Patriots vs. Bills: Fan observations from Week 4 win

Covering the NFL, in any capacity, is like being a weatherman. You don’t know a damn thing and you’re wrong more often than you’re right. But since nobody else knows anything either, you get a pass each and every week.

The New England Patriots, who have been struggling all season and were without their best cornerback and best interior linemen on both sides of the ball, took the best team in the AFC to the wire yesterday in a game that should give us all a lot of optimism going forward. It’s kind

of fitting thatBuffalo’s first-ever loss in their new stadium came at the hands of the Patriots, the team that won the most games ever at the old Bills stadium.

1. I feel like everyone, yours truly included, had the Patriots sitting at 2-2 through four weeks. Lo and behold, here we find ourselves. Did I think New England would get slapped around by Jacksonville only to beat Buffalo on the road? Of course not. But that’s why we watch this nonsensical sport.
2. If there’s a larger chasm that separates a 2-2 team from a 1-3 team, I don’t know what it is. It’s technically only one game, but teams sitting at 1-3 this morning are taking a long, unshaven, hungover look in the mirror right now, while the 2-2 teams are motivated to position themselves for a strong October.
3. So, this game meant more than just getting a divisional win on the road, for a lot of reasons. But before I get into why that is, I’ll own my blatant sports fan hypocrisy by admitting that I would have spin-zoned the hell out of this game if Buffalo had won it. Drake Maye looked more poised. They hung with one of the best teams in the AFC. Lots to build on. Maybe they win if everyone is healthy. It’s a long season. This was the best the team has looked. We all know the platitudes.
4. Luckily, though, I don’t have to do any of that, as New England outcoached and outplayed Buffalo to find themselves half a game out of first place in the AFC East. And this iteration of the Bills has never, at any point, defeated a defending AFC Champion.
5. Let’s start with the offense, because that has been the team’s biggest weakness thus far. Sure, Maye had a fumble and a pick, but in a nice change of pace neither of them were on him. He probably should have felt the pressure on the strip sack and tucked the ball instead, but that was a strong pass rush against a new member of the offensive line. For the most part, Maye was decisive, poised, and clutch when he needed to be.
6. I also have to point out that if T.J. Parker’s hands had been any more illegally to the face on that strip sack, he would have found himself on a split screen on MSNBC at some point this week being asked some questions.
7. He also outrushed Josh Allen by 50 yards, which I didn’t expect (more on Allen’s legs and the defensive strategy surrounding that in a minute). And all of his runs were the right kind: receivers were covered, or the protection broke down, so he tucked and ran. He also got out of bounds or went right to the ground in the face of contact, which was even more enjoyable than watching him scramble.
8. As for his leading receivers, it was a nice mix of old and new. Hunter Henry finally got involved in the passing game, and Romeo Doubs is getting more and more comfortable by the week. The bobble-to-interception wasn’t the best look for him, and he seems good for one drop per game. But if he can make up for it with two scores per game, I’ll certainly allow it.
9. It’s wild to me how excited I was about the New England wide receiver room coming into this season. Brown, Doubs, Boutte, Douglas, Hollins, Chism, Williams… there just seemed to be so many weapons. Then Brown got hurt right away, Boutte got traded, Williams continues to be an absolute ghost, and a guy who should be thriving as WR4 was somehow pulling WR1 duty. And then that guy goes down too.
10. “Man, if Mack Hollins can’t play for an extended period, this offense is really screwed” 100% went through my head yesterday. Football. What a ride!
11. But in Hollins’s absence, seven different Patriots notched at least one reception. And Kyle Williams got two whole targets!
12. I don’t want to get into too much turd in the punchbowlery in the wake of a big win. But what in the name of Tebow do the Patriots have to do to take a receiver early in the draft and have that receiver work out?
13. And while I appreciate the universe balancing things out by consistently gifting the team with short, explosive, white slot receivers in the later rounds or through free agency, it would be nice if Kyle Williams could join the likes of Deion Branch and… um… Deion Branch… instead of Bethel Johnson, Chad Jackson, Brandon Tate, Taylor Price, Aaron Dobson, N’Keal Harry, Tyquan Thornton, and Ja’Lynn Polk.
14. That said… I don’t want to pull the plug on Kyle Williams yet. He still has value and a skillset that could make him a strong contributor. But I also kind of feel like I’m at the point where, from this moment forward, if the Pats are thinking about targeting a WR in the draft, instead they should just trade that draft pick for a receiver who has already proven that he can produce at the NFL level.
15. Speaking of producing… poor Tyquan Thornton. He had carved himself out a nice role in that Chiefs offense, which is a point in favor of the “it ain’t the player, it’s New England’s development” side of things. Hopefully that injury looks a lot worse than it is and he’ll be back on the field before too long.
16. OK, enough with the negativity. One receiver being nonexistent just opened the door for the latest New England folk hero, Efton Chism III, who has made the catch of the year so far. This was shortly after high-pointing a crosser for a 19-yard gain to move the ball into Bills territory.
17. There wasn’t anything complicated about the route; it looked like a simple out-and-up. Maye had to throw it a little earlier than he probably would have liked as the pressure came around the left side, and the coverage was perfect. Chism just made an absolutely absurd catch, and the legend was born.
18. I was a little surprised to see that New England rushed for 143 yards yesterday. But then you realize that it’s less than 100 without Maye’s scrambles, and since TreVeyon Henderson seems to eat primarily off of long runs, it makes a lot more sense.
19. Which means that this game was more or less won on the shoulders of the QB who had really been struggling through three weeks. And if he had laid another huge egg yesterday, there would be some conversations happening right now. Of that, I have no doubt. But this whole thing was just what everyone needed.
20. There’s still a ton to clean up. This game could have gotten out of hand late in the first half with all the shenanigans that went down. But I’d rather need to clean up than start thinking about cleaning house.
21. Speaking of cleaning house, the cupboard was pretty bare for the Patriots defense, who were without both Christians and a wildly depleted LB corp. They still held Allen to four yards rushing and should have recorded a safety.
22. Seriously, what the hell was that? I guess a random, no-look throw to nobody while both still in the pocket in the end zone doesn’t meet the standards for grounding somehow.
23. The best part about that play, though, was Gabe Jacas, who steamrolled Dion Dawkins and created immediate pressure. He’s still raw, but given the serious questions he was raising for everyone during the preseason, Jacas has been a beast.
24. My only real gripe with the defense is that, at times, they seemed so concerned with Allen running that they broke into a lot of soft zone, which gave Allen plenty to choose from. But it was mostly effective, so hard to get too mad.
25. I absolutely love it when the defense, any defense, celebrates an open receiver dropping a pass. As someone who has taken more than my fair share of credit for group projects in which I did zero work, it resonates with me on a personal level.
26. I still remember being in 10th grade and, having done exactly nothing for our group report on FDR’s New Deal, offering to take everyone’s written notes and transcribe them onto a computer to make it presentable to the teacher. My dad had just purchased a voice-to-text program, and I spent all of 15 minutes reading everyone else’s notes as the computer did it’s thing. Work smart, not hard.
27. Force an opening drive three-and-out and answer with an opening drive TD. Get an opening-drive TD on your first possession of the second half. Make big stops when necessary. Seal the game with a key interception and a ballsy rollout completion. Get a road win against a divisional opponent. Tough not to be happy today.

There’s still a lot of season left, and this has become a pattern with these two teams for some reason. Pats win in Buffalo early, then Buffalo wins at Gillette late. Hopefully this is the year we break that particular streak. But the Bills are out of our hair until December. Next on the dockett are the Raiders, Jets, Bears, and Dolphins. Those are all winnable games, and 5-3 or even 6-2 through October is very much possible. Just have to stay focused.