Currently sitting at 5-3 on the season, the Buffalo Bills are at a crossroads. The Bills had won their last four of five games before being trampled by the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium last Thursday.

It was soul-crushing, but the loss could ultimately prove to be a soul-searching moment for this young team.

What lies ahead for Buffalo are three incredibly tough opponents. The Bills face the talented New Orleans Saints this weekend in a game that will kick off a difficult stretch for the team. Buffalo then enters a marathon in which three out of the next four opponents they face are division leaders. The fourth team is a scrappy Los Angeles Chargers club who’s won two out of their last three after running into a hot Patriots team in Week 8.

In short, what lies ahead for the Bills is incredibly challenging, but Buffalo’s matchup against the Saints this Sunday could be a blessing in disguise.

After starting the season two games in the hole, New Orleans has surged back to a 6-2 record, and they currently sit atop the NFC South. What helps the Bills in facing a team like the Saints at a time like this is that Drew Brees and company are almost carbon copies of two other teams Buffalo will face in the next three weeks, the Kansas City Chiefs and the New England Patriots.

When looking at all three teams, there’s a major commonality between them all – weapons. All three teams have uniquely talented rosters that favor outstanding talent over common utilization.

What New Orleans brings to the table offensively is a veteran quarterback in Brees, who’s currently ranked 5th in passing yards, has thrown for 13 touchdowns, and has given the ball away through the air just four times in eight games.

The team also deploys a diverse backfield which features a two-headed monster with Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara. The receiving options for Brees are underrated, as Michael Thomas and Ted Ginn have over 1,000 yards and five touchdowns combined. They’re a group of skilled players that you wouldn’t expect to be leading a division, and not much has changed in personnel since a year ago when the team finished 7-9.

Facing the Saints is an incredibly difficult task right now. The team has won six in a row and hasn’t kept the game too close in many of those affairs. New Orleans has scored an average of 30.3 points since the wins started rolling, and they’re beating teams by around 15.3 points per game. That’s over two touchdowns per game.

If you look at the Chiefs and the Patriots, the similarities are strange. Both Kansas City and New England are loaded with offensive weapons and average 28.1 and 27 points per game respectively. Their quarterbacks are veterans who are playing like no one thought they would at this point in their career, and each team currently has six wins. Incredibly talented weapons flank these veterans on either side.

These three teams are all ranked within the top five of the NFL in yards and are all within the top ten in scoring.

The silver lining that could be found in this gauntlet of games for the Bills is that each team is terribly similar in how they have been winning. Facing the Saints at a time like this could end up preparing Buffalo for what’s to come and give the team some insight on what they need to do in order to win against high scoring offenses. If the Bills end up winning Sunday, it could propel the team for the next three weeks and bring the team that much closer to ending the playoff drought.

Even if Buffalo does lose this game, the team will have faced a fierce opponent with the characteristics of others to come and should aid the team moving forward.