FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- The New England Patriots bring a franchise-record 13-game road winning streak to Western New York on Sunday to face the Bills, which is the second best mark in NFL history behind the San Francisco 49ers, who won 18 straight road games from 1988-90.

Safety Devin McCourty knows the environment at New Era Field well, and he chuckled on Wednesday when it was described by a media member as intimate.

"When you say intimate, it makes it seem so friendly. It's not really friendly for us up there. When we pull into that stadium, there's nobody happy to see that bus pull in there. A lot of middle fingers, a lot of mouthing words because we can't hear them on the bus -- we've got our headphones on -- that doesn't seem to be compliments of any sort," he said, smiling.

The Patriots know they can count on intensity from Bills fans every time they visit Buffalo. Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports

"Their crowd comes and they come loud and energized for Buffalo, but it's been fun to go there and get that atmosphere and be kind of in that stadium where everyone else is against you. We know we have to kind of play well and get going early, or they really get into it and it makes it even harder to win there. To me, it's one of the most underrated stadiums for us when we go on the road and play because it's smaller but definitely a very loud stadium."

As for the team's success on the road, McCourty relayed that there is no magic wand that can be waved.

"Honestly, I don't know why we've had that stretch where we've played really well on the road, but I think it's us just trying to stick to our process, stick to what we do," he said. "On the road, I think you have a mentality of it's just us. When you go into a different stadium, you know there's no home crowd, there's no energy coming from the crowd for your side. So, I think we understand that mentality, but I don't know the secret kind of to why we've been able to win and play well on the road."

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As for the Bills, one of the themes this week from Patriots coach Bill Belichick and players is that it's a different type of team, under new leadership with first-year coach Sean McDermott and first-year general manager Brandon Beane.

"Usually we always talk about leading into the game, like on Monday with a divisional game, Bill will say, 'You know, this is a team we know very well.' This past Monday, he said, 'This is a team we don’t know very well,' and it's true just because of all the new faces, new coaching staff. It's a team we really had to dive into the film and kind of see what they're about, see what they're doing this year," McCourty relayed.

"Obviously, some of the personnel we know with Tyrod Taylor, [LeSean] McCoy, some of the guys up front and [Charles] Clay, but it's a lot of new guys. We've just been locking in on what they're trying to do personnel-wise, who's in different places, how they're trying to hurt you. So, guys are taking that as a challenge to get to know them as good as we can."