The Bills lost 29-26 to the Patriots, but the part that bothered me most wasn’t necessarily the loss.
It was how familiar the whole thing felt.
For three weeks we talked about balance. Sustainability. A different version of Josh Allen and an offense that didn’t require Superman every Sunday. A team that seemed to have moved beyond some of the maddening things we spent years attaching to Sean McDermott.
Then New England came to Buffalo and suddenly it felt like we got back in a Time Machine.
Was it the defense that couldn’t get off the field? Was it the offense disappearing for long stretches? Was it the garbage playcalling? Was it the WR screens? Was it the receivers? Was it Josh Allen eventually deciding he had to fix everything himself?
If we’re going to use three good weeks as proof that everything is different, then we also have to acknowledge when one bad Sunday looks exactly the same.
And maybe there’s a bigger point buried in there.
Maybe some of what we spent years calling a “bad McDermott game” was really just football. Sometimes a defense can’t get the stop. Sometimes an offensive coordinator calls three plays that make everyone scream at the television. Sometimes your quarterback starts pressing. Sometimes your first-round tight end disappears and your left tackle has a shitty afternoon.
That doesn’t absolve anybody.
It just means the Bills somehow changed the conversation and still recreated one of the greatest hits.
THE BAD: THREE-AND-OUT CITY
This might be my favorite stat for explaining how different Buffalo’s offense looked Sunday.
The Bills entered the game having gone three-and-out one time all season.
One.
New England forced three three-and-outs in one game.
So the Patriots forced Buffalo into three times as many three-and-outs Sunday as Houston, Detroit and the Chargers did combined.
The last time Buffalo had at least three three-and-outs in one game was October 13, 2025 at Atlanta, when the Bills had four of them in a 24-14 loss.
That’s not just an offense being a little off.
That’s an offense that had been excellent at sustaining possessions suddenly unable to stay on the field.
THE BAD: THE THIRD QUARTER FROM HELL
Nothing illustrated that better than the third quarter.
Buffalo had:
8 net passing yards.
11 rushing yards.
19 total yards.
1 first down.
0 points.
Nineteen yards in an entire quarter.
The Bills actually produced more offense in every other quarter by a ridiculous margin.
Buffalo went from 119 yards in the second quarter to 19 in the third and then 143 in the fourth.
New England had at least 93 yards in every single quarter.
That third quarter didn’t just hurt the Bills.
They basically donated 15 minutes of football.
THE BAD: DALTON KINCAID BASICALLY DISAPPEARED
Dalton Kincaid’s first two games:
5 catches, 130 yards against Houston.
7 catches, 95 yards against Detroit.
That’s 12 catches for 225 yards through three games.
Against New England and LA?
1 catch. 7 yards.
2 catches. 38 yards
That gives him now 3 catches for 45 yards in his last two games. And that one catch didn’t even come until Buffalo’s final possession.
So yes, technically Kincaid did catch a football Sunday. But for basically the entire afternoon, one of Buffalo’s most productive offensive players through the first three weeks was nonexistent.
He came into the game averaging almost 88 receiving yards per game and finished with seven.
That’s easily his worst game of this season.
And if your offense is going to spend this much time living underneath, I have no idea how your athletic first-round tight end ends up with only two targets.
THE BAD: STOP THROWING SIDEWAYS
There were stretches Sunday where Buffalo seemed determined to make the football field 10 yards long and 53 yards wide.
Short throw.
Screen.
Another short throw.
Another screen.
And I am officially out on WR screens to Keon Coleman.
You have a huge receiver whose greatest advantage is his size and ability to win the football downfield, and somehow we keep asking him to catch the ball at the line of scrimmage and turn into Deebo Samuel.
Then Buffalo finally started using Coleman vertically.
What happened?
6 catches. 116 yards. 1 touchdown. 19.3 yards per catch.
His 34-yard touchdown with 4:39 remaining gave Buffalo a 26-21 lead.
Amazing what happens when you let the giant receiver go be a giant receiver.
THE BAD: THE DEFENSE COULDN’T CLOSE
And now we arrive at the argument Bills fans have been having for what feels like 900 years.
Buffalo finally got the lead.
Allen hits Coleman.
26-21.
There are 4:39 remaining.
Go win the football game.
Instead, New England goes down the field, scores a touchdown and gets the two-point conversion.
29-26.
That sequence is basically why these debates never end.
The offense will say: We gave you a lead with less than five minutes left.
The defense will say: We forced two turnovers and the offense vanished for the entire third quarter.
Then someone mentions the playcalling.
Then someone mentions Josh.
Then someone will mention Ed Oliver getting hurt.
Then everyone gets angry.
It felt exactly like an argument from three years ago.
THE BAD: 97 YARDS
The warning sign came on New England’s first real possession.
The Patriots started at their own 3-yard line.
They went 12 plays, 97 yards for a touchdown.
Buffalo had not allowed a 97-yard touchdown drive since November 3, 2024 against Miami, when the Dolphins went 14 plays and 97 yards after starting at their own 3.
So New England’s opening possession was Buffalo’s first 97-yard touchdown drive allowed in almost two years.
And it wasn’t some fluky bomb.
It was a sustained march.
New England eventually finished with 404 yards, ran 73 offensive plays to Buffalo’s 54 and possessed the football for 33:41.
That is a lot of defense.
And usually when your defense is playing 73 snaps, something has gone wrong on both sides of the ball.
THE BAD: DRAKE MAYE’S LEGS
This was another one we tracked during the game.
Through Buffalo’s first three games, opposing quarterbacks had combined for 39 rushing yards.
C.J. Stroud, Jared Goff and Justin Herbert combined: 39.
Drake Maye had 42 rushing yards by halftime.
He finished with 54 yards on eight carries, including a 26-yard run.
That’s significant because Buffalo had done a very good job preventing quarterbacks from extending plays with their legs through three weeks.
Maye completely changed that.
And this wasn’t Lamar Jackson.
Maye came into Sunday having struggled badly as a passer and left Buffalo with 269 passing yards, three touchdowns and 54 rushing yards.
Not ideal.
THE BAD: MAX HAIRSTON
It’s early. But Max Hairston looks like a liability right now.
Romeo Doubs finished with 6 catches for 58 yards and two touchdowns, and there were stretches Sunday where Buffalo made him look like Julian Edelman.
Teams are going to keep going after Hairston until he gives them a reason not to.
Maybe he develops into a really good player.
But if this eventually turns into a disaster, I’m sure somehow we’ll hear that Sean McDermott was the one pounding the table for him while Brandon Beane was innocently standing in the corner.
THE BAD: DION DAWKINS
Dion Dawkins had a rough game.
He allowed the early sack and then had the penalty that basically got Joshua Palmer off the hook for what would have been an awful drop.
You generally don’t want to notice your left tackle.
I noticed Dawkins a lot Sunday.
Buffalo officially allowed only one sack, so this wasn’t some complete offensive-line implosion.
But the sack, penalties and other small mistakes kept piling up.
That was basically the theme of the afternoon.
THE BAD: YOU CAN’T MAKE THAT THROW, JOSH
Josh Allen finished 23-of-33 for 253 yards, one touchdown and one interception. He also ran for another touchdown.
There was plenty he did well.
There was also the throw you cannot make.
Buffalo got the football back with a chance to tie or win the game. And Allen eventually made the YOLO throw into double coverage.
You can’t do that when you’re trying to ice the game.
That’s the exact moment where aggressive Josh becomes hero-ball Josh.
I understand why it happens.
The offense isn’t creating enough. Kincaid has disappeared. The playcalling is annoying. Buffalo has already gone three-and-out multiple times. So Josh starts believing the answer is to create something himself.
That mentality is a massive part of what makes him great.
It’s also the thing Buffalo has spent years trying to control.
Sometimes the correct play is boring.
Sometimes you live for another down.
Sunday had one of those moments.
THE WEIRD: JAMES COOK
I still don’t understand the way Buffalo used James Cook early.
At halftime:
6 carries. 16 yards.
Cook entered Sunday averaging more than 19 rushing attempts per game.
Eventually Buffalo remembered one of its best offensive players was standing behind Allen.
Cook finished with 12 carries for 75 yards and a touchdown. That’s 6.25 yards per carry.
So by the end of the afternoon, the running game wasn’t ineffective.
Buffalo simply didn’t lean on it enough early.
And yes, I’m still watching the fumbling.
Cook put another ball on the ground Sunday, although Buffalo recovered it. He has 9 fumbles, with 5 lost, in his last 18 games counting playoffs, through today’s Patriots game.
At some point, repeated fumbles stop being a weird coincidence and become a ball-security issue worth discussing.
THE GOOD: KEON COLEMAN
Coleman gets the credit.
6 catches.
116 yards.
1 touchdown.
19.3 yards per catch.
And his 34-yard touchdown should have been one of the plays we remembered as the game-winner.
Khalil Shakir was good too, finishing with 7 catches for 82 yards, including the 51-yard gain, but the fumble was killer and talk points off the board.
Those two combined for 198 receiving yards.
Which makes Kincaid finishing with seven even stranger.
THE GOOD: BUFFALO DID FORCE TURNOVERS
The defense wasn’t completely helpless.
Buffalo forced two New England turnovers.
Dee Alford’s interception late in the first half gave Buffalo a chance to steal points, and Tyler Bass kicked the field goal that gave the Bills a 17-14 halftime lead.
I was still a little surprised Buffalo didn’t try one more offensive play before the kick.
They had about five seconds and a timeout.
I understand taking the points.
I also think five seconds and a timeout isn’t nothing.
Either way, Buffalo went into halftime leading despite New England controlling large chunks of the first half.
Then came the 19-yard third quarter.
THE GOOD: ANDY KNOWS JOSH ALLEN
One Dad Shot before we finish.
Andy has actually done pretty well watching football with me this year.
We call it “highlights,” which seems to make the whole thing much more appealing to a three-year-old.
And he knows Josh Allen now.
If I say:
“Josh…”
He finishes:
“Allen.”
That feels like progress.
Unfortunately, Sunday also gave him an early introduction to another Buffalo tradition:
Watching the Bills play a football game that makes absolutely no sense.
THE BALLWASHER: KEON COLEMAN
I’m giving this one to Coleman.
He has taken plenty of shit. So if I’m going to complain about every WR screen thrown his way, I should also give him his flowers when Buffalo actually lets him do what he does best.
Six catches.
116 yards.
A go-ahead touchdown late.
More vertical Keon.
Fewer screens.
Please.
THE BALL BREAKER: THE ENTIRE THIRD QUARTER
There are plenty of candidates.
Kincaid.
The playcalling.
The secondary.
The late Allen interception.
But I keep coming back to one number.
19.
Nineteen total yards.
That’s what Buffalo produced in the third quarter of a game it ultimately lost by three points.
When you lose by three, you can find 900 moments to blame. The Bills basically donated an entire quarter and That’s probably enough.
And that brings us back to where we started.
This looked like one of those games Buffalo supposedly wanted to leave behind.
Maybe they haven’t.
Or maybe nobody really does.
Maybe sometimes football just finds a new way to make the same argument all over again.
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When Coleman is your best offensive player it’s going to be a long day .
Horrible play calling -patriots last in run defense and u basically abandoned the running game.
That’s two games in a row of Brady calling an absolutely horrible game
Defense has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese-
The Pats had a perfect game plan going into this game. Pick on Max Harriston and frustrate Allen so he makes mistakes by taking away his favorite receivers. The concerning part is Brady didn't find an answer at half time. If you are an offensive head coach you need to be able to adjust and not just keeping calling the same plays that worked in the last game. It is clear again this year that the offense will need to carry the load. But if DJ Moore is always injured on the first play of the game maybe it is time to activate Bell.