NFL analyst predicts disappointing record, division free fall for Bills in 2024 season

Predicting how an NFL team will perform in each week of a forthcoming season in June is ultimately futile. There are too many variables; rosters may change between now and when the game is eventually played, injuries may occur, momentum may shift, et cetera. There’s half a year and a bevy of circumstances between us and these teams’ final records—confidently predicting their win totals, at this juncture, is trivial.

This doesn’t stop NFL Network analyst Adam Rank from engaging in the exercise each year. He’s long predicted each NFL team’s record in the forthcoming campaign in the preceding offseason, with some of his projections aging well and others, not so much.

The official NFL YouTube channel recently uploaded a video containing all of Rank’s record predictions for the 2024 season; the analyst projects the Buffalo Bills to finish the 2024 NFL season with a 9-8 record, which would be the club’s first single-digit win season since 2018.

Rank projects Buffalo to finish third in the AFC East, behind the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets (predicting 11-6 records for both of those teams). The analyst predicts losses to the Miami Dolphins (away), Baltimore Ravens, New York Jets (away), Seattle Seahawks, Indianapolis Colts, Kansas City Chiefs, Los Angeles Rams, and Detroit Lions.

It’s fair to expect the Bills to regress a bit in the 2024 season given their offseason alterations—the team moved on from several stalwart starters (including perennial Pro Bowl wide receiver Stefon Diggs) and largely replaced these players with value free agents and rookies—but finishing barely above .500 seems a bit alarmist, especially considering some of the losses Rank is projecting.

A loss to the Indianapolis Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium, though not out of the realm of possibilities, seems premature to predict; the Colts are an ascending young team who could be surprisingly competitive in the new campaign, but they likely aren’t in the same tier as the Bills. Following that up with a loss at home against the Kansas City Chiefs—despite the fact that Buffalo has taken its last three regular season matchups with its rival—though not unrealistic, again seems alarmist.

Aside from wins over the Houston Texans and San Francisco 49ers, Rank essentially has the team losing every ‘toss-up’ game on its schedule, even dropping a few it should likely win along the way. Could this happen? Certainly, anything could. Will it? Probably not.

It’s, again, fair to expect some regression from Buffalo this year; the team is heavily relying on young pass-catchers like Dalton Kincaid and Keon Coleman to carry its aerial attack, and it’s fair to wonder if the team injected too much change into its locker room too suddenly. That said, it’s difficult to imagine otherworldly quarterback Josh Allen not single-handedly dragging the team to double-digit wins.

NFL slates are ultimately not played in YouTube videos—they occur on the field. The Bills will attempt to prove Rank wrong by again being competitive in the 2024 season.