Pats Pulpit
The New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills are quite familiar with each other. Division rivals since their days in the old AFL, they have met at least twice a year going back six decades. On Sunday, they will add the latest chapter to their rivalry.
The Patriots will visit the Bills in Orchard Park for a primetime meeting — the last at Buffalo’s old arena before it will be replaced by the New Highmark Stadium in 2026. New England has some fond memories of that place and the series overall, despite recent history not being too kind to the team.
Sunday will mark the 132nd combined regular season and playoff meeting between the Patriots and Bills. The rivalry was one of back and forth early on, with the two teams alternating dominance per decade: speaking simply in wins, the Patriots got the better of the Bills in the 1960s and 1980s, with the reverse being true in the 1970s and 1990s.
Then came Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, and the Patriots becoming nearly unbeatable in the AFC East and against the Bills in particular: between 2001 and 2019, New England went 34-4 against its rivals from Western New York. As a consequence of that stretch, the club now holds a 79-51-1 edge overall, including a 1-1 playoff record.
Going by location, those games can be broken down as follows:
Of course, the departure of Tom Brady and subsequent Patriots rebuild shifted the balance of power back to Buffalo. Since the 2020 season, the Bills have won eight of 11 meetings, including a 47-17 win in the wild card playoff round that saw quarterback Josh Allen and his team score on every offensive possession.
The Patriots and Bills closed out the 2024 season at Gillette Stadium in a contest that could be described a non-consequential: New England had already been eliminated from playoff contention for a while, whereas the Bills were in a position to rest their starters heading into the postseason as the No. 2 seed in the AFC. As a consequence, the two teams mostly used their backups in a game that ended 23-16 in the Patriots’ favor.
Of course, the final score was not the main story that day. For starters, New England winning what otherwise would have been a meaningless game eliminated them from contention for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Had they lost, they would have drafted first overall. Their win, however, dropped them all the way to the fourth spot.
And then, within two hours of the contest ending, news broke that the Patriots had fired Jerod Mayo after his first season as head coach. Mayo’s team went 4-13 and struggled particularly down the stretch.
Even though the series as a whole is relatively lopsided in the Patriots’ favor, there...
