New England Patriots vs. Buffalo Bills – NFL Week 17: Preview
The New England Patriots fuelled up by the desire to avenge their earlier loss in the season will host the Buffalo Bills this Sunday. The two teams of the AFC East meet at the Gillette Stadium, Foxboro to conclude the final game
of their season.
For the Patriots, the third game of the season turned to be a sore one as they succumbed to a 34-31 defeat at the hands of the Bills who are currently ranked at the bottom of the AFC East. So for the team that is at the top of
their division, the defeat at the hands of the weakest team in the division would surely hurt. Wounds have still not healed and the Patriots will be looking to equal the score.
The Patriots at 12-3 are way ahead of the Bills who stand at 6-9. The Patriots have had seven straight wins and the Bills have only managed to avoid an eighth straight defeat in their last game. The last game against the Denver
Broncos is the only bright spot the Bills have to boast of. After seven humiliating losses, the Bills finally managed to hit back with a 40-14 win surprising almost everyone. However, the win was more of a result of Tim Tebow’s mistakes than a Bills’ performance.
Tebow touched the lowest level of his performance in that game with four interceptions of which two were capitalized for touchdowns by the Bills.
Nevertheless, Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick played well and showed improvement with 15 of 27 completed passes for 196 yards with no interceptions.
The trouble for the Patriots if any will come from their defence which has been found conceding the most number of yards in the league with an average of 412.1 yards per game. To make matters worse, the Patriots have lost their
defensive end Andre Carter to a quadriceps injury. Carter was undoubtedly their leading defensives strength with 10 sacks and 52 tackles this season. Also another worrying aspect is avoiding turnovers which are something the Patriots need to be careful of.
It were these interceptions that had exactly caused the Patriots the game to the Bills earlier on in the season.
Tom Brady who had forfeited four interceptions of which all went for touchdowns in the third game has shown a lot of improvement lately. In the last game he completed 27 of 46 passes for 304 yards without any interceptions and
managed a touchdown. That performance surely brought victory for his team. Brady has had just one interception in the past seven games which indicate that the Patriots may not have to suffer anymore on account of turnovers. Offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien
pointed out to that recently.
"Tom has done a much better job of taking care of the ball and he's very, very conscious of it and it carries over to the rest of the offense. If we can just continue to do that, that's one of the major stats that equals wins,
just taking care of the ball. The way our defence has been playing opportunistic football, that's going to help us going forward." O'Brien said.
A win would hardly do the Bills a favour who are out of the playoff race but however ending the season with a win is something they would be looking forward to. Chances of a win do bleak for the Bills as the Patriots look all geared
up for a victory this weekend.
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