Josh Allen Buffalo Bills Drawing

Josh Allen, winning record and college atmosphere help make Bills a prime-time draw

On Thanksgiving night, the No. 53 TV market Buffalo Bills meet the No. 50 TV market New Orleans Saints on NBC's "Sunday Night Football."

The Nov. 25 matchup between two of the three smallest market teams on one of the biggest nights of the National Football League season illustrates how little market size matters in the selection of attractive matchups.

Of course, the NFL might lean toward the bigger markets of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago if it is on the fence whether a game should be in prime time.

"But you play your way into prime time," Mike North, the NFL's vice president of broadcast planning and scheduling, said in a telephone interview. "You don't draft your way into prime time. The Bills have earned it and their market size doesn't matter quite as much as their 13-3 (regular season) record. If the Bills were 4-12 or 4-13, market size matters. But record matters more."

Buffalo Bills vs. Green Bay Packers (copy) — Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen calls a play at the line during the second quarter against the Green Bay Packers at Highmark Stadium on Aug. 28, 2021.

Prime-time matchups also depend on big-name quarterbacks.

And the Bills, who finished 15-4 last season and lost in the AFC title game to Kansas City, have one.

"Aside from being a good team, which is the No. 1 factor for prime time, they have a quarterback that is very exciting who probably hasn't come close to reaching his max potential and is extremely likable," said "Sunday Night Football" executive producer Fred Gaudelli.

He called Allen and wide receiver Stefon Diggs "one of the top combinations in the league."

"I just feel like Thanksgiving night in New Orleans in the Superdome with Josh and the whole team and Diggs, it is going to be fun. We know the environment will be awesome."

North cited another reason beyond the Bills' record, their ascendancy and their "attractive quarterback" for becoming a prime-time draw – strong ratings for recent games in key network windows over the last two years.

"The best example is probably Thanksgiving (a 26-15 win in 2019) when they went down to Dallas," North said. "That game is usually our most viewed game of the entire season. And to have put the Bills in that window, and have them perform as well as they did, certainly seems to warrant additional opportunities for the Bills to hit our national television schedule, not just prime time, but also the key 4:25 p.m. Sunday afternoon window."

McCoy-Sports-Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17)-2019 (copy) — Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) rushes for a touchdown over Dallas Cowboys outside linebacker Sean Lee (50) in the third quarter at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Thanksgiving Day in 2019.
James P. McCoy/Buffalo News

Gaudelli, who was here last season with SNF for a regular-season game with Pittsburgh played without fans and a playoff game against Baltimore with only 6,772 attending, wishes one thing was different regarding this season's Bills games.

"The only thing I'm bummed about is that we don't have any games in Buffalo," he said. "Our two Bills games are on the road, but they are two great games."

'Phenomenal fan base'

NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth and play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico also hope SNF gets to Buffalo soon.

"Not only are the Bills good, they are fun to watch," Collinsworth said in an email. "Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs were magical from day one. When you combine exciting young talent with a raucous fan base, it makes for great television. See you in prime time Buffalo. It can't be long before Al (play-by-play announcer Michaels) and I are crashing through tables."

Tirico, who calls games when Michaels doesn't, used analytics to explain why the small market Bills are such a prime-time attraction.

"The Bills are one of only six teams to have double-digit wins in each of the last two seasons," said Tirico. "Josh Allen is a rising star and is becoming well-known nationally. Couple the quarterback play with the exciting brand of football and the success and you have fans across the country who want to see the Bills."

He notes that the NFL is less big-market dependent than any other league, with Green Bay (the NFL's smallest market) and New Orleans prime-time regulars.

"So, if the Bills continue to stack more good seasons, we will have plenty of trips to Buffalo in our future … and I would love that."

Steve Levy, ESPN's "Monday Night Football" play-by-play announcer, will be at Highmark Stadium for the Bills' Dec. 6 game against the New England Patriots, one of two games on the MNF schedule.

He has witnessed the Bills' "phenomenal fan base" since he worked as a stringer for WABC radio in New York for Bills games in the 1980s when he attended Oswego State.

"The local television ratings for Buffalo are off the charts, it is as good as anything in the league," said Levy. "I have had warm and fuzzy feelings for the region for a long time … I know how crazy that town is about the Bills. It's almost in a way like a college kind of setting. It's almost like a college love affair with their local university and that's not the case (everywhere). Giants fans, they love their team, but it's not the same feeling. It's not the same atmosphere at Foxboro with the Patriots. I've always maintained Buffalo is the most underrated sports market in the country."

NBC's announcers mentioned during the Baltimore playoff game that the limited fans attending were loud.

"They made enough noise to make it feel like a real game," said Gaudelli. "But it was too bad that as exciting as that team was last year … what a wild scene it would have been if we had the normal fans."

The Bills' other SNF game is Oct. 10 against Patrick Mahomes and the defending AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs, who play in the No. 32 TV market.

"That's a hump game for Buffalo," said Gaudelli. "That's the team they are going to have to get by to get out of the AFC into the Super Bowl."

Josh Allen is just the fourth quarterback in NFL history with 700-plus yards, six or more touchdowns and no interceptions in the first two games of the season, according to Pro Football Reference. Click here to read more.

Qina Liu

Once again, the game isn't about market size.

"Just like the Bills proved in the '90s, you have an exciting, excellent football team that has a fan base that the Bills have that kind of supersedes the market," said Gaudelli. "Would we love it if Buffalo was the second market or third market? Of course. But I don't think it matters as much as it used to. I think it's much more about attraction now. Do you have star power and are you entertaining? Those kind of things get people to watch."

He thinks social media is one reason market size matters less now.

"Everything's less provincial," said Gaudelli. "I may not have known as much about the Buffalo Bills in 1985 as I can in 2021. I mean, not know as much about Jim Kelly back then as I know about Josh Allen now. I just think everything is so well publicized and everything is presented. And people feel the excitement that without that constant social media, 24/7, television, all those things, you couldn't really have those experiences like in the late '80s, early '90s."

Bills vs. Bucs 'screams national television'

Naturally, NBC would have liked to have the Bills-Tampa game. It will be the late game carried nationally by CBS at 4:25 p.m. Sunday Dec. 12.

"What am I giving up to get it?" asked Gaudelli. "Because you can't have everything that you want. Josh Allen, Tom Brady, that's a great matchup. But the Kansas City game. That's the hump Buffalo has to get over, right? So yes, would I love the Tampa game? Absolutely, but I understand why we don't."

"That game screams national television," agrees North of the Bills-Bucs contest. "The 4:25 time slot is essentially prime time."

One of Tampa's three scheduled SNF games – the max allowed – is at New England Oct. 3, featuring Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady returning to face his former team.

"It's no shock, the game we wanted more than any other was Tampa at New England," said Gaudelli. "I've been producing these games for 31 years and that's going to be the biggest regular-season game I've ever done."

The Bills could get a third game flexed to the SNF schedule since they currently have four prime-time games on SNF and MNF. The maximum number of prime-time games a team can initially have scheduled is five, but teams can get up to seven prime-time games if two additional are flexed in the final weeks.

Gaudelli agrees that you could make a case the Bills could have had a third SNF game scheduled.

"100 percent," said Gaudelli, who noted a third Bills game could be flexed to SNF if a late-season scheduled game looks like a dud.

"And the Bills have a pretty good schedule. It's a crap shoot every year. You just don't know who is going to be what you thought they were in May by the end of the season."

Buffalo was in that category last year, when nobody saw a 15-4 season happening, Josh Allen's improvement and Buffalo becoming a happening prime-time destination in 2021.

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