FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- New England Patriots coaches are back to work after a few days off on the team's bye weekend, and one item on their agenda is to tune in for ESPN's Monday Night Football matchup between the visiting Buffalo Bills and Seattle Seahawks.

Yes, in a rare situation, they plan to do some TV scouting of their next opponent, the Seahawks.

"It will definitely be more beneficial to see the coaches' copy on it, but this is kind of a unique situation," coach Bill Belichick explained, looking ahead to next Sunday night's home game at Gillette Stadium.

"We're pretty far ahead on Seattle. We've had a chance to work on them all week, done all their games up through the Saints game [in Week 8], so there's no more to do, and there won't be any more to do until Monday night. I think Monday night will be a good opportunity to kind of take a look at the game against Buffalo with a little bit of a blank slate."

Because the Patriots' most recent game was against the Bills, the Buffalo-Seattle game adds to the "unique situation" of preparation.

"Buffalo is a team that we know well from just having played against them and being a division team, so I think when we see what Seattle is doing, we'll be able to figure out why they're doing it, what they perceive as an area to attack or what type of game plan to utilize," Belichick said. "I think it will be interesting to watch it in reverse -- Buffalo, a team we know well, attack Seattle. We're a different team than Buffalo, but still, there are certain things that carry over, so we'll be able to watch how they attack and kind of do it on a timely basis as opposed to going back and looking at it after the fact.

"We'll sort of watch it unfold and picture plays or situations, calls that we've talked about making in certain situations, and then when those situations come up, see how it would hypothetically match up against Seattle. This is a little bit of a different chance to do it. I think that makes it a little bit interesting, so yes, we'll watch the game."

The last time the Patriots faced the Seahawks was Super Bowl XLIX to cap off the 2014-15 season.

For New England players, tuning into Monday Night Football could also help in getting more familiar with some of their personnel.