to be flexed if it has playoff implications. It could also be flexed to a Saturday Game, which would make it all the more memorable. If it doesn’t have major playoff implications, it could simply be a Sunday at 1:00 game.
All in all, I think we should be pretty happy with the dispersion of home games, with a majority likely to be good weather and fairly warm.
2 of the 3 home games in December are also 4:25 games (with the possibility for week 18 to be also), which allows for ground crews to have extra time to clear the snow in case of inclement weather. We’ve heard from Mark Polocarz before that those extra 3 hours can make all the difference and make traffic and stadium conditions even better.
Game Times
Well, I nailed the 1st game at least. The Bills will host the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday Night Football in Week 1. I invite everyone to join me in muting the broadcast audio and putting on the WGR broadcast as your audio source, so we don’t have to hear Chris Collinsworth once again inexplicably have to talk about Patrick Mahomes during a game with Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen playing QB.
Altogether, they have 5 night games, with 2 on Sunday nights, 2 on Thursday nights, and one on Monday Night Football. Two of the night opponents are division rivals in Miami-week 3 and New England in Week 5. They will have back-to-back night matchups with Sunday Night Football in week 5 and Monday Night Football in Week 6, then the Bye in week 7. Of the 5 night games, they host the first three.
They will play a total of 7 (possibly 8) games at their normal time slot of 1:00, but only two of those will be home games, so for all of our tailgating readers, you’ve got some extra time to get to the lot.
The Bills get a sneaky compliment from the NFL by being selected for the 4:25 time slot, even though 3 of those opponents are also east coast teams (Cincinnati counts, right?). These are basically prime-time slots without the night games. Counting these as highlights, some of the Bills’ most competitive matchups (KC, Cinci, Philly) are all scheduled at a time when most of the nation will be tuning in.
Short Rest and Mini Byes
With so many night games and two Thursday night games, the Bills’ executive and coaching staff will have to exercise their logistics muscle they’ve built over the past few years, as a routine is going to be hard to find.
The trickiest weeks from a scheduling perspective should be in those short weeks. In Week 2, the Bills will play in New Jersey at the Meadowlands, facing the Jets. They’ll then turn around in week three to return home to face the Dolphins on Thursday night football with only 4 nights of rest. The plus side is that they will stay at home for the next 2 weeks and will have a full 10 days between Week 3 and hosting the Saints at home.
This same dynamic will kick in in week 11 when they host the Buccaneers for a 1 pm game on Sunday, but then will have to travel to Houston to play the Texans on Thursday Night Football. So not only will they have only four nights of rest, but one of their days will be a travel day against a challenging opponent, on the road. This is followed by another 10 days of rest that will serve as a 10-day mini bye going into week 13, also on the road against Pittsburgh. This will be the loneliest stretch for Bills fans, as the Bills will be on the road for 4 out of the 5 weeks from week 12 – week 16.
The Hardest Matchups
From my viewpoint, the Bills had two most challenging dynamics from a defensive perspective. The worst performances came against the Lions and the Rams, two teams that are built to use a West Coast offense with timing-based, quick-to-intermediate passes and multiple pass catchers who can take advantage of them. While we don’t face those teams again this year, teams like Kansas City, Houston, and Cincinnati pose those same kinds of matchups, that the Bills’ new re-tooled defense will have to prove that they are up to the task of improving upon the 26th-ranked performance last year.
The other main strategic challenge I see is also on the defensive side, where the Bills have struggled against dynamic running backs. In the regular season Ravens game, we gave up 427 yards with 11 1st downs that were given up to the rush, with Derrick Henry accounting for 199 yards and change of pace back Justice Hill chipping in another 96 all-purpose yards. This year, the Bills will face Baltimore again, along with running backs Breece Hall, Alvin Kamara, Bijan Robinson, Bucky Irving, Jaylen Warren, Saquon Barkley (big shoutout to Reddit User @racer4 for making this point in a comment). Honorary mentions should go out to the Patriots who selected TreVeyon Henderson, the Browns who picked Quinshon Judkins, and the Chiefs who picked one of my favorite late-round sleepers, Brashard Smith.
The Bills’ Defense will have the opportunity to face some of the best offenses in the league in the regular season, and if they have improved, they will definitely have a chance to prove it.