Opinion: Are the Bills in the same class as the Ravens? Josh Allen is about to find out

Jarrett Bell | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Lorenzo's Locks: How to bet on NFL Week 14 SportsPulse: Carrying a 26-13 record Lorenzo is looking to start December strong. Here are his locks for Week 14.

A quick rundown on items of interest as Week 14 rolls on in the NFL ...

Who’s hot: Buffalo. After stuffing the Cowboys on Turkey Day, the Bills (9-3) have a chance to make an even greater statement against the hottest team in the NFL. Baltimore rolls into town with an eight-game winning streak sparked by MVP frontrunner Lamar Jackson. Buffalo coach Sean McDermott and D-coordinator Leslie Frazier have built one of the NFL’s best defenses over the past two years, but it has seen nothing yet like the power-running option scheme that the Ravens employ. On the flip side, Josh Allen and the Bills have their own second-year quarterback with legs. It isn’t so much about designed runs for Allen, but at a strapping 6-5, 237, he’s so dangerous in escaping the pocket and has scored more rushing TDs (8) than any QB in the league, including you-know-who. All in all, Allen is the quarterback they’ve longed for in Buffalo since Jim Kelly retired 23 years ago – in part because he has the strong arm that can cut passes through the Buffalo wind. It’s been a long time coming. But the Kelly standard also includes winning big games like the one presenting itself on Sunday. The Bills haven’t won a playoff game or a division title since 1995 with Kelly, but first things first: Beating Baltimore would set Buffalo up for a potential Week 16 showdown at New England with a chance to wrest the AFC East crown from the division bullies. Lose on Sunday and another not-yet-elite wild-card berth could be calling.

Pressure’s on: Freddie Kitchens. It could be one-and-done for Cleveland’s first-year coach. And he might have company in that distinction with as many as 8 to 10 head coaching vacancies projected for the NFL’s upcoming hiring cycle. Like Kitchens – whose talented Browns (5-7) have failed miserably to live up to preseason hype as a sexy playoff pick – Denver’s Vic Fangio and the Jets’ Adam Gase could also be on shaky ground while winding down debut seasons. Such a short timeline for head coaches used to be unthinkable. But these are different times. Ask Steve Wilks, fired in January after just one season as Arizona’s coach. Now there could be as many as three more similar cases. One thing for certain: If the Browns stumble in hosting intrastate rival Cincinnati, speculation about Kitchens’ job security will intensify exponentially.

Key matchup: Andy Reid vs. Bill Belichick. In three matchups since the start of the 2017 season, the Chiefs have scored 113 points against the Patriots and Belichick’s vaunted defensive schemes – a remarkable average of 37.7 per game. Yet Belichick won the past two meetings, including an overtime thriller in the last AFC title game and a 43-40 midseason tit-for-tat last year at Foxborough. Yet it’s fair to wonder whether TB12 and New England’s struggling offense has enough firepower to engage in another shootout at The Razor. Hello, complementary football? Belichick’s second-ranked defense has yielded a league-low 12.1 points per game. If there’s any week to keep the score down to ease pressure on Tom Brady, this is it. But that defense looked way too vulnerable and too slow when shredded by Lamar & Co. in Baltimore a few weeks ago. Now comes matchup problems compounded by Kansas City’s speed and versatility (Tyreek Hill, Jason Kelce, LeSean McCoy, et al) and the wizardry of Patrick Mahomes (20 TDs, 2 INTs). Then again, it works both ways. Kansas City’s 25th-ranked D (30th vs. the run) may be just the matchup needed for New England’s offense to regain its footing. In the middle of all this, two of the greatest strategists of this era – Belichick and Reid – are poised for a chess match that might be won with the adjustments ... and the players.

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Rookie watch: Deebo Samuel. The second-round pick from South Carolina heads into the showdown at New Orleans tied for second among rookies with 42 receptions (Seattle’s DK Metcalf, 44), which included a 33-yard TD on fourth down that allowed San Francisco to strike first blood last weekend at Baltimore. Last month, the physical receiver has also etched his way into the 49ers record book as the first rookie in franchise history – and first in the NFL since Odell Beckham, Jr. in 2014 -- to notch at least 8 receptions and 100 yards in back-to-back games. The only other 49ers rookie to post even one such outing? Jerry Rice.

Next man up: Chase McLaughlin. The horrific season for Adam Vinatieri took another twist with the left knee injury that knocks him out of Sunday’s game at Tampa. Enter McLaughlin, a rookie signed off the street after previous emergency stints with the Chargers and 49ers (13-of-17 on field goals, 15-for-15 on PATs). Will we see Vinatieri again in his 24th season? Colts coach Frank Reich maintains the injury isn’t severe enough to warrant putting Vinatieri on IR. But if he doesn’t make it back this month, Vinatieri, who turns 47 in late December, might have had his last NFL kick. What an inglorious way to go out for the most clutch kicker in NFL history. He’s had an astonishing 14 missed kicks in 2019 – including 6 PATs. And another PAT was blocked. It’s not how Vinatieri ultimately will be remembered.

Stomach for an upset: Titans at Raiders. My how quickly things can change. Tennessee (7-5) suddenly finds itself with a “trap” game as it takes a three-game winning streak into the Black Hole. Mike Vrabel’s scrappy team has survived a couple of close calls, but with Derrick Henry (3rd in the NFL with 1,140 rushing yards) playing the best football of his career and Ryan Tannehill injecting life into the offense since replacing Marcus Mariota, they are seriously in the playoff hunt. The Raiders (6-6), a 2 ½-point underdog after getting flat-blasted in Kansas City last weekend, pretty much have to run the table to make the postseason. Maybe. In other words, desperate.

If the playoffs were today ... The Cowboys would have a home playoff game as NFC East champs, and they’d be a decided underdog hosting the NFC’s top wild-card entrant, the 49ers. Last weekend, the 49ers were the No. 1 seed in the NFC. But they tumbled to the fifth seed with the loss at Baltimore coupled with a Seattle win. Just as stunning is that Dallas (6-7) has lost three consecutive games yet still hangs on to the division lead. Lucky they are in the NFC Least, which will likely be settled with a showdown at Philadelphia in Week 16. Hey, somebody’s got to win. But that doesn’t mean the “winner’ won’t become the first team without a winning record to claim a division crown since Carolina (7-8-1) took the NFC South in 2014. Of course, this possibility reminds us of why the NFL needs to re-think its formula for playoff seeding and quit allowing mediocre division champs to host first-round playoff games.

Did you notice? J.J. Watt’s younger brother, T.J., has had at least a half-sack in 9 consecutive games. This is how you further escape big brother’s shadow. Only four players – Simon Fletcher in 1991, Jevon Kearse in 1999, Michael Strahan in 2002 and Chris Jones in 2018 -- have had at least a half-sack in 10 straight games, since the sack became an official statistic in 1982. T.J. heads into Sunday’s chase of Kyler Murray at Arizona with a team-high 12 ½ sacks for a unit that leads the league with 30 takeaways and tops the AFC with 43 sacks.

Stat’s the fact: With quarterback Lamar Jackson leading the team with 977 yards, the Ravens have rushed for 2,494 yards through 12 games. Talk about a throwback. Since the 1970 merger, just two teams – the 1972 Dolphins with Larry Csonka, Mercury Morris and Jim Kiick and the 1975 Bills with O.J. Simpson – ran for more yards at this point in the season.

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