Buffalo Bills at Jacksonville Jaguars
Sunday’s AFC Wild Card matchup in Jacksonville is the kind of game the public will overthink in one direction: “It’s Josh Allen’s year.” The narrative is loud for a reason — Buffalo has been knocking on the door for what feels like forever, and this bracket doesn’t require Allen to go through the usual gauntlet of headline quarterbacks. But storylines don’t block, tackle, or cover. And right now, the Jacksonville Jaguars are playing like the more complete team.
Start with form and identity. Jacksonville didn’t just stumble into this spot — they closed the season with real momentum, won the AFC South, and they’re doing it with balance. Trevor Lawrence looks healthy, confident, and decisive, and Liam Coen has this offense pushing the right buttons: enough tempo to stress you, enough patience to stay on schedule, and enough variety to avoid the “one-dimensional” trap that shows up in January. Add in a crowd that actually matters at EverBank, and this is a real home-field edge.
Buffalo’s path is obvious: Josh Allen creates chaos, the run game stays efficient, and they avoid the one killer mistake that flips a playoff game. The Bills are built to punish sloppy football — they can rip off explosives, extend drives with Allen’s legs, and snowball on you fast if you give them short fields. They also run the ball extremely well, and that can travel anywhere.
But the matchup problem is that Jacksonville is constructed to make Allen work for everything. They have speed at every level, they rally to the ball, and they’re comfortable turning games into long, physical drives instead of track meets. If you’re backing Buffalo, you’re betting on Allen to consistently win off-script against a defense that’s designed to contain that exact thing — especially on third downs and in the red zone.
On the other side, Jacksonville can attack a very real vulnerability: Buffalo’s run defense. If the Jags can establish Travis Etienne early enough to keep the playbook wide, Lawrence gets the leverage he wants — the intermediate throws, the tight end involvement, the horizontal stretch that forces linebackers to choose wrong. And once Jacksonville gets a lead, they can play the kind of clean, controlled football that makes a road team feel like it’s constantly chasing.
We expect the market to keep leaning Buffalo because the Allen storyline is easy to buy means, but the sharper angle is simpler: Jacksonville is the hotter, more balanced team right now — and they’re at home.
Pick: Bills 17, Jaguars 30
