Bills have the NFL's most points. Vikings are the hardest to score on. Which side gives on Monday?

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Buffalo Bills are back to playing their usual catch-us-if-you-can game this season under first-year coach Joe Brady, cruising to an AFC-best 6-1 start with quarterback Josh Allen in his prime and thriving as a constant pass-run threat.

Forgive the 2024 NFL MVP if he's not feeling fully confident about the upcoming game. When the Bills visit the Minnesota Vikings on Monday night, their offense will line up against the toughest team to score against in the league.

“They're the number one defense for a reason, so they're giving a lot of teams fits, a lot of good opposing offenses as well," Allen said. “It's just going to be a hard week.”

But he didn't stop there.

“As a competitor, you’re like, ‘Yeah, heck yeah!’ I want to play the best,” Allen said. “I want to go out there and prove why we are what you say, the number one offense. I know it’s statistically speaking, but that’s still a chip on our shoulder. We want to go out there and be the best offense that we can be.”

The Bills, who have hit the 30-point mark in three straight games and five times out of seven, have scored on 43 of 70 drives this season that didn't end in a kneel-down. They'll try to keep the ball moving in front of a deafening U.S. Bank Stadium crowd against a Vikings defense that leads the NFL in several statistical categories. According to the league, this will mark the first time since 2013 that a team averaging 33 or more points will play a team allowing 14 or fewer points in Week 9 or later.

The not-so-secret sauce for the Vikings under defensive coordinator Brian Flores is the blitz, sending at least one extra pass rusher on nearly three-quarters of the drop-backs they've faced, a league-record rate since tracking began a decade ago.

Allen's size, instinct and speed make him a dangerous player to blitz, with his ability to sidestep the rush and break a tackle or two for a momentum-changing first down.

“There’s risk-reward in pressuring people every week, and it’s certainly our play style," Flores said. “I don’t know if we’re going to go too far away from it, but we’re not going to be reckless and we understand that with a guy like this you can have an unblocked defender and he can make that guy miss.”

The Vikings, who fell to 6-1 after persistent trouble for the offense precipitated a loss at division rival Detroit, have bigger problems than deciding whether or not to blitz. Struggling quarterback Kyler Murray will sit this week with a hamstring strain, and Carson Wentz will start.

“It’s really not a whole formula or a whole rocket science on what can we do to get better,” wide receiver Justin Jefferson said. “It’s just simple small things that we’re doing to hurt ourselves in different ways throughout the game that make us lose that game. But all in all, we’re still 6-1. We’re still a good team.”

Buffalo (6-1) at Minnesota (6-1)

When/where to watch: Monday, 8:15 p.m. EST, ESPN.

Latest odds: Bills by 3½.

Against the spread: Bills 5-2, Vikings 4-3.

Last week: Bills beat Ravens 36-10; Vikings lost to Lions 19-15.

Last meeting: Vikings beat Bills 33-30 in OT on Nov. 13, 2022, in Buffalo.

Series record: Vikings lead 9-6. Bills wins 2018, 2014, 2006, 2002.

Bills running back James Cook vs. Vikings defensive front. Cook, the three-time Pro Bowl pick, is fifth in the league with 707 rushing yards entering Week 9. He'll face a fired-up Vikings defense, which held the high-scoring Lions to 19 points but lapsed down the stretch with a bunch of missed tackles on running back Jahmyr Gibbs.

— Allen and Cook have scored a rushing touchdown in the same game 16 times, the most in NFL history. Allen's nine rushing scores this season entered the week as the second-most in the league, behind Bears running back D'Andre Swift.

— Bills edge rusher Greg Rousseau has seven sacks, one shy of a career high.

— Before limiting the injury-depleted Ravens to 10 points and 144 yards last week, the Bills had allowed 29-plus points five times in six games.

— Tyler Bass has the Bills franchise record with 21 straight field goals made, including seven in a row from 50-plus yards.

— Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell needs one win in the next two games to become the fastest in franchise history to 50 career wins.

— Jefferson has only 335 receiving yards in six games for the Vikings, on pace for what would be by far a career low. He had 193 yards in the 2022 game in Buffalo.

— T.J. Hockenson leads the Vikings with 31 receptions. Since entering the league in 2019, he has the fourth-most receiving yards (4,735) in the NFL among tight ends.

— Vikings edge rusher Andrew Van Ginkel had a career-high 2½ sacks last week against the Lions.

See AP’s full NFL coverage here

Minnesota Vikings linebacker Dallas Turner (15) sacks Indianapolis Colts quarterback Daniel Jones during the first half of an NFL football game in Minneapolis, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn)

GENEVA (AP) — FIFA President Gianni Infantino now has a serious challenger in his fight for re-election amid the biggest crisis of his 11-year leadership of world soccer.

FIFA council member Kohzo Tashima — a colleague of Infantino for nearly 11 years — intends to run for president against the incumbent, Japanese media reported on Thursday after a meeting of the national soccer federation.

Tashima is the first serious rival to emerge against Infantino ahead of a Nov. 18 deadline since the FIFA leader provoked a furor in global soccer in July with a plan to sell stakes in future World Cup profits to private investors.

“The worst thing that can happen is he (Infantino) is re-elected to the post without an election,” Tashima said on Thursday, quoted by business newspaper Nikkei.

Infantino's multibillion dollar investor project was dropped within days after a backlash by soccer leaders in Europe, Asia and North America plus FIFA staffers.

He and FIFA also faced scrutiny over the integrity of disciplinary decisions affecting World Cup games, in cases involving Portugal superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, United States forward Folarin Balogun and Congo goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi.

Japanese newspaper Asahi reported Tashima announced his intention to run in the election next March, and that board members of the Japan Football Association unanimously agreed to back him. Sports newspaper Nikkan Sports also reported the news.

“It’s not win or lose, but we must show the rest of the world the sincere, sound, and noble approach of the Japanese soccer,” Tashima said, according to sports newspaper Sponichi Annex.

The JFA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by The Associated Press.

Japanese soccer and Tashima have kept a seat at the high table of Asian and FIFA politics in the past 15 years as the Asian Football Confederation came more under the influence of Gulf states like Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Still, a rift developed last month when the AFC, having criticized Infantino in August, switched position to give him support.

Last week, the JFA announced its vice president Takeshi Okada quit because of the politics around Infantino shoring up his support. Okada coached Japan at the World Cups in 1998 and 2010.

After that AFC meeting in Tokyo two weeks ago, Sponichi Annex reported Thursday, Tashima told the Asian body's president Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa that he could not support Infantino.

The 68-year-old Tashima is a former Japan midfielder and FA president who has been on FIFA’s ruling committee since 2015 when Sepp Blatter was president.

Tashima is seen as a respected, diplomatic and low-profile official in the often murky world of soccer politics.

Candidates need formal support from five of FIFA’s 211 member federations who will vote on March 18 in Rabat, Morocco. They must also pass an eligibility check by a three-member panel appointed by FIFA, whose ruling can later by challenged at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Infantino is expected to face scrutiny for seeking a fourth term in office until 2031, which would be 15 years in office, when FIFA statutes limit presidents to three full terms and 12 years. FIFA legal advice in 2022 was that Infantino's initial term — from 2016-19 completing Blatter's unfinished mandate — should not count against the 12-year limit.

European soccer body UEFA has been leading efforts to find a candidate to challenge Infantino ahead of the Nov. 18 deadline to enter the contest.

It was unclear on Thursday if Tashima is formally endorsed by UEFA which was approached for comment.

In the FIFA presidential election of 2015 won by Blatter, UEFA had a strategy of backing three candidates in the early stages of the campaign before two withdrew — Portugal great Luis Figo and Dutch official Michael van Praag — leaving Prince Ali bin Al Hussain to advance alone on the ballot.

Figo is now a senior advisor to UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin, who in September likened Infantino to the fairytale of the emperor with no clothes, adding: “Football has no need for emperors.”

Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed.

See AP’s full soccer coverage here

FILE - FIFA President Gianni Infantino, left, greets Japan soccer association President Kohzo Tashima prior to the World Cup group E soccer match between Germany and Japan, at a stadium in Doha, Qatar, on Nov. 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)

FILE - Japan Football Association (JFA) President Kohzo Tashima speaks during a press conference at its headquarters in Tokyo, on April 9, 2018. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi, File)