Your Bills-Patriots Preview: Role Reversal?

What’s all this, then?

New England coming to Orchard Park trying not to fall two games behind Buffalo in the AFC East?

Ryan Fitzpatrick with twice as many touchdown passes as Tom Brady?

The Bills seeming like they have shaken off the opening-week disaster in New Jersey, while the Patriots look as if they might finally be aging badly after more than a decade of league-wide dominance?

Sunday’s matchup is a little disorienting. A visit from New England is normally cause for anxiety based on the knowledge that Brady and Bill Belichick will find a way to make the Bills look like a rather shaky high-school team before the day is over. This time, though, Buffalo actually matches up pretty well.

The commonly accepted strategy for neutralizing New England’s high-efficiency passing game, as perfected by the New York Giants in two of the last five Super Bowls, relies on getting pressure on Brady with a four-man pass rush and belting his receivers as soon as they touch the ball.

For the first time since Buffalo’s 12-season playoff drought began, its front four has shown itself capable of living up to its end.

Whether the linebackers and secondary can come through, well, that’s another matter entirely. With Aaron Hernandez sidelined and Wes Welker having fallen into disfavor with Belichick for seeking a salary commensurate with his production over the past half-decade, though, the Patriots have looked less machine-like than at any time in recent memory.

They struggled badly on offense in their home opener, losing 20-18 to Arizona. The defense crumbled at the end last Sunday night in Baltimore, giving up 10 points in the final four minutes and falling 31-30 to the Ravens.

Do not kid yourself, however. Buffalo’s offensive strength over the past two weeks – the NFL’s most productive running game, comes up against a Patriots defense yielding just 81 yards per game. If Fred Jackson – who practiced this week and is expected to play – is less than fully recovered from the knee sprain that sidelined him for the last two games, the Bills will have to control the ball with Tashard Choice running and Ryan Fitzpatrick throwing short (ideally to his teammates).

Without an explosive, or even efficient, day from Jackson and Choice, it would be left to Fitzpatrick to try and shoot it out with Brady. That worked in Week 3 last year, thanks almost wholly to some big defensive plays and a couple very fortunate bounces. Counting on that sort of freakish luck is not a sound tactical approach.

Buffalo, of course, enjoys one advantage that does not show up in the stats (which you can peruse for yourself here) or game films. The crowd at Ralph Wilson Stadium should be in a frenzy by kickoff, with a forecast calling for rain and possible thunderstorms making for an even less Brady-friendly environment.

Conventional wisdom suggests the Patriots are angry -- about last year's come-from-ahead loss here, their slow start and last week's scab-induced screw job, which wound up with Belichick forking over $50,000 for grabbing one of the scabs after the game. Whether such rage means as much to players as it does to fans and media types, or if it exists at all, is open to speculation.

So Sunday could signal a shift in the AFC East’s axis. Or a return to normalcy.

More Bills-Patriots frivolity:

If you can’t wait until tomorrow to see the Bills jump ahead early only to lose on a controversial late touchdown pass, or hear inane commentary from Phil Simms, you can do so below.

The Patriots first visited Orchard Park in December 1973, when the Bills’ home field was known as Rich Stadium, Howard Cosell’s weekly highlight narration was a national obsession and O.J. Simpson was known only as the best running back in the game.

Former Patriots linebacker and Bills tormentor Tedy Bruschi likes the Bills by three. (Editor’s note: If you only follow one Bills-related blog, make it Tim Graham’s excellent Press Coverage at buffalonews.com. If you only follow two, well, modesty forbids suggesting a second.)