Buffalo Rumblings
The Buffalo Bills (8-4) host the Cincinnati Bengals (4-8) Sunday afternoon in a 1 p.m. EST battle of teams that entered the season with playoff aspirations and find themselves both fighting for positioning in a crowded AFC playoff race.
Before this Week 14 clash, let’s revisit the series history, relive some of the more memorable matchups, break down those common connections, and go through the list of players who played for both teams. Hint: there are 49 players who saw action for both the Bills and Bengals.
The Bills and Bengals have split their 34 previous meetings, with each team winning 17 games. Cincinnati has prevailed in six of the last eight matchups, including a 27-10 road win in the 2022 AFC Divisional Round.
The teams met for the first time on September 22, 1968, the Bengals’ first season as an NFL franchise, and Cincinnati picked up its second win in its first three games, beating Buffalo 34-23 at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Bills led 14-10 after Gary McDermott’s five-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, but the Bengals reeled off 17 unanswered points, including two pick-sixes off quarterbacks Dan Darragh and Kay Stephenson passes bridging the third and fourth quarters to send the Bills to an 0-3 start to the season. Cincinnati prevailed despite passing for only 68 yards in the game.
The Bengals won 11 of the first 16 meetings, including in the 1981 AFC Divisional Round and the 1988 AFC Championship game, but Buffalo responded by winning the next 10 games in the series from 1989-2010.
In his three career matchups with the Bengals, Josh Allen is 1-2, and has yet to win a head-to-head game against Joe Burrow — his lone victory on September 22, 2019 came against the Andy Dalton-led Bengals.
In their last meeting, in Week 9 of the 2023 NFL season, Burrow completed 31-of-44 passes for 348 yards with two touchdowns and zero interceptions in a 24-18 win in Cincinnati on Sunday Night Football. The Bengals’ defense forced two Bills turnovers — one Josh Allen interception and a Dalton Kincaid fumble — and Buffalo couldn’t overcome a 21-7 halftime deficit in a rematch of the 2022 AFC Divisional Round of the playoffs.
Allen connected with Stefon Diggs on both a 17-yard touchdown strike and ensuing two-point conversion pass to trim the deficit to 24-18 with three and a half minutes remaining, but the Bengals put up a pair of first downs and ran out the clock to seal the primetime win.
Allen finished 26-of-38 for 258 yards with a touchdown and an interception, and was also Buffalo’s leading rusher (8 carries for 44 yards). Diggs caught six passes for 86 yards, Kincaid added 10 catches for 81 yards, and Khalil Shakir and James Cook III each had four catches in the loss.
Fun fact: The Bengals’ first playoff win in franchise history came during a back-and-forth AFC Divisional Round playoff game during the 1981 season....
