2016 Buffalo Bills Schedule: Full Listing of Dates, Times and TV Info

Hope springs eternal in Western New York as the Buffalo Bills head into the 2016 season looking to end the NFL's longest playoff drought. The Bills have missed the postseason 16 straight times, dating back to the 1999 campaign, which is three years more than the next closest teams.

Buffalo's front office didn't make a major offseason splash in an attempt to reverse that trend because of a restrictive cap situation. General manager Doug Whaley did manage to keep two key offensive linemen in Cordy Glenn (franchise tag) and Richie Incognito (three-year extension), though.

Now the question is whether the Bills can make enough improvement internally to tack on a few more wins to last season's 8-8 record in order to make the playoffs. For those fans dreaming big, Odds Shark lists Buffalo at 40-1 odds to win Super Bowl 51.

Let's check out the schedule the Bills must navigate this fall, courtesy of NFL.com. That's followed by some analysis about what must happen to end that extended playoff absence.

Schedule

Week	Date	Opponent	Time (ET)	TV
1	Sep 11	at Baltimore Ravens	1 p.m.	CBS
2	Sep 15	vs. New York Jets	8:25 p.m.	CBS
3	Sep 25	vs. Arizona Cardinals	1 p.m.	Fox
4	Oct 2	at New England Patriots	1 p.m.	CBS
5	Oct 9	at Los Angeles Rams	4:25 p.m.	CBS
6	Oct 16	vs. San Francisco 49ers	1 p.m.	Fox
7	Oct 23	at Miami Dolphins	1 p.m.	CBS
8	Oct 30	vs. New England Patriots	1 p.m.	CBS
9	Nov 7	at Seattle Seahawks	8:30 p.m.	ESPN
10	Bye	Bye	Bye	Bye
11	Nov 20	at Cincinnati Bengals	1 p.m.	Fox
12	Nov 27	vs. Jacksonville Jaguars	1 p.m.	CBS
13	Dec 4	at Oakland Raiders	4:05 p.m.	CBS
14	Dec 11	vs. Pittsburgh Steelers	1 p.m.	CBS
15	Dec 18	vs. Cleveland Browns	1 p.m.	CBS
16	Dec 24	vs. Miami Dolphins	1 p.m.	CBS
17	Jan 1	at New York Jets	1 p.m.	CBS

Analysis

Bill Wippert/Associated Press

Most Bills fans would have felt their team was a lock for the playoffs last season if they knew ahead of time that new quarterback Tyrod Taylor would finish tied for seventh in passer rating with Cam Newton of the eventual NFC champion Carolina Panthers.

After all, Buffalo finished fourth in total defense in 2014 and was getting a new head coach in Rex Ryan who made a name for himself on the defensive side of the ball. Ryan expected his new team would finish with the top defense in the NFL during his first year at the helm.

The Bills didn't come anywhere close to reaching that goal. They finished 19th in yards allowed, 15th in points allowed, 31st in sacks and 23rd in third-down defense. There were times, even deep into the season, when defenders looked lost within the scheme.

After the campaign ended, Mike Rodak of ESPN.com passed along comments Ryan made on ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike about what went wrong:

"

It was unusual for us. We really thought we'd bring it together. I probably did some things—when I go back and I look at things, we're going to do things much differently next year, and we're going to be better because of it. In a way, I tried to merge a couple things, two systems and things like that, and quite honestly it didn't work. So we're going to be all in, we're going to play Buffalo Bills defense, and we're not going to be fun to play.

"

In turn, the team wasted the positive strides on the offensive side. Taylor finished with 20 passing touchdowns and just six interceptions. He also chipped in over 560 yards on the ground to aid the league's top-ranked rushing attack, led by LeSean McCoy.

If the Bills are going to make the postseason, the offense must continue to build off that success while the defense returns to form. Taylor and Co. are capable of putting up enough points to win a lot of games with a top-tier defense but not explosive enough to carry the entire team.

So there's a lot of pressure on Ryan to make his defense work. How the group responds will likely tell most of the story for the Bills in 2016.

Pivotal Matchups

Al Pereira/Getty Images

While optimists might point to the two games against the New England Patriots as crucial for the AFC East title race, that's probably not a realistic goal, especially given the team's tricky slate. CBSSports.com's John Breech noted the Bills' schedule is the 10th toughest in the league based on 2015 records.

Instead, the biggest games will likely be those against fellow wild-card contenders. It starts within the division with home-and-home meetings against the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins. Going a minimum of 3-1 in those contests should be the goal.

Facing the AFC North creates three more key matchups as well. The Bills face the Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals on the road and the Pittsburgh Steelers at home. They'll want to emerge from those games with at least two wins.

If Buffalo can hit those targets, it amounts to five wins and two losses. That means it would probably need to go 5-4 in the other nine games in order to make the playoffs. Plus, it would likely hold tiebreakers over the other teams in the race in that scenario.

There are a lot of "what if" situations built into that approach, of course. But more than anything else it shows there's a path to the postseason available for the Bills if they are able to take care of business in those vital AFC matchups.