If only us mortals were permitted to converse with the sports gods.
Then we might learn how such a travesty could occur.
Perhaps what Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have endured since leaving has provided some sort of penance for their old club, cleansing the New England Patriots’ loathsome souls and allowing them to experience joy again so soon.
The Buffalo Bills did their time. They suffered those 17 years without a postseason and not even the hint of a Super Bowl sniff. The Patriots, meanwhile, gavotted all over the NFL for two decades, reveling in a disgustingly unprecedented run of Super Bowl victories, when a single Lombardi Trophy would be a life’s highlight for the Bills and their tormented fans.
When Brady retired to become a mediocre broadcaster and part-owner of a lousy NFL team, and when Belichick departed New England only to get snubbed by the league and generate more tabloid headlines than victories at the University of North Carolina, an almost heavenly light was cast upon Orchard Park, N.Y.
Bills Mafia was entitled to bask and to mock the Patriots and to win for a long, long time.
Alas, “deserve” has nothing to do with it.
The Patriots are back, and, for a massive percentage of NFL folks, that ain’t right.
The Bills will have to win Sunday in Gillette Stadium to prevent the Patriots from sweeping them this year and from swiping their AFC East crown, at least for another week.
Buffalo exploited New England’s rebuild. Josh Allen, coach Sean McDermott and general manager Brandon Beane seized the opportunity by transforming the Bills into a perennial power that has won five straight AFC East championships. The New York Jets and Miami Dolphins still haven’t sorted themselves out, and, entering 2025, not much was expected from the Patriots either. The Bills were the fattest favorites to win any of the NFL’s eight divisions.
Three months later, the Patriots are in a hat and T-shirt game with a month still left in the season. For the rest of the NFL, it might feel like a PTSD and scar-tissue game.
“We’re going to take pride in winning the football game,” Bills right tackle Spencer Brown said Wednesday. “They have something (to play for), so we’re going to try to take it away. I think that’s the name of the game.
“They’re going to try to take pride in it and be motivated to win. That’s the way it is … Let’s find out on Sunday.”
The Athletic’s playoff simulator gives New England an 89 percent likelihood of winning the AFC East. That number merely dips to 74 percent even if Buffalo wins Sunday.
Whether the Patriots sustain their status as a contender, they, at least, have already proven good enough to likely pry the Bills out of Highmark Stadium for the playoffs. The last time the Bills won a playoff game on the road, Jim Kelly was the quarterback.
This winter, barring a strange sequence of events, the Bills will need to win three road games in a row to reach the Super Bowl.
They haven’t won three straight on the road all season, falling to the Atlanta Falcons, Miami Dolphins and Houston Texans along the way. The Bills have won three straight road games once in each of the past two seasons. Their last impressive stretch away from Highmark Stadium happened in 2022, when a snowstorm forced them to relocate a home game against the Cleveland Browns to Detroit, followed by true road games against the Lions, Patriots and Chicago Bears.
Leave it to New England to bounce back and cause Buffalo problems so soon.
The Patriots rebuilt quickly. They’d collapsed under the immense weight of owner Robert Kraft’s and Belichick’s expectations and too few victories to bolster them. Kraft last year replaced Belichick with former Patriots linebacker Jerod Mayo, and the club continued to crater.
Mayo was a Belichick dude, but not woven into the Patriot Way thread count like Mike Vrabel, a wildly popular former linebacker and goal-line gadget for New England. Vrabel won three Super Bowls (Mayo was on one Lombardi Trophy roster, but played only six games that year) and was inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame in 2023, two seasons after he was voted NFL coach of the year with the Tennessee Titans.
Vrabel is one of them. Although their personalities are different, he carries that Belichickian vibe as a coach who almost always will have a leg up strategically: rules, trick plays, reviews, clock management. He brought Brady’s longtime offensive coordinator, Josh McDaniels, back with him. Also on the staff is Doug Marrone, who now handles New England’s offensive line 11 years after taking $4 million to quit as the Bills’ head coach. Together, Vrabel’s 22 assistant coaches have 20 years’ experience as head coaches in the NFL or college.
As much as Bills fans hate to admit it, these Patriots have been damn good and actually might have corrected course for years to come. Sophomore quarterback Drake Maye is an MVP candidate who ranks second in passing yards, first in completion percentage and first in passer rating. If he can finish first in all three categories, he would join Brady (2007), Kurt Warner (2001) and Ken Anderson (1974) as the only ones to do it since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970.
“He’s playing like a veteran quarterback,” Allen said. “He’s seeing things extremely well. He plays at a great pace. It looks like things have slowed down for him, which we hate to see that, right?”
Allen laughed at the development. Bills fans would rather moan.
Think back to all those meaningless, late-season Sundays that Buffalo endured. True sports justice would have ensured New England suffered a longer spell than three measly seasons without the playoffs.
But the Patriots rank seventh in scoring, eighth in yards, fifth in points allowed and seventh in yards allowed. The last time the Patriots finished among the top 10 on offense and defense was 2016. Brady won his fourth Super Bowl MVP and was young enough to have another in him four years later.
The Patriots have won 10 consecutive games, and one more will give them the third-longest streak in club history. They’re the first in NFL history to win 10 in a row while scoring at least 23 and allowing 23 or fewer, breaking a record held by the 1961 Houston Oilers.
Keon Coleman’s fumble was one of the lowlights of the Bills’ previous matchup with the Patriots. (Tina MacIntyre-Yee / Imagn Images)
When they met in Week 5, Buffalo was favored by nine points, but lost 23-20. Allen’s two touchdown passes were the offense’s only points. He threw an interception and lost a fumble. Keon Coleman, benched for the opening possession for disciplinary reasons, then lost a fumble on his second series. Buffalo committed 11 penalties for 90 yards.
“I think you learn more from the losses,” Allen said, “and we feel like we’ve kind of been battle-tested in a sense.”
Furthering the flashbacks, New England had extra time to prepare for Buffalo. This seemingly was an annual occurrence during The Darkness because, for a while, it was. Belichick and Brady emerged from a week off to go 5-0 against the Bills, including four straight victories from 2004 through 2007. Vrabel played in those games.
The last time New England came off its bye and lost to Buffalo, Doug Flutie outlasted John Friesz in overtime, with Steve Christie kicking the winning field goal at Sullivan Stadium.
Vrabel, as a coach, is undefeated after a bye, winning all six with the Titans. McDermott is 0-3 against post-bye opponents despite the Bills being favored in each. McDermott and Vrabel met on a 2020 Tuesday night because the Titans kept testing positive for COVID; the Bills lost 42-16. McDermott’s other post-bye losses were to the Denver Broncos in 2023 (the night before he fired offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey) and to the Atlanta Falcons in Week 6 this year.
New England appears set up for success. General manager Eliot Wolf, through free agency and the draft, has collected 30 players onto the 53-man roster who didn’t play for the Patriots last season. Only the Cleveland Browns have accumulated more snaps from rookies this year. Running back TreVeyon Henderson is the NFL’s most recent Offensive Rookie of the Month.
Since Beane became general manager in 2018, Buffalo has earned two offensive or defensive rookie of the week honors: defensive tackle Ed Oliver and receiver Keon Coleman, once apiece. Buffalo’s most recent rookie of the month was receiver Sammy Watkins, 11 years ago, and he received three weekly honors within his first eight games.
Oh, and contract database Spotrac lists the Patriots with $59.3 million in salary cap space for next year. The Bills have about $4.4 million.
Amazing, isn’t it? Maybe a tighter division will make the Bills better, iron sharpening iron and whatnot. Since they started winning AFC East titles, they have sleepwalked at times, maybe going through the motions a tad because they know how remarkable they are and wish the playoffs began in September. Opponents, conversely, get jacked up for every game against the perpetual contender and its all-galaxy, promo-king quarterback.
Asked Wednesday about the Kansas City Chiefs being on the cusp of being eliminated from a tournament berth, Allen responded with what could be applied universally.
“It doesn’t really matter what you did last year or the year before,” the reigning MVP said. “Every year, this league is different, and you need to play your best every week to give yourself a chance.”