BUFFALO — For most of us, it’s human nature to look ahead every once in a while, whether it’s a week or two down the road or a few months.

But if you’ve been a member of the New England Patriots long enough, your nature, at least inside the confines of Gillette Stadium, becomes a laser-like focus on one thing: the next game on the schedule.

The Patriots look at the year’s slate of matchups, see 16 one-game seasons, and treat each one the same: prepare, execute, process, repeat.

It is that routine, honed over Bill Belichick’s nine seasons in New England, which serves the Pats well in times like these, when it truly is a one-game season.

Win (and cross your fingers) or go home.

New England knew it was going to come down to this after the rainy loss to the Steelers on Nov. 30, knew that they needed four successful mini-seasons to have a shot at the postseason.

“That’s what’s in front of us now," Tedy Bruschi said in the moments after the Pittsburgh game. “Four games left. I say that, but I hope we all look at it as one game at a time. I think we’re good at that. To put ourselves in the [playoff] picture we have to win a game, not two or three or four, but win a game.”

New England won a game, in Seattle, then won a game in Oakland, then won a game against Arizona.

Three down, one to go.

The one left is a pretty big one, or at least the world outside the Patriots’ locker room would have you believe that it is. It is the last push, the last variable the Pats have control over; they have no say in Baltimore’s game with the Jaguars, no influence in the Jets’ showdown with Miami.

They have their game, against the Bills, in Ralph Wilson Stadium, at 1 p.m.

Despite the heightened importance, Kevin Faulk said it was “business as usual” around Gillette this week, as New England got ready to face a Bills team it is so familiar with.

“I think it goes back to understanding what we as a team have to do, not what’s at stake,” Faulk said.

Belichick feels the practices and effort the players have given since the beginning of the month were good, though on Friday, with two days of practice for Buffalo behind them, he wasn’t yet ready to say that it had been a good week.

He knows that this week is important, but the first 15 seasons this year were too.

“I think certainly each week is its own week, and every week is an important week; I’m not trying to get away from that,” Belichick said. “I think that’s the way we approach it. Nobody can clinch anything in the season week of the season — I don’t care what your record is — or the fourth week of the season.

“The last three or four weeks, I think we have been in the same situation. I do think it is a little bit different. When you get to this point, there is no break here, and this is it.”

The Patriots have been in this position before, as recently as last season: on the grand stage of the Super Bowl — or as recently as last season, a week ago to the rest of us, when they had to get their first three-game win streak of the season against the Cardinals to keep pace with the Dolphins and New York.

So here it is, Season 16 of the 2008 season. Fifteen times before, they’ve prepared, they’ve executed, they’ve processed the bad and good, then begun again. They’ve forgotten the big wins and learned from the plays they wish they could have back, those that may in the end tip the balance between playoffs or a postseason that begins in January for the first time in six years.

The preparation for Buffalo is done; now they must execute against a team that publicly poo-pooed its role as potential spoiler for its divisional rival, but privately, quietly, is relishing the fact that it can at one time end a 10-game losing streak and more than likely end New England’s playoff quest.

And even if they win, the Patriots then find themselves in the uncomfortable position of being Jets fans, even for three hours, and Jaguars fans, too, so that they can have a 17th season this year.

Prepare, execute, process … repeat?

smanza@projo.com