Bills vs. Patriots Final Score Prediction for NFL Week 18 (Will New England Get One More Win?)

Iain MacMillan | Jan 3, 2025

The New England Patriots are home underdogs to the Buffalo Bills in their final game of the 2024 NFL season. / Mark Konezny-Imagn Images

The Buffalo Bills and New England Patriots will face each other in their final regular season game of the 2024 campaign.

The Bills are already locked into the No. 2 seed in the AFC East, making this game effectively meaningless for them. It's been announced Josh Allen will still get the start on Sunday, but will likely play just a drive or two before backup, Mitch Trubisky, takes over.

Meanwhile, Drake Maye will likely start for the Patriots but it hasn't been announced how long he'll be in the game for.

Let's take a look at the latest odds for the game and then I'll predict the final score.

Bills vs. Patriots Odds, Spread, and Total

Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook

Spread

• Bills -2.5 (-118)
• Patriots +2.5 (-102)

Moneyline

• Bills -142
• Patriots +120

Total

• OVER 38 (-112)
• UNDER 38 (-108)

The odds for this game have largely remained steady throughout the week. The point spread still sits at Bills -2.5 but the total has dropped from 41.5 down to 38.0.

Bills vs. Patriots Final Score Prediction

In this week's edition of the "Road to 272 Bets," I broke down why I'm backing the Patriots to get the job done against Buffalo:

The Bills have nothing left to play for and while many people believe that will lead to Josh Allen playing limited time in this game, the side of the football I'm more concerned about is their defense. The Buffalo defense already has some question marks and now if the Bills rest some of their starters, the Patriots offense is going to look alive.

Even with their starts in the game, the Bills are 24th in opponent EPA per play and 27th in opponent success rate since Week 11. Meanwhile, the Patriots who have a young quarterback they need to give reps to and a head coach who is fighting for his job, have plenty to prove in the final week.

I'll back New England as a home underdog.

I'm also going to back the OVER for the same reason I'm taking the Patriots. The Buffalo defense has had plenty of issues in recent weeks and if the Bills decide to rest their defensive starters, thing will only get worse for them, leading the Patriots to have plenty of opportunities to put points on the board.

Final score prediction: Bills 24, Patriots 27

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Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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You can check out all of Iain's bets here!