CHARLOTTE — Trevin Wallace tilts his head back, squints, does some quick math, and then nods.

"It could be a quick game," Wallace said, before laughing and explaining, "probably bring it to my high school days, where everybody's running the ball and the game is quick."

Sunday's matchup between the Panthers and the Bills might not be quite the 2 yards and a cloud of dust that defines a high school running game, but it is a matchup of two of the top 3 rushing offenses in the entire league.

Those sorts of matchups can drain a game clock expeditiously.

Austin Corbett's prediction for what kind of time frame a matchup of this sort can finish in?

"12 minutes."

After the sarcastic quip that was definitely not asked for, Corbett sits back and gives it a bit more thought before cutting his eyes at the clock above the door in the Panthers' locker room. It reads 3:44 pm.

"I could be looking at the same time on Sunday," he suggested.

Less than three hours could be a tough mark to hit, and this entire article intro has potentially jinxed the possibility now. (The record for the fastest game was a 1996 Colts-Chargers game that lasted two hours and 29 minutes.) Still, regardless of how quickly or slowly this game is played on Sunday, it is nearly guaranteed to be a old school rushing matchup.

Buffalo is currently first in rushing in the NFL, averaging 151.0 yards per game on the ground, while the Panthers are third in the league, with 140.1 yards per game rushing. These are two parallel trains rushing down the tracks; it doesn't seem like a matter of who can make it farther, because both attacks have proven themselves capable of eating up ground. It's really a matter of which defense can slow down their matchup just enough to provide an advantage.

On the Bills' side, there are James Cook III and Josh Allen. The running back has rushed for 537 yards (fourth in the league, just behind a particular Panthers' back), averaging 5.0 yards a carry, and scoring five touchdowns. Allen provides an extra oomph on the ground with 254 yards, averaging 5.5 per rush, and he's punched it in on the ground three times.

Cook will be the sixth running back in the Top 13 in the league that the Panthers will have faced in the first eight games. And it should be noted that is a current Top 13. Breece Hall was 11th before being held to 38 yards by Carolina.

"Yeah, I mean that's the beauty of this league," notes linebacker Christian Rozeboom. "Everybody's good, and whoever comes next is kind of who you focus on."

So far, the Panthers' defense—which is eighth in the league in rushing defense—has passed the test. In the four wins this season, all of which were games facing one of those Top 13 rushers, the defense has held their opponents' top backs to an average of 38.75 yards a game. There has not been a single rush of 10-plus yards in the last three games.

Cook will test and stress that strength of the Panthers.

"I mean (if) we don't do our job, yeah," said Derrick Brown. "We know what the explosive capabilities are, and you know we got to go out there, and it's the NFL, they'll make good plays. But our job is to be able to, our job is to limit the amount of plays that they make. So I mean that's the goal going in every week."

In this matchup of top running offenses, Cook will be trying to outdo the Panthers' system of Rico Dowdle and Chuba Hubbard. The latter has watched and admired enough Cook tape to know what he's going to see in person on Sunday.

"He's a great back," praised Hubbard. "I've seen him since he's come out; very fluid runner, runs hard, can do everything; a special back, so to be on the same field as him, it'll be fun."

It's unlikely Hubbard will be spending too much time on the sideline watching Cook, though, as he and Dowdle work with coaches to put together a second game, splitting reps between the two 1,000-yard backs. The duo did so on Sunday against the Jets, the first true live game with Dave Canales and Brad Idzik actively and consciously splitting the drives.

Dowdle kept his streak as the leading rusher going for the third straight week as Hubbard played his first game back from injury. The real payoff of the split showed up this past week, when neither guy was actively working through cramps.

"I think just keeping our legs fresh, I think that's the biggest thing," says Hubbard. "I think that's what Coach Canales kind of harped on, is look, any time you guys go out there, I want you to be fresh and be able to go 110 percent, so yeah, it's definitely a good rhythm.

"I mean, coach does a good job of calling a lot of runs and stuff like that, so you're able to get in a rhythm and not kind of feel like you're out of it."

A big part of the running game's success in recent weeks is the marriage of a dominating offensive line and Dowdle's balance, even when he is hit, which isn't often.

With the line opening up wide lines, Dowdle leads the NFL in both rushing yards before (192) and after contact (276) during the Panthers' current three-game win streak, resulting in 468 net rushing yards, nearly 200 more yards than any other running back during that span (the next closest is Jonathan Taylor with 283).

He, Hubbard, and rookie Trevor Etienne will be asked to take over again on Sunday, burning the clock both to meet Austin Corbett's prediction and keep the ball out of Josh Allen and Cook's hands.

On paper, it would be easy to assume that could happen. Parenthetically to the above Dowdle stat, the Bills' defense has allowed the third-most rushing yards after contact (594) and a league-high 4.6 yards after contact per carry to opposing running backs this season.

Additionally, the Bills' rushing defense as a whole ranks 31st in the league, allowing an average of 156.3 yards per game on the ground. As the Panthers prepare, though, Idzik isn't paying attention to the statistic so much as the reason, ensuring they can find a way to stress the areas of weakness.

"I think there's plenty of ways to win a game," Idzik points out. "We want to attack the holes in the defense that we think apply to what we want to emphasize on our offensive schemes. But really, it comes down to, okay, what kind of fronts do they run? How are they combating runs, what types of runs are hitting?

"So it isn't a blanket statement of 'These guys aren't good at X' or 'These guys are great at this.' You really want to get the nuts and bolts; what leads to those statistics."

Even if the Panthers' offense can take advantage of those areas, though, there is still Josh Allen and James Cook III to contend with on the other sideline, ready to protect their spot atop the league from a rising Panthers' attack. It means, regardless of what Dowdle, Hubbard, and crew might do, the Panthers' defense knows they have to be the ones to outlast.

Says Wallace, "You go out there and compete to the last whistle."