New England Patriots at Buffalo Bills

New England Patriots -13.5

Over/Under 44.5

  • Veteran Derek Anderson will get the start again for Buffalo after he completed 20 of 33 passes for 175 yards against Indianapolis last week. That was the most passing yards the Bills had managed since Week 3. The Bills have topped 200 passing yards just once all season, in Week 2 against the Chargers.
  • Kelvin Benjamin set season highs with four catches for 71 yards last week, and that is enough to make him worth a dart throw now that he has a borderline competent quarterback.
  • The Bills need LeSean McCoy to have any hope of fielding an average offense, and McCoy has cleared the NFL’s concussion protocol ahead of Monday’s game. McCoy had just two carries against Indianapolis, but he had over 90 yards from scrimmage in each of his last two games before that.
  • It will be interesting to see how much the Patriots will even bother to run the ball considering James White and Kenjon Barner are their only healthy running backs. Those two combined for 20 carries against the Bears last week, while Brady threw the ball 36 times.
  • Brady might have the deepest collection of weapons he has had in some time, with Julian Edelman , Rob Gronkowski , Chris Hogan , Josh Gordon and White all healthy. Gordon was a limited participant in practice all week, but he is expected to play.
  • The Patriots’ passing attack is surprisingly average, as their 7.5 yards per attempt ranks 16th in the NFL, behind the Bears, 49ers and Giants.
  • New England’s rushing attack is even less impressive, averaging 4.2 yards per attempt.
  • The Bills have scored just 81 points the season, the fewest in the NFL heading into Week 8. The last time the Bills produced so few points through their first seven games was 1977.
  • It is probably fair to call this Rob Gronkowski ’s most disappointing season for fantasy. He has as many missed games (1) as receiving touchdowns, and Tom Brady has less of a reason to force feed the ball to Gronk in the red zone with so many receiving options to choose from.
  • One of those weapons, Julian Edelman , has scored in each of his last two games, though he still hasn’t topped 60 receiving yards.
  • Buffalo has gotten fewer than 20 first downs in every game this season, and they have just seven touchdowns on the season.
  • Things haven’t been any better of late, as only eight of their 22 drives the last two weeks have gotten past midfield.

Pre-Game Props

1. The last non-kneeling, offensive play of the 1st Quarter is a passing play (We'll leave this open until the 2:00 mark.

YES. Even though I think the Patriots probably can and should throw on every down, they still managed to stay relatively balanced against the Bears last week. The Patriots are 11th in the NFL with 202 rushing attempts, and their 250 pass attempts rank 20th. The Bills have rushed the ball 190 times this season compared to 201 pass attempts. Only the Titans and Seahawks have fewer pass attempts. Even so, the odds are the last play of the 1st quarter will still be a pass.