Bills Mafia has seen enough Allen-Jackson classics to expect fireworks, and the national experts are preparing for the same thing. Most of them still have the Buffalo Bills winning Sunday at Highmark Stadium, even with Lamar Jackson cleared to start for Baltimore after missing three games with a high ankle sprain.
Across NFL.com, ESPN, CBS Sports and Sports Illustrated, 22 of 23 analysts picked Buffalo. The common thread is points. Eight of the nine projected scores clear the 54.5 total, and almost all of them expect Josh Allen to have the last word.
NFL.com: Bills, five of five
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Every NFL.com analyst took Buffalo, with Gennaro Filice at 36-29 and Bobby Kownack at 35-31. Brooke Cersosimo’s 26-21 was the only projection with neither team reaching 27.
Kownack leaned on history, from the Allen-Jackson rivalry to the Bills’ long run of wins coming off a bye. He also conceded that Buffalo’s defense is a weakness and that the offense may need to win a shootout, a concern we covered with Jim Leonhard’s defense allowing 29-plus points five times.
ESPN: Bills, two of three
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Eric Moody (31-27) and Seth Walder (30-27) picked Buffalo in ESPN’s Week 8 guide, and the Football Power Index gives the Bills a 61.4% chance to win. Pamela Maldonado went with Baltimore, 31-28. “Both offenses have ways to keep scoring,” she wrote, expecting Jackson to attack Buffalo through the air.
Walder’s bold prediction is a warning for Allen. He expects Baltimore to intercept him on a play-action pass, citing the Ravens’ top-ranked play-action defense.
CBS Sports: Bills, seven of seven
Pete Prisco has it 35-30 Buffalo. “Look for a shootout here with Josh Allen getting the best of it,” he wrote in his Week 8 picks, while questioning how much Jackson’s ankle will limit him. Jared Dubin, Ryan Wilson, John Breech and Dave Richard joined him on the CBS panel, with Tyler Sullivan and Jamey Eisenberg also taking the Bills.
Sports Illustrated: Bills, eight of eight
The SI staff went 8-0 for Buffalo, though it made its picks with Jackson’s status unsettled. “With Lamar Jackson’s injury status still up in the air, our whole staff has picked Buffalo to win,” the staff wrote. Jackson has since been cleared, which makes this group’s sweep the shakiest of the bunch.
The Bills’ case doesn’t depend on Jackson’s ankle. Buffalo leads the NFL at 32.8 points per game and ranks first in EPA per play, according to our analytics breakdown, while Baltimore blew a 13-0 halftime lead in a 35-13 loss to Cincinnati last week. The pressure falls on a Bills secondary that has to slow Zay Flowers, which is why we called Derrick Henry or Zay Flowers the defense’s biggest dilemma. Our bold predictions for Bills-Ravens start with Greg Rousseau getting to Jackson.
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