Getty Josh Allen reacts to a play in the AFC Championship game.
The Buffalo Bills will make history in 2021 and cement local hero status for their head coach, an ESPN insider predicts.
Dan Graziano shared his bold prediction on the outcome of the next season, where the Bills find themselves in a place that fans have not seen in close to three decades — Super Bowl favorites. His prediction seems to jive with other experts, who see an AFC East title as a starting point for the Bills rather than an end goal.
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Super Bowl or Bust
In a rundown of expert predictions for the upcoming season, Graziano predicted that the Bills will be able to get past the Kansas City Chiefs and into the Super Bowl, where they would face the Los Angeles Rams. As USA Today’s Bills Wire noted, the ESPN insider said that while the NFC isn’t so crystal clear, he believes the Bills will come out on top, delivering a Super Bowl win and a special place in Buffalo history for head coach Sean McDermott.
Bills over Rams. I have no idea who to pick in the NFC, but I don’t want to pick the Bucs because I don’t believe in repeats in this league. The Rams look good, and we’ll go with them — until the next time I’m asked for a pick. But the headline here is the first Super Bowl title in Bills history and a statue for McDermott in Buffalo.
The Bills bring back largely the same team that came to the doorstep of the Super Bowl last season, with the front office putting resources into bringing back key players like Matt Milano and Jon Feliciano. They also added wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders to offset the loss of deep threat John Brown, and improved their pass rushing by taking defensive ends in the first and second round of the NFL Draft. For Graziano, it was enough to push the Bills over the top in 2021.
Bills Picked for Divisional Title
While there were others who saw the Bills falling short of the Super Bowl, there appears to be a wider consensus when it comes to their place in the AFC East. After the Bills clinched their first divisional title in 25 years last season, NFL.com analytics expert Cynthia Frelund projected 11.1 wins in the next season.
The Bills’ Week 5 meeting with Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs and their Week 14 matchup with Tom Brady and the Bucs are both going to be really exciting, very probable playoff previews. (These games could also be a sneak peek of that other thing, which I won’t jinx by naming; let’s just say it features one playoff team from each conference.)
NFL analytics predicts #Bills to win AFC East again:
That was enough for the Bills to win the division, but Frelund predicted that the Kansas City would snag the conference’s top overall seed with a slightly higher win total in the new 17-game season. The Miami Dolphins were not far behind the Bills, with Frelund predicting they would have 9.8 wins. She had the New England Patriots finishing just outside the playoffs, with 9.2 wins.
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