1. Sean McDermott values his relationship with Sabres head coach Ralph Krueger
Bills head coach Sean McDermott and Sabres head coach Ralph Krueger have struck up a productive give and take between them as the head men of the professional teams owned by Kim and Terry Pegula.
McDermott addressed what a valuable sounding board Krueger has been for him this season.
"Ralph has been a good partner of mine and somebody I consider a mentor honestly with the bandwidth of his experience," he said. "He's been in a lot of places and done a lot of things over the course of his career and accomplished a lot so I try and stay in touch with him. I encourage him. I'm not sure I've shared much that he can use, but he certainly share some things that I've been able to use and I think it's really neat to watch the Sabres players and our players support one another and that's as they say, 'One Buffalo.' That's a unique and cool part about our city."
Sabres players have been very public in their support of the Bills this season, especially after they clinched an AFC playoff spot this past weekend.
2. Expecting to win is part of team's mindset
Many will speculate this week on the chances of the Bills getting a crucial win against the team that has been their nemesis for the better part of the last 20 years. Regardless of what the prognosticators or oddsmakers say, McDermott says his team takes the same approach into every game.
"We expect to win, number one, every week," said McDermott. "That's just part of a mindset that we've tried to establish here. With respect to the Patriots, we respect every opponent. So I'm going to get that out first and foremost. They've been well established in this division for a long time and across the NFL for obvious reasons. What's important for us is that we continue to take steps as an organization and as a football team and will continue to do that. And so it's important that we continue to work on our quality of play, our fundamentals, the way we play, the way we take care of the football. And we go from there."
Buffalo has become a more consistent team than the ones in previous seasons as evidenced by their 10-4 record. After having a three-game losing streak in 2017 and a four-game losing streak in 2018, the Bills have not even had back to back losses in 2019
3. Takeaways from first meeting with Patriots
The Bills were in position to beat the Patriots back in Week 4, but four turnovers along with a blocked punt that went for a New England touchdown compromised the team's performance in what wound up being a 16-10 defeat.
Coach McDermott took a second look at the Week 4 game earlier this week and provided his assessment of what went wrong back in September.
"I thought we did some good things," said McDermott. "Certainly we didn't come up with the result that we wanted, but just overall just too many mistakes against a good football team. You can't do that as we all know and give them the credit you know they played really well in all three phases. So we've got to come out and do a better job obviously."
Both rosters will look a bit different as well in comparison to the game in Week 4. Buffalo did not have Devin Singletary in Week 4 as he was out with a hamstring injury. New England did not have LT Isaiah Wynn, who was on I-R, or WR Mohamed Sanu, who was acquired by trade a month later.
