Bills' blowout of Panthers reveals blueprint to AFC Championship Game

It was ESPN icon Chris Berman who used to ignite Bills Mafia by jokingly saying "nobody circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills."

After Sunday's thrashing of the Carolina Panthers, it's never rang more true.

After consecutive sloppy losses in which the Bills committed 19 penalties and five turnovers, they had 11 days off to regroup and re-tool. As it has since head coach Sean McDermott took over the team in 2017, the time off again proved the perfect elixir.

The rest gave Buffalo a chance to get some injured players back (like Dalton Kincaid), debut a new player (Maxwell Hairston) and tweak a back-to-basics game plan that featured low-risk, high-reward hand-offs to running back James Cook. The result? The Bills rushed for a season-high 245 yards (216 by Cook) and trounced the Panthers, 40-9, to restore order to their season.

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The value of the time off: McDermott's Bills are now 9-0 in the game coming off a Bye; quarterback Josh Allen 8-0. In those nine games, the Bills have averaged 29 points and never scored less than 20. The last two seasons they've won their post-Bye games by a combined 75-19.

There is work to do, but the trend suggests how important it would be for the Bills to not only win the AFC East but also finish with the best regular-season record and secure the AFC's No. 1 seed in the playoffs. It comes with an automatic Bye, and would give McDermott and his staff approximately two weeks to prepare for a home Divisional Round at Highmark Stadium.