The Buffalo Bills have two significantly difficult stretches baked into their schedule.
The Bills have five weeks between Week Two through Week Six, where they will face the Miami Dolphins, Jacksonville Jaguars, Baltimore Ravens, Houston Texans, and New York Jets. On top of that, four of the five are on the road, with the Jaguars being the lone home game. Is this the toughest part of the Bills 2024 schedule? A case can certainly be made, but let's look at the other difficult part of the schedule before making that determination.
In the second half of the year, Buffalo has a six-game stretch that features the Dolphins, Indianapolis Colts, Kansas City Chiefs, San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Rams, and Detroit Lions. Three of those are at home and three on the road. They are fortunate to get a bye week in there at Week 12 between the Chiefs and 49ers games, both of which are home games. Is this the toughest stretch of games? It's hard to say, but I think Buffalo will have a little bit of an advantage early in the season with teams not knowing what to expect from this team with the various changes in the coaching staff and the roster.
The Buffalo Bills have one of the league's toughest schedules in 2024.
NFL.com's Deputy Editor, Gennaro Filice recently published his ranking of the league's toughest schedules, and he has the Bills at number two, behind only the Pittsburgh Steelers. In his ranking of the top seven most difficult, the Chiefs, Dolphins, Texans, and 49ers, just to name a few are nowhere to be seen. I looked at some other schedule rankings to get an idea of where some of these other teams fell, and here is what I found.
In another ranking put out by USAToday.com, they ranked the ten teams with the easiest schedule. The Dolphins made this list with the eighth easiest schedule. Finally, foxsports.com ranked all 32 teams based on opponents winning percentage from 2023. I find some fault with ranking this way because teams change, coaches change and there is always significant roster turnover, but even still, the Bills are seventh on this list, with the Chiefs coming in at 16 and the 49ers in at 13.
A factor to consider when ranking the toughest schedules is the strength of the division. The Chiefs have it made with the Raiders, Broncos, and Chargers. This is part of the reason the Patriots were able to dominate in the early 2000s, the AFC East was terrible and made life easy on the Patriots during the regular season. I don't buy into the "tough schedule makes you playoff-ready." If anything, it wears you out physically and mentally for the playoffs. Unfortunately, the Bills reside in what is now one of the toughest divisions.