That's bad news against Buffalo's defensive front. He's taken at least three sacks in each of the past four games, getting dropped 19 total times in that span.
New England's offensive line has not been up to its usual standard this season, and there have been games where Jones has been under constant siege. Rousseau was in the midst of a breakout season prior to his injury, and even without Miller the Bills have plenty of complementary rushers to help him out up front. Buffalo is also set to get both Gregory Rousseau and Tremaine Edmunds back on the field, which should help alleviate the loss of Von Miller.
Tre'Davious White is back in the fold, and will presumably play more than the 16 snaps he did a week ago. Buffalo doesn't like to use Allen on as many designed runs anymore, but he's always a scramble threat and a dangerous weapon around the goal line. Belichick's defense have had issues with running quarterbacks on occasion, as we saw with Justin Fields earlier this season and Lamar Jackson in the past. Allen is also a threat in the run game, though, and his ability to change the math inside the box can prove challenging. and not the likes of Devin Singletary and James Cook. If the Bills have a choice in the matter, everything will run through Allen, Diggs, and Co.
New England has been nearly as effective overall against the run as it has against the pass, but that doesn't much matter against Buffalo, which throws at one of the highest rates in the league. Does Belichick trust rookie Jack Jones enough to use him on Gabe Davis all night while doubling Stefon Diggs? If not, would he use the bigger-bodied Jalen Mills on Davis and use Jones as part of the double on Diggs? Or would he rather sit in zone and force Allen to repeatedly march his way down the field with underneath throws? Doing so would invite Allen to target Diggs all night, as the latter tends to work the short and intermediate areas of the field more often. Jackson each having moved on, there's not necessarily a logical fit for this matchup. In a matchup like this, one would expect Belichick to deploy his famous "1-Double" coverage, wherein he uses his No. (Other quarterbacks have completed 167 of 269 passes for 1,761 yards, 13 touchdowns and eight interceptions against the Pats, while that dreadful duo went a combined 44 of 92 of 423 yards, two touchdowns and four picks - and three additional dropped picks.) New England's defense ranks an excellent third in the NFL in Football Outsiders' DVOA and first in TruMedia's version of EPA per dropback, but in games against quarterbacks not named Zach Wilson or Sam Ehlinger, it has merely been very good, rather than impossible to throw against. Since then, though, Allen has torn the Patriots apart in three of five starts (despite that stretch including the ridiculous wind game last year), and he put together arguably the best playoff performance of all-time in one of them. That's "good" for a 56.4 passer rating, or the rough equivalent of a performance in the range of someone like DeShone Kizer or Heath Shuler. Combined, he went just 46 of 95 (48.4%) for 578 yards (6.1 per attempt), three touchdowns and five interceptions in those three games. In fact, across his first two seasons, Allen failed to complete more than half his passes in any of his three starts against the Patriots. Like most young quarterbacks, Josh Allen got off to a rough start to his career against Bill Belichick-coached teams.