Wild Card Weekend is here, and the Buffalo Bills are visiting the Jacksonville Jaguars. It's far from a perfect setting- The Jaguars are a highly competent team on both ends of the field, and it will take the Bills' best to overcome them and stay alive. Can Josh Allen and company come out swinging and send Trevor Lawrence and friends packing? The predictions are in.
Prediction #1 - Ray Davis sets Bills up
The Buffalo Bills have a First-Team All-Pro for the first time since LB Matt Milano in 2022. Their kick returner, RB Ray Davis, has earned his place in NFL history with his selection. It's a remarkable honour, and well-deserved. Davis has been electric this season, setting the Bills' offense up for success better than any before him.
His return average leads the league (min. 19 attempts), and he maintained that average through massive volume. Only 9 players took more kickoff returns all season, and none held a candle to his average. Consistency, violent cuts, remarkable bursts, and great vision made him an elite contributor this season.
The Jacksonville Jaguars have not had similar success in defending kick returns. Amongst the NFL playoff teams, the Jags give up the third-worst yardage on kick returns. When we take a closer look at the data, we see that Jacksonville's longest return allowed was only 55 yards. With stunningly few big breaks to skew the data, we see Jacksonville consistently gives up good field position. Ray Davis is First-Team All-Pro when it comes to slicing up a special teams unit. He'll be a weapon on Sunday.
Prediction #2 - A game of two halves
The Jacksonville Jaguars are amongst the leagues best first-half teams. They average the league's 4th-most first-half points per game (ppg) with 14.9, a high rate. Combine it with the fact they only allow 9.2 first-half ppg on defense and it paints a picture; Jacksonville game-plans well, and executes early to take swift leads.
Inversely, the Buffalo Bills are notoriously a second-half team. They lead the NFL by a wide margin in second-half points per game (ppg) with 15.9. They're third best defensively, with only 8.5 second-half ppg allowed. Thrilling comebacks have been the story for much of the Bills' 2025 campaign, and there's little reason to believe they won't follow a similar script against the Jaguars.
Prediction #3 - Final score
Buffalo gets a boost from Ray Davis, but they still need to step up late in order to close out a Wild Card Weekend win in Jacksonville. The Bills do as they've done all season, taking a halftime deficit and pulling off the comeback against the Jaguars to advance to the Divisional Round.
Prediction: Bills pull off a 31 - 27 comeback win over the Jaguars