Bills vs. Patriots Prediction
Will the Buffalo Bills at least hang with the New England Patriots as a double-digit underdog today at 1:00 p.m. ET?
Who Oddsmakers Like: New England. According to oddsmakers from online sports book Bovada.lv, the Patriots are 11.5-point home favorites to beat the Bills, who opened as 10.5-point road underdogs. The total, meanwhile, sits at 46.5 points after hitting the board at 47.
Who the Public Likes: As of Sunday morning, 55% of betting tickets are on the Bills to cover the spread while 61% of the money is also on Buffalo.
Who the Trends Like: Buffalo. The Bills are 3-1-1 against the spread in their last five games in New England while the road team is 19-7-1 against the spread in the last 27 meetings between these two teams overall.
Who We Like: Buffalo. If you’re going to beat New England you have to be able to run the ball against a Patriots defense allowing 4.9 yards per rush, which is dead last in the NFL. Fortunately, that’s a strength of Buffalo’s. The Bills are one of only five teams in the league that run the ball more than 30 times per game on average and you know they’ll feature LeSean McCoy again today.
The Patriots are also banged up. Chris Hogan is questionable with a shoulder injury and Rex Burkhead is out with a knee injury. Defensively, Dont’a Hightwoer is out for the season and linebacker Kyle Van Noy is questionable with a cal ailment. If Buffalo can run the ball against that banged-up New England front, then the Bills can control clock and keep the game within double-digits.
Besides, there was some turmoil this week in Foxborough between Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. According to the Boston Globe, Belichick recently stripped Brady’s trainer Alex Guerrero of many of his team privileges. Usually the Patriots don’t let rifts inside team headquarters affect their play on the field but I already like the matchup for Buffalo so I’ll buy into the narrative that not all is right in New England.
NFL WEEK 16 PREDICTIONS: BUFFALO BILLS +11.5