Patriots Breakfast Club Week 17: Bills vs. Patriots

The final countdown, ooh it’s the final countdown

Entering Sunday’s game against the Buffalo Bills the New England Patriots have nothing else to gain with a win or loss, and in short this game means nothing to them. Thanks to the Cincinnati Bengals beating the Denver Broncos on Monday Night Football, the Patriots locked up the number one seed and home field advantage throughout the playoffs. For them the game result may not be as important now, but it can no doubt be used as a tune up game since their next game is not scheduled for another two weeks.

For the Bills the 2014 season has seen them take another step closer to becoming playoff contenders, entering Sunday’s contest they are 8-7 with key victories over the Lions and Packers. For Doug Marrone and his coaching staff they can look at 2014 and be proud of the work they accomplished as many of their players including Scott Chandler and Sammy Watkins made significant improvements from the previous season.

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Taking a look at this weekend’s matchup with the Bills there are just two things to look out for if you’re a Patriots fan. The first is to get the starters in a handful of drives and build some momentum before the playoffs begin. If you listened to WEEI or 98.5 the debate all week was whether Bill Belichick and his staff should start all of his normal players, many fans and analysts were saying that they should think about sitting most if not all their starters since this game has no meaning for the Pats. However getting the starters a handful of drives gives them a tune-up before they enter the bye next week and avoids them suffering from rust once the playoffs do begin.

For guys like Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski expect them to possibly play the first quarter and maybe even part of the second quarter, but after that it should be backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo that leads the team in the second half. This will be the first time all season that we can look at Garoppolo and see what he can do under center, while backup receivers such as Josh Boyce, and Tim Wright can expect to see an increase of snaps as the game continues on.

This ties into the second key to look for this week and that’s the Patriots staying healthy, while a loss to the Bills would sting heading into the playoffs it would be much worse if they were to lose a key member due to injury. We all remember in 2009 when Wes Welker tore his ACL in the season finale against the Texans, that game had no significance for the Patriots and as a result they lost Welker for that playoff run. So for the Pats staying healthy has to be one of their biggest goals entering Sunday’s game, losing a guy like Darrelle Revis, Brandon Browner, or Dan Connolly would have a significant impact on them making a deep playoff run.

The Dirt Sheet

In terms of actual on the field action, like I motioned above I wouldn’t expect to see the Patriots starters to play more than the first half against the Bills. I would expect that Brady wants to get the offense on the same page entering next week’s bye and then get out of Dodge. When and if Jimmy Garoppolo steps on the field it will actually be interesting to see how he performs since this will be his first real taste of an NFL game. As far as scoring, I would expect the Patriots starters to put up their normal production of offense through the first half, but after that its unknown how the backups will respond. I’m going to say the Pats pull out a close game with the Bills, 31-24

Make sure to catch the CC Podcast coming in January 2015

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