Bills fans don’t need a full playoff picture to start picking sides. Week 1 is here, the NFL season is underway, and for Bills Mafia that means one thing: the rooting board gets drawn up immediately, even if the math is flimsy and the enemy list is still incomplete.
That’s the reality of opening week. Buffalo knows the AFC East is off-limits in every sense, but beyond that, the landscape is still fuzzy.
There are no late-season tiebreakers to chase yet, no strength-of-victory puzzles to solve, and no obvious teams to suddenly pull for after spending months laughing at them. Still, the games are on, and the choices have to be made.
So the early-season rulebook is simple enough. Always root for the Bills.
Start building Buffalo’s tiebreakers for later. Drag down last year’s AFC division winners.
Push struggling AFC teams away from premium draft position. Keep the best draft picks in the NFC.
If two irrelevant NFC teams are playing, back the better team to win and the worse team to lose. And if the rules clash, Buffalo’s 2026 interests win out.
One thing never changes: the Patriots, Dolphins and Jets can lose every game they play, and Bills fans won’t lose any sleep over it.
Just to be clear, these are rooting interests, not predictions. It’s not about who’s favored, who’s better on paper or who should actually win. It’s about what outcome helps Buffalo, whether that help shows up now, later or somewhere down the line.
For Week 1, that means Bills fans should be pulling for the Cincinnati Bengals over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Baltimore Ravens over the Indianapolis Colts, the Cleveland Browns over the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Atlanta Falcons over the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Los Angeles Chargers over the Arizona Cardinals and Kansas City over Denver Broncos.
In NFC vs. NFC matchups, the preferred outcomes are LA Rams over San Francisco 49ers, Chicago Bears over Carolina Panthers, Detroit Lions over New Orleans Saints, Green Bay Packers over Minnesota Vikings, Philadelphia Eagles over Washington Commanders and Dallas Cowboys over New York Giants.
The Packers-Vikings game gets an asterisk, and for good reason. Buffalo plays both teams, and last season they finished just a half game apart. But petty wins the day here, because the Vikings made the writer mad, so Green Bay gets the nod.
And yes, some of these choices are going to look strange by October. One or more of these teams could easily become a December headache.
That’s a future problem. For now, Bills Mafia has a full weekend of football, a set of rules, and no interest in watching without a side.
Soon enough, the standings will sort out the real enemies.
In Other News...
Bills Fans May Not Like What This Keon Coleman Trade Talk Means
With the San Francisco 49ers exploring ways to give Brock Purdy more help on offense, Keon Coleman has surfaced in the kind of trade chatter that always gets a Bills fans attention. The idea on the table is simple enough: Buffalo could send the second-year wide receiver west in exchange for a conditional 2027 fifth-round pick, a move that would immediately test how the Bills view Colemans place in their passing game.
For Buffalo, the appeal would be obvious if the front office believes it can turn a young receiver into future draft capital, but the risk is just as clear if Coleman still fits into the teams plans. Nothing is confirmed, and this is still in the proposal stage, which leaves the Bills in the familiar spot of watching their name come up in outside trade talk while the real question hangs over whether they would actually be willing to move on. [Read more 🡒]
Bills Have Early Week 1 Health Questions Fans Will Want To Watch
The Bills opened their Week 1 prep with a few names worth watching as they started building toward the Houston Texans. Buffalos first injury report of the 2026 season listed defensive back Jordan Hancock with a quad issue, running back Ty Johnson with a hamstring injury and defensive lineman T.J. Sanders dealing with a knee concern, giving the early part of the week a little more uncertainty than anyone would prefer.
Hancock and Johnson did not practice, while Sanders was limited, which at least leaves some room for the situation to change before kickoff. Buffalo will issue official player statuses closer to game day, and until then the main question is whether those early absences are just Week 1 maintenance or the start of something that could affect how the Bills line up against Houston. [Read more 🡒]
Bills Lean Into Their Border Identity With Unusual Game Day Move
The Bills are leaning into a part of their identity that has always been there, just across the border. This season, the team will play O Canada before home games along with the United States national anthem, a move that recognizes how much of the Buffalo fan base spills into Canada and gives the pregame routine a distinctly regional feel.
It is the first time an NFL team has made that kind of choice before home games, and it fits a franchise that has long marketed itself to both sides of the border. For a team built on Western New York pride, the addition says plenty about who shows up to cheer in Orchard Park, even if the bigger reaction around the league is still to come. [Read more 🡒]