The Buffalo Bills host the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, November 20, 2022 at Highmark Stadium in what has suddenly become a must-win game for the home team.
Once the cream of the crop in the AFC, the Bills have dropped two straight gut-wrenching decisions in which they held double-digit point leads—a 20-17 road loss to the New York Jets to fall to 0-2 in division play, and a 33-30 overtime loss to the Minnesota Vikings at home—to fall to 6-3, to third place in the AFC East, and to sixth overall in the conference.
Buffalo’s overall play fell off a cliff after halftime of their Week 8 win over the Green Bay Packers. In the 10 quarters they’ve played since then, they’ve been outscored 63-50, including 43-12 in the second halves of those three games. In that same 10-quarter stretch, quarterback Josh Allen—once considered a front-runner for MVP—has turned the ball over seven times (six interceptions and one fumble lost) while completing just 56.7% of passes for 618 yards, one score through the air, and a quarterback rating of 53.8.
The Bills will always go as their $258 million quarterback goes, and as Allen’s play has nosedived, so has the Bills’ comfortable positioning in the division and conference. Now, with Cleveland coming to town and the Bills reeling, Buffalo is looking at the possibility of their first losing streak of more than two games since Allen’s rookie season in 2018.
Our friends at DraftKings Sportsbook don’t think that will happen. The Bills open as 9-point favorites over the 3-6 Browns. But the Bills opened as 13-point favorites against the Jets and as 7.5-point favorites over the Vikings, and ended up losing both games outright. Add it to the pile of concerning trends that Buffalo needs to overcome.
All of our coverage leading up to this coming weekend’s Bills-Browns contest is below.