Longo: Are Sean McDermott and the Buffalo Bills ready for prime time?

With all due respect to his one and only meek playoff loss to Jacksonville in 2017, Sunday represents the most impactful game of Sean McDermott’s National Football League coaching career.

What are McDermott’s Buffalo Bills? We find out Sunday at 1 p.m., right?

Are they the unbeaten Bills at 3-0? Or McDermott’s mediocre Bills, 15-18 over the last two seasons including last year’s 6-10?

This is the biggest game of McDermott’s coaching life. When he wasn’t lauding the defending champs this week, McDermott attempted to assess his program, where the Bills are at.

“We’ve definitely moved from where the meter was when we first got here to where we are now,” said McDermott, shrouding himself in requisite coach’s ambiguity. “I’m confident, mostly driven by the people, that our culture has changed. Still with work to do, but I’m confident that we’ve moved that meter.”

Few are paying attention to this clash of AFC “titans,” and fewer care.

Thursday night at one point on the Fox-TV broadcast, the team of Buck and Aikman highlighted a handful of games to watch.

There was talk of Ravens-Browns, Bears-Vikings, the Sunday nighter with Saints-Cowboys and even that classic AFC North, Monday Night Football collision between 0-3 Steelers and the 0-3 Bengals.

Patriots at Bills? Crickets.

Perhaps there is good reason behind it. McDermott hasn’t beaten the Patriots as a head coach, 0-4.

Belichick loves it. Be bored with the Patriots pounding people into submission from the opening snap. He’s just fine with anonymous Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts on the broadcast, no need for Jim Nantz and Tony Romo here.

In Buffalo, this is clearly a shot.

As quarterback Josh Allen noted this week, “We understand what this game means to the fans.”

It means a heck of a lot more to McDermott as far as credibility goes.

Look at the victories. Yes, all 18 of them, including the three this year. Two have come against playoff teams, assuming the Steelers, Jets and Giants will all be home safe in January.

Why is Sunday so important? Remember, first, who the Bills are, a franchise with zero playoff victories since 1995. Right now, McDermott is the AFC East’s latest Adam Gase, new to the scene with a reputation, a blip season and not much else.

There are four freebies in the AFC East to be had, what with the Jets and Dolphins in total tank mode. Seriously, we were in the Jets locker-room postgame Sunday. Sam Darnold be damned, it’s a team with serious character issues staring what many feel is an ill-equipped Gase in the face.

Buffalo, like New England, is also blessed with an extremely favorable slate, lots of Sunday, 1 p.m. games and no road trip farther than Dallas. Both the Eagles and Ravens, Buffalo’s other two non-Patriots opponents currently with a pulse, must make the trip to Orchard Park.

McDermott’s crew will likely make the playoffs this year. But does Buffalo stumble in or play like a franchise with which to be reckoned?

That’s on McDermott and it starts Sunday.

To be honest, his Patriots' blabber was a tad over the top. It went deeper than typical Belichickian levels.

“Their numbers are staggering, I mean almost unheard of. They can spin the dial and go to things that most teams can’t,” the coach said of his foe this week. “You respect what they’ve been able to do, if you don’t watch and learn from other people … you’re ignorant to a model out there.”

Many have imitated. None have duplicated coach, and most have failed trying. That doesn’t mean you have pay homage a la Sean McVay on Super Bowl Sunday.

Allen was at it, too, talking about Tom Brady.

“It’s a little surreal to quarterback against him,” he said.

Surreal?

But Sunday is about McDermott, and whether or not he belongs with the big boys.

Buffalo, you are now on the clock.