Nick Wright has spent most of the last half-decade using his First Things First chair to make a variety of comments about Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills.
So when the FS1 host went on air Wednesday and said he trusts Allen and the Bills over Drake Maye and the reigning-AFC-champion New England Patriots, it drew attention.
In the AFC East, the Patriots just played in Super Bowl LX and the Bills just fired Sean McDermott and handed the keys to first-time head coach Joe Brady. And Wright is still siding with Buffalo.
"They were pretty close, but the Patriots had the win edge. And we always bang on the Patriots for that soft schedule; For the softest schedule the league has had by any team this century," Wright said about the division race between
the Bills and Pats last season. "It's like a Bills basically played the same schedule, except for the first playoff, it was basically the same."
The segment was framed around the expectations gap between the two AFC East contenders, and Wright's argument circled back — as it often does — to the quarterback.
"Again, they finished one game separate in the standings," he added "For 14 of the 17 games, they had the same schedule. Here were the three differences... When the Bills had the Philadelphia Eagles, the Patriots had the New York Giants. When the Bills had the Houston Texans, the Patriots had the Tennessee Titans. And when the Bills had the Kansas City Chiefs, the Patriots had the Las Vegas Raiders."
Wright explained that he has more faith in Allen to carry a franchise through a full season to the division and playoff results the Bills have a track record of with the franchise QB under center.
"I do think it is fair to say that last year when they were that close and in my opinion had that difference though, that three-game sample that had you simply flipped the schedules maybe the Patriots are 12-5 and the Bills are 13-4. Maybe it's worth a one game difference."
Wright adding that the Patriots' Super Bowl run is exactly the kind of appearance that historically distorts a young quarterback's trajectory — an argument he hammered on his own podcast, predicting in February that New England would miss the playoffs in 2026 entirely, is of note.
He also pointed to the same thing he identified 18 months ago, when he said on FS1 that the AFC East is "in a very similar position it was in for Brady's career, except for the fact it's now the Bills being where the Patriots were."
Wright's argument is the same argument Dan Graziano made on Get Up earlier this month when he said the Bills are on the "back end" of their window: the quarterback is the reason to trust Buffalo, and the quarterback is also the reason the margin is shrinking.
"The Bills each of the last six years have won 11 or more games and at least made the divisional round. Now that the Chiefs streak is over, they have the longest streak of seasons with a playoff win. They are just to me, flatly, more trustworthy than the New England Patriots. You could argue depending on how you feel about the Chiefs and the Eagles this year, the Bills might be the most trustworthy team in the league as far as having a rock solid season."
The endorsement is a useful tell about where the AFC East actually is heading into 2026: the current Patriots team have their one Super Bowl appearance as a watermark, yet Buffalo still has the quarterback and team that every other in the division is trying to keep up and compete with.
This article originally appeared on Bills Wire: FS1's Nick Wright has surprising supportive Bills take over Patriots
