The Buffalo Bills (7-3) return to Western New York following a two-game road trip to host the Denver Broncos (3-7) at 1 p.m. Eastern Sunday.
The game holds major significance in Buffalo’s pursuit of a playoff berth. The Bills have a one-game lead as the top Wild Card team in the AFC with six games remaining and every game, especially a chance to pick up another conference win, is huge if Buffalo wants to qualify for the playoffs for the second time in three years.
A fun aside, this will be the first time two unrelated quarterbacks with the same last name will start opposite each other since the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Brad Johnson defeated the Atlanta Falcons’ Doug Johnson 31-10 on Sept. 21, 2003 (shoutout to former Rumblings’ contributor Jeff Hunter for this statistic on Twitter).
The game will be the featured national broadcast among the early games only for fans living in the Bills’ and Broncos’ primary markets.
CBS’ No. 4 broadcasting team of Kevin Harlan (play-by-play) and Rich Gannon (analyst) will handle the Bills/Broncos game.
The areas that can see the game are highlighted in yellow (map courtesy of 506sports):
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On CBS, most of the country will see the Carolina Panthers travel to play the New Orleans Saints (in red), followed by the Bills/Broncos, Oakland Raiders at the New York Jets (green), and Pittsburgh Steelers at the Cincinnati Bengals (orange). The late CBS contest features the Jacksonville Jaguars at the Tennessee Titans (blue).
This will be the 38th meeting all-time between the Bills and Broncos.
Buffalo leads the series 21-16-1, and has been victorious in three of the last four match-ups. The Bills prevailed 26-16 on Sept. 24, 2017 on a steamy day at New Era Field. Tyrod Taylor completed 20 of 26 passes for 213 yards with two touchdown passes (to Charles Clay and Andre Holmes), while the defense picked off Trevor Siemian twice (by E.J. Gaines and Tre’Davious White) and sacked him three times (Kyle Williams, Lorenzo Alexander and Shaq Lawson).