The Buffalo Bills made some NFL history on Thursday with their 24-10 win over the New England Patriots. With the victory, the Bills accomplished TWO feats that had never been pulled off before.
First, the win over the Patriots gave the Bills three Thursday victories this season, which is the most in NFL history. Here's quick look at how the Bills have fared on Thursday nights this season:
- Week 1: Bills 31-10 over Rams. The Bills were hyped up as the Super Bowl favorite during the offseason and they showed why in this game. Josh Allen threw for 297 yards and three touchdowns as the Bills rolled to a win over the Rams.
- Week 12: Bills 28-25 over Lions. This was the only one of their Thursday wins that was actually close. With the game tied at 25 and just 23 seconds left to play, Allen drove the Bills into field range and Tyler Bass ended up hitting the game-winner from 45 yards out.
- Week 13: Bills 24-10 over Patriots. The Bills absolutely dominated this game from start to finish. The Patriots couldn't move the ball on the Bills defense and Buffalo's offense did just enough to make sure that this game didn't go down to the wire.
Since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, there have only been four teams that have played three Thursday games in a season. The other teams that had a chance to win three Thursday games were the 2000 Lions, 2019 Bears and 2021 Cowboys.
Of those three teams, the Lions actually came the closest to going 3-0. Detroit won its first two Thursday games before losing to the Vikings 24-17. As for the Bears, they also went 2-1, but they lost their Thursday night opener to the Packers, so they never had a shot of going 3-0. On the Cowboys' end, they went 1-2, which included losing the Thursday night opener to the Buccaneers, 31-29.
As for the other record the Bills broke, they became the first team in NFL history to beat four former Super Bowl-winning head coaches on the road in a single season (via OptaStats). Not only did they beat a six-time Super Bowl winner in Bill Belichick on Thursday, but they've also beaten the Rams (Sean McVay), the Ravens (John Harbaugh) and the Chiefs (Andy Reid) this season.
Plenty of teams have had a chance to set this record, but none have been able to do it. The Broncos will also have a chance to match the record, but it seems unlikely they'll be able to pull it off. Denver has already beaten one Super Bowl-winning coach on the road (Doug Pederson) this season and they still have road games left against Harbaugh (Week 13), McVay (Week 16) and Reid (Week 17).
The Raiders also had a chance to beat four Super Bowl-winning coaches on the road this year, but they're just 1-2 with one game remaining against a Super Bowl-winning coach.
