By Tim Graham
The Buffalo Bills will need to span AccuScore's second-widest gulf to win Sunday.
In AccuScore's 10,000 simulations, the Bills lost to the New England Patriots by an average of 13.4 points. Only the Kansas City Chiefs against the Pittsburgh Steelers had a bigger deficit, 15 points.
Buffalo averaged 20.8 points, while New England averaged 34.2 points.
The Bills beat the Patriots 18.8 percent of the time in the simulations, the third-lowest projection of the week behind the Chiefs (16.6 percent) and St. Louis Rams (18.2 percent) versus the San Francisco 49ers.
Buffalo's best formula for victory is Ryan Fitzpatrick throwing fewer interceptions than Tom Brady and averaging at least 5 yards a carry. When Buffalo did that, it won 54 percent of the sims.
But Fitzpatrick threw fewer interceptions than Brady in only 19 percent of the sims. Overall, Brady averaged 0.7 interceptions, and Fitzpatrick averaged 1.5 interceptions.
Another killer, given that the Patriots had a pair of 100-yard runners in Ralph Wilson Stadium, is when they posted more rushing yards as a team, the Bills won only 10 percent of the time.
AccuScore is 6-2 straight up in Bills games and 4-4 against the spread.
