After winning their first four games of the season and appearing to be every bit the Super Bowl favorites that many preseason experts predicted, the Buffalo Bills hosted the then 2-2 New England Patriots in a Sunday Night Football showcase game â and lost.
The 23-20 upset, on a stunning 63-yard field goal by New England rookie kicker Andres Borregales with 15 seconds left on the clock, seemed to send the Bills into a funk, winning only four of their eight games since, while the Patriots have yet to lose again.
Now, the Patriots sit atop the AFC East at 11-2 with the Bills hoping that a win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday brings them to within two games of their longtime rivals with just four games to play. But the first of those four games will be a rematch against New England â a game that will almost certainly be the most important regular-season game Buffalo will play all season.
NFL Makes Decision on Flexing Game
If the Bills lose, the Patriots clinch the AFC East, ending Buffaloâs five-year reign over the division, and even instilling at least some doubt as to whether the Bills make the playoffs at all. Scheduled for 1 p.m. Eastern at Gillette Stadium on Dec. 14, the crucial game seems to be a prime candidate to be moved â or flexed, as the NFL says â to be a nationally televised Sunday Night Football game, or a Monday Night Football game.
But it won’t be.
On Tuesday, the NFL announced that the Bills vs. Patriots Week 15 game will remain in its originally scheduled 1 p.m. Eastern slot, according to Dan Roche, longtime sports anchor for WBZ-TV, the local Boston CBS affiliate that will carry the game.
Vikings-Cowboys Remains on Sunday Night
Because flexing the time or even date of a game affects far more than the football fans watching it â upending schedules of local TV affiliates, fans who hold tickets to see the game in person, and, of course, the players and coaches among many others â the NFL sets a deadline of 12 days in advance for making its decisions on whether any specific game will be subject to a TV-related time change.
For the Bills vs. Patriots game, that day came on Tuesday, and the NFL made its decision not to move the game into an exclusive national broadcast slot.
The currently scheduled Dec. 14 Sunday-night game will be the Minnesota Vikings facing the Dallas Cowboys. The Vikings are currently 4-8, in last place in the NFC North. The Cowboys have risen to 6-5 with their Thanksgiving Day victory over the Kansas City Chiefs and are now second in the NFC East behind the defending Super Bowl champion 8-4 Philadelphia Eagles.
Playoff Implications of Bills Game
But that CowboysâChiefs game set a new NFL record for a regular-season telecast, pulling in an astonishing 57.2 million viewers. The NFL may be hoping that by keeping the Cowboys in prime time, they will retain a significant portion of that audience.
But in terms of playoff importance, the BillsâPatriots clash appears to have greater impact. If Buffalo beats Cincinnati this Sunday, a loss to the Patriots reduces the Billsâ chances of hosting a wild-card playoff game to less than 1 percent, according to a statistical formula created by The Athletic.
The Patriots have a bye this week, but in Week 15, according to The Athletic, a loss to the Bills would reduce their chances of securing the No. 1 seed in the AFC from 71% to 42%.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post NFL Announces Disappointing News on Bills’ Crucial Week 15 Game appeared first on Heavy Sports.