The New England Patriots celebrated a massive win in Buffalo on Sunday, beating their division rivals 29-26 and improving to 2-2 on the year. It’s still early and a lot will happen, but this one victory may have just saved their season.
Let’s get into the lessons we learned from the game.
This is a mentally tough team
The Patriots heard all the talk this week, they couldn’t have missed it. People say they were done. They said Drake Maye was broken. They claimed that there was a rift between him and Mike Vrabel. They said the team
hated Vrabel. They had the Patriots ranked 31st in the league.
None of it mattered. When the Patriots’ backs were against the wall, they responded with a huge win in Buffalo — becoming the first road win to celebrate a victory at the new Highmark Stadium.
From the 97-yard drive to start the game to the fourth-quarter drive to win it, the Patriots competed their posteriors off, and won despite four of their best players — CB Christian Gonzalez, DT Christian Barmore, WR A.J. Brown, RG Mike Onwenu — being out with injury.
In doing so, they might have pulled their season back from the brink of collapse. A 2-2 record looks a lot better than 1-3, and with a win over the Bills, and only being one game behind them now, they have a shot at competing for the division once again. There is a long way to go, as mentioned above, but this win last year served as a springboard for the team. Maybe it does the same this season.
Drake Maye answers the critics
Of all the people who were criticized this week, no one was criticized harder than Drake Maye. For him to play the way he did on Sunday was therefore impressive.
It wasn’t perfect, and I didn’t like the fumble just outside the red zone, but he played his best game of the season and did it all for the team, running for 54 yards as well as passing for 269 and three touchdowns. If Maye continues to play the way he did in Buffalo on Sunday, the critics are not going to have much to say.
In fact, if he plays this way every week, he’ll be back in the MVP conversation in no time.
EF-Yeah Chism
When Mack Hollins went down with an injury in the third quarter, the Patriots were left with a hole on their wide receiver depth chart. Efton Chism stepped up to fill that hole, and he made two monstrous catches on the final drive, the second one being a one-handed touchdown on third down that won the Patriots the game.
The severity of Hollins’ injury remains to be seen, and it will be seen how effective Chism can be if asked to step into his role on a full-time basis. At least on Sunday, however, the second-year wideout stepped up when the Patriots desperately needed him to. It was exciting to see, and potentially a sign of good things to come from him.
Injuries are piling up
Speaking of guys who are injured, the depth at the receiver position is being tested with Hollins now banged-up as well. Add the fact that A.J. Brown is also not eligible to return until Week 6 against the Jets, and the team might have to rely on the likes of Efton Chism and Kyle Williams — or rookie tight end Eli Raridon — at a higher rate than normal.
Young edges continue to impress
The Patriots are banged up along the defensive line right now, but they have gotten some solid play out of their two young edge defenders, Elijah Ponder and Gabe Jacas. Both of them showed some real flash and power, and they constantly seem to be around the ball making plays.
Jacas helped force what could have been a safety, while Ponder had a sack and a fumble recovery. They are not blue-chip players at this current moment, but they both look to be competent starters, and that’s huge considering that Ponder was a UDFA last season and Jacas looked awful in camp and preseason. The Patriots needed them to play well with Harold Landry out and will continue to count on them until the team captain is able to return from the PUP list.
Romeo Doubs has a good day, but leaves more to be desired
Since we are talking about the receivers, let’s talk about the guy who has been New England’s default WR1 since A.J. Brown went down, Romeo Doubs. On the one hand, he had two touchdowns and two fourth-down conversions on Sunday; on the other, he dropped a pass that ended up being an interception that gifted the Bills three points before the end of the half. The throw was not a perfect one by Drake Maye, but you would still like to see a $68 million receiver bring it down.
Doubs needs to continue to improve if the Patriots are going to continue to win games with A.J. Brown on IR and Mack Hollins’ outlook unclear, but he took a step in the right direction on Sunday. In total, he finished with six receptions for 58 yards and those two TDs.
Defensive masterclass on Josh Allen
Josh Allen is one of, if not the very best quarterback in the NFL. He had an okay day throwing the ball on Sunday, but the Patriots were able to almost completely shut him down as a ball-carrier. He did have a tush push touchdown, but finished with only 4 rushing yards for the day.
Every time he broke the pocket or stepped up, there were multiple guys waiting for him to stop him from running. The Patriots also did a nice job not leaving guys open while doing that, honing in on the “second play” element that makes Allen such a dangerous player. They made it difficult for the Bills to generate explosive plays — at least when they weren’t throwing to Keon Coleman — and forced them to string together long drives to score. Considering the injuries the Patriots were dealing with, it was an impressive performance.
The Patriots look better running the ball, but still can’t run with big personnel
The Patriots want to establish the run, and they brought in a bunch of players this offseason to help them do just that. They have already lost Julian Hill for the season, and Reggie Gilliam has been banged up as well, but you would still like the Patriots be able to run the ball more effectively especially out of heavy personnel.
The good news is that the Patriots were able to run fairly efficiently out of lighter packages. The bad news is that they still can’t line up and run it down your throat like they would seemingly like to do.
They need to simply accept what they are, and what injuries to multiple players, including Mike Onwenu, have made them. That might mean that they are going to have to pass the ball more, and run out of some lighter formations, but based on what we saw Wednesday, that is perfectly fine and might be a recipe for success for this team.
Not a banner day for officiating
It was far from a banner day for the refs around the league, with multiple bizarre interactions between players and coaches and the officials. One of those came in the Patriots game.
Seemingly without warning, Mike Vrabel was hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for arguing over a ticky-tack holding call on Marcus Jones. In addition, the holding call on Will Campbell was suspect as well, and that the Bills had worse calls that were missed, including an egregious hands-to-the-face flag that should have been thrown on the Drake Maye strip sack.
Based on what we saw around the league, the officiating should be called into question, and the way that some of them have been acting leaves quite a bit to be desired.
Raiders up next, in the throwbacks
The Patriots are hoping to build off of the momentum of their win in Buffalo next week, when they welcome the Las Vegas Raiders to Gillette Stadium.
The Raiders are coming off a season where they were the worst team in the league, but are playing very well right now and look like they are for real. They are 3-1 and almost pulled off the upset of the Chiefs on Sunday.
This looked to be an easy win when the schedule came out in May, but it’s not looking so easy anymore. The Patriots are going to look good in their red throwback jerseys, and the hope is that the old Deion Sanders quote proves true, and that they play as well as they look.
