Eagles have won 3 straight against Bills in matchup of playoff-bound teams

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Eagles have won 3 straight against Bills in matchup of playoff-bound teams

2025-12-27 05:16 Last Updated At：05:20

Philadelphia (10-5) at Buffalo (11-4)

Sunday, 4:25 p.m. EST, Fox.

BetMGM NFL odds: Bills by 2.

Against the spread: Eagles 9-6; Bills 7-8.

Series record: Eagles lead 9-6.

Last meeting: Eagles won 34-31 OT on Nov. 26, 2023, at Philadelphia.

Last week: Eagles beat Commanders 29-18; Bills beat Browns 23-20.

Eagles offense: overall (22), rush (15), pass (23), scoring (16t)

Eagles defense: overall (12), rush (21), pass (7), scoring (3)

Bills offense: overall (4), rush (1), pass (18), scoring (4).

Bills defense: overall (11), rush (30), pass (2), scoring (14).

Turnover differential: Eagles plus-4; Bills plus-2.

K Jake Elliott. The ninth-year player is dealing with accuracy issues and coming off missing two field-goal attempts — three if you include a 57-yard miss nullified by a penalty — in the first half against Washington. The misses add to a season in which the 30-year-old has gone 17 of 24, including 4 of 8 from 50 or more yards. Though accustomed to kicking outdoors, Elliott looks ahead to an outing with the forecast calling for a wintry mix of snow and rain hitting Orchard Park, New York.

QB Josh Allen. The eighth-year starter is coming off his third outing of the season and just seventh of his career without having a hand in a touchdown in a game he played a majority of snaps. By comparison, Allen has six outings in which he’s scored three or more times this season. At 29, Allen has scored 299 touchdowns, and is one away from becoming the NFL's first player to reach 300 before turning 30.

Eagles RB Saquon Barkley vs. Bills run defense. Barkley topped 100 yards rushing in two of his past three outings, after doing so only once in his first 12. He's coming off a 132-yard outing against Washington, in which Barkley also scored for a third straight game. He faces a defense that has allowed 150 or more yards rushing seven times this season, including 246 in a 35-31 win over New England two weeks ago. The Bills have also allowed 24 TDs rushing, the second-most in a season in team history after giving up 26 in 1972.

Eagles: LB Nakobe Dean has been ruled out after hurting his hamstring last weekend. ... RT Lane Johnson (foot) has also been ruled out and will miss his sixth straight game. ... DT Jalen Carter (shoulder) doesn't carry an injury designation, putting him in position to return after missing three games. ... A.J. Brown returned to practice on Friday and is cleared to play after having his wisdom teeth removed.

Bills: S Jordan Poyer (hamstring), DT DaQuan Jones (calf), DT Jordan Phillips (ankle) and PK Matt Prater (quadricep) have been ruled out. ... The status of TEs Dalton Kincaid (knee) and Dawson Knox (knee) bear monitoring with both listed as questionable. ... Allen doesn't carry an injury designation, and coach Sean McDermott said the quarterback should be “good to go” after being limited in practice this week because of a sore right foot.

The Eagles have won three straight, and five of the past six meetings. ... The teams have split their eight meetings at Buffalo. ... A win over the Bills would match the Eagles’ longest streak in the series after a 4-0 run spanning 1981-87. ... In their most recent meeting, Philadelphia rallied from a 24-14 third-quarter deficit, with Elliott tying the game at 31 with a 59-yard field goal with 20 seconds remaining. After Buffalo opened overtime with a field goal, Jalen Hurts secured the win with a 12-yard touchdown run.

Bills coach McDermott opened his NFL coaching career with his hometown Eagles on Andy Reid’s first staff in 1999. McDermott worked his way up to become Philadelphia’s defensive coordinator for two seasons before being fired after the 2010 season. McDermott has a 97-49 head coaching record, while earning wins against every NFL team except Philadelphia. ... The Eagles became the NFC East’s first team to win consecutive division titles since Philadelphia’s four-year run from 2001-04. ... Philadelphia has a 5-3 road record. The five road wins currently match the fewest during coach Nick Sirianni’s five-year tenure, after the team went 5-4 in 2023. ... At 64-28, including playoffs, Sirianni ranks fourth on the NFL win list over a coach’s first five seasons. He trails George Seifert (68), Tony Dungy (67) and Don Shula (65). ... With 32 total touchdowns, Hurts entered the weekend ranking fourth among NFL quarterbacks, trailing the Rams’ Matthew Stafford (40), Allen (37) and Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence (33). ... TE Dallas Goedert has a team-leading 10 TDs receiving, which is tied for third in the NFL and tied for first among tight ends entering this week. His 10 touchdowns also tie a franchise record for his position and first set by Pete Retzlaff in 1965. ... LB Zack Baun is the NFL’s only player this season with 115-plus tackles, three-plus sacks and three or more takeaways. ... The Bills set a franchise record by clinching their seventh straight playoff berth, and eighth in nine seasons under McDermott. Buffalo is also one of just five NFL teams to have won at least 11 games over six consecutive seasons. ... The Bills are 25-4 in regular-season games played in December and January since 2020. ... Allen improved to 8-0 this season and 40-7 overall when not committing a giveaway. ... RB James Cook has taken over the NFL lead with 1,532 yards rushing — 44 ahead of Indianapolis’ Jonathan Taylor. O.J. Simpson is Buffalo’s lone player to lead the league in rushing, doing so four times in the 1970s. ... Cook’s yards rushing rank third on the single-season list behind Simpson’s 2,003 in 1973 and 1,817 in ’75. ... The Bills are 8-1 this season when Cook tops 100 yards rushing. ... DE Greg Rousseau had 2 1/2 sacks against Cleveland to take over the team lead with 6 1/2, and was credited with a career-best seven quarterback hits. ... S Jordan Poyer’s interception against Cleveland was the 25th of his career, and first since having four in 2022.

Turn elsewhere if you’re looking for a Bills wide receiver to count upon entering championship weekend. Buffalo’s receiver group — led by Khalil Shakir’s 66 catches for 684 yards — has combined for just 159 catches for 1,832 yards and nine touchdowns this season.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Mosque bombing in Syria leaves 8 dead and 18 wounded

IDLIB, Syria (AP) — A bombing at a mosque in the Syrian city of Homs during Friday prayers killed at least eight people and wounded 18 others, authorities said, as long-standing sectarian, ethnic and political fault lines continue to destabilize the country, even as large-scale fighting has subsided.

Images released by Syria’s state-run Arab News Agency showed blood on the mosque’s carpets, holes in the walls, shattered windows and fire damage. The Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque is located in Homs, Syria's third-largest city, in an area of the Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood dominated by the Alawite minority.

SANA, citing a security source, said that preliminary investigations indicate that explosive devices were planted inside the mosque. Authorities were searching for the perpetrators, who have not yet been identified, and a security cordon was placed around the building, Syria’s Interior Ministry said in a statement.

A little-known group calling itself Saraya Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on its Telegram channel. The same group had previously claimed a suicide attack in June in which a gunman opened fire and then detonated an explosive vest inside a Greek Orthodox church in Dweil’a, on the outskirts of Damascus, killing 25 people as worshippers prayed on a Sunday.

The Syrian government blamed the church attack on a cell of the Islamic State group, saying IS had also planned to target a Shiite Muslim shrine. IS did not claim responsibility for the attack. The group follows an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam and considers Shiites to be infidels.

Syria recently joined the global coalition against IS and has launched a crackdown on IS cells, particularly after an attack on U.S. forces earlier this month that killed two service members and a civilian translator.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “unequivocally condemns the deadly terrorist attack," and stresses that those responsible must be identified and brought to justice, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The U.N. chief also noted Syria's commitment to combat terrorism and hold perpetrators accountable.

The country has experienced several waves of sectarian clashes since the fall of President Bashar Assad last year. Assad, himself an Alawite, fled the country to Russia. Members of his sect have been subjected to crackdowns.

In March, an ambush carried out by Assad’s supporters against security forces triggered days of violence that left hundreds of people dead, most of them Alawites.

In a statement, the Supreme Alawite Islamic Council in Syria and the Diaspora described the attack as “a continuation of the organized extremist terrorism specifically targeting the Alawite community, and increasingly other Syrian groups as well.”

The council held the Syrian government “fully and directly responsible for these crimes,” adding that “these criminal acts will not go unanswered.”

Local officials condemned Friday's attack, saying it came “within the context of repeated desperate attempts to undermine security and stability and sow chaos among the Syrian people.”

“Syria reiterates its firm stance in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs added in a statement.

“Remnants of the former regime, IS militants and collaborators have converged on a single goal: obstructing the path of the new state by undermining stability, threatening civil peace, and eroding the shared coexistence and common destiny of Syrians throughout history,” the Syrian information minister said in a post on X.

The mosque’s deputy imam — a religious official who helps lead prayers — told Syria’s state-run Al-Ikhbariyah television that worshippers were praying when they “heard a loud explosion that knocked us to the ground. Fire broke out in one corner of the mosque. Those of us who were not wounded rushed to help get the injured out. Within minutes, general security forces and the Red Crescent arrived.”

“The explosion was huge,” he said. “It shattered the mosque’s windows and caused a fire that burned copies of the Holy Quran.”

Neighboring countries, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Lebanon, also condemned the attack. In a statement, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun reaffirmed “Lebanon’s support for Syria in its fight against terrorism.”

On Monday, clashes erupted intermittently between Syrian government forces and Kurdish-led fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces, in mixed neighborhoods in the northern city of Aleppo, forcing temporary closures of schools and public institutions and prompting civilians to shelter indoors. A late-evening ceasefire was then announced by both sides amid ongoing de-escalation efforts.

Tensions flared again on Friday between government security forces and Kurdish forces in Aleppo, with the two sides trading blame.

The head of internal security in Aleppo province, Col. Mohammad Abdul Ghani in a statement said snipers from the SDF opened fire on a Ministry of Interior checkpoint, wounding an officer, and security forces returned fire.

The SDF in a statement said that “factions affiliated with the Damascus government” targeted a checkpoint manned by Kurdish forces with rocket-propelled grenades and they returned fire.

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Abou Aljoud contributed from Beirut.