The New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills are quite familiar with each other. Division rivals since their days in the old AFL, they have met at least twice a year going back six decades. On Sunday, they will add the latest chapter to their rivalry.
The Patriots will visit the Bills in Orchard Park for a primetime meeting — the last at Buffalo’s old arena before it will be replaced by the New Highmark Stadium in 2026. New England has some fond memories of that place and the series overall, despite
recent history not being too kind to the team.
Overall history
Sunday will mark the 132nd combined regular season and playoff meeting between the Patriots and Bills. The rivalry was one of back and forth early on, with the two teams alternating dominance per decade: speaking simply in wins, the Patriots got the better of the Bills in the 1960s and 1980s, with the reverse being true in the 1970s and 1990s.
Then came Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, and the Patriots becoming nearly unbeatable in the AFC East and against the Bills in particular: between 2001 and 2019, New England went 34-4 against its rivals from Western New York. As a consequence of that stretch, the club now holds a 79-51-1 edge overall, including a 1-1 playoff record.
Going by location, those games can be broken down as follows:
- Wins in Boston/Foxborough: Patriots 42, Bills 25
- Wins in Buffalo/Orchard Park: Patriots 37, Bills 26 (1 tie)
Of course, the departure of Tom Brady and subsequent Patriots rebuild shifted the balance of power back to Buffalo. Since the 2020 season, the Bills have won eight of 11 meetings, including a 47-17 win in the wild card playoff round that saw quarterback Josh Allen and his team score on every offensive possession.
Most recent game
The Patriots and Bills closed out the 2024 season at Gillette Stadium in a contest that could be described a non-consequential: New England had already been eliminated from playoff contention for a while, whereas the Bills were in a position to rest their starters heading into the postseason as the No. 2 seed in the AFC. As a consequence, the two teams mostly used their backups in a game that ended 23-16 in the Patriots’ favor.
Of course, the final score was not the main story that day. For starters, New England winning what otherwise would have been a meaningless game eliminated them from contention for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Had they lost, they would have drafted first overall. Their win, however, dropped them all the way to the fourth spot.
And then, within two hours of the contest ending, news broke that the Patriots had fired Jerod Mayo after his first season as head coach. Mayo’s team went 4-13 and struggled particularly down the stretch.
Most memorable moment
Even though the series as a whole is relatively lopsided in the Patriots’ favor, there have been many memorable moments featuring the Bills — from that aforementioned 47-17 playoff win to O.J.Simpson breaking the single-game rushing record in 1973. New England, meanwhile, did not have many wins of that caliber; they just got the job done and over almost two decades oftentimes did so in rather dominant fashion..
There was a 56-10 win in 2007 that saw Randy Moss catch four touchdowns, evening the score with a 31-0 beatdown in 2003, or a 26-8 Patriots playoff win to determine the Eastern AFL champion that year. Even after the end of the Tom Brady era, there were a handful of memorable moments such as the team’s run-heavy 14-10 victory over Buffalo earlier during that 2021 season.
However, arguably the most memorable moment of them all naturally does feature Brady and his all-time 32-3 record against Buffalo: the 2009 opening game.
Brady’s first game back after a torn ACL saw the Patriots and their quarterback not play their best football, and still trailing 24-13 with just over two minutes left in the Monday night game. However, Brady and tight end Benjamin Watson connected twice four touchdowns — separated by a Leodis McKelvin fumble on a kickoff return — to put the Patriots ahead 25-24.
