A stormy Monday night in Orchard Park, NY with weather that SLU students and Canton locals are all too familiar with: below freezing temperatures, snow, and wind gusts of up to 40 mph set the stage for the biggest game of the 2021 to 2022 NFL season thus far, as the 8-4 Patriots traveled up to Buffalo to take on the 7-4 Bills. Both in terms of seeding and overall playoff implications, the results of this game would be felt throughout the AFC.
An awesome statistical projection before the game from the New York Times illustrated the overall magnitude of this game for both teams and the AFC as a whole. With a Bills victory, their odds of nabbing the number one overall seed in the AFC would increase to 25 percent— making them the favorite in the conference. Their odds to win the AFC East would rise to 77 percent and the odds of them missing the playoffs entirely would drop to only 4 percent. On the Patriots end, a win would give them a 47 percent chance of getting the AFC one-seed—making them the heavy favorite with a 74 percent chance of winning the AFC East and less than a 1 percent chance of missing the playoffs.
The winner of this game would be in the driver’s seat for the one-seed in the AFC and the coveted first round by that comes with it, while the loser would be left scrambling for a wild card spot and in real jeopardy of missing the playoffs entirely
As we all know by now, the Patriots came out on top, grinding out a 14-10 win with a game plan that wasn’t at all pretty but got the job done. To say the Patriots went run-heavy would be a massive understatement, as out of their 49 total plays, 46 of them were running plays.
Quarterback Mac Jones finished with only three passing attempts, completing two of them for 19 yards. The weather obviously played a huge factor, as the high-speed winds made throwing extremely difficult. However, the Patriots never trailed and had so much success running the ball, finishing as a team with 46 carries for 222 yards, that they had no need to throw.
Even though every person in the raucous crowd of 69,694 people at Highmark Stadium, the millions more watching on TV, and the Bills coaching staff, evidenced by their decision to constantly crowd the line of scrimmage with defenders, knew a run play was coming, the Bills defense was helpless as Damien Harris, Rhamondre Stevenson, and Brandon Bolden ran over them all night long.
Although the Patriots’ running backs were the ones who put up the stats, it cannot be understated how great their offensive line was. Even with constant blitzes and pressure from the Bills defense, they were able to create clear lanes for their running backs to dash through during play after play. It was smashmouth football in its purest form and a gameplan that surely had NFL coaches from the 1940s and 50s smiling down from the heavens.
On the Bills side of things, although their defense was crushed by the run all night long, they only gave up 14 points, which should be enough to win on most nights. However, their offense was terrible, and they put up a mere 10 points, which just isn’t enough to expect to win, no matter the weather conditions.
I thought the Bills actually did a decent job in the passing game, even though Josh Allen’s 15-30 for 146 yards stat line doesn’t show it. The wind was simply brutal and had a huge impact on throwing the ball, but Allen was still able to make a number of impressive throws, including a 26-yard back shoulder completion to Stephon Diggs on the last drive that gave some hope for a comeback victory.
While Diggs played decently, catching four passes for 51 yards, he had a key drop of a touchdown on a deep ball from Allen in the third quarter that would’ve changed the game. It was certainly a tough play, and one an average receiver couldn’t pull off, but Diggs is nowhere near average, and it was a play he usually makes.
Dawson Knox, on the other hand, was terrible throughout, as he managed to have more drops (three) than catches (two) and a crippling false start penalty on the Bills second-to-last offensive play that made a reasonable third and nine a much tougher third and 14.
Also, while the Patriots used the weather to their advantage by establishing the run, the Bills couldn’t get anything going on the ground. The three Bills’ running backs combined for 60 yards on 19 carries, including a lost fumble by Matt Breida. You can’t fully blame the running backs, however, as the Bills’ offensive line did nothing to help, with the Patriots’ defensive lineman and linebackers constantly shooting through gaps and stuffing the Bills’ rushing offense.
Besides their lone touchdown, when the Bills were practically gifted the ball on the Patriots’ 14-yard line, due to N’Keal Harry’s helmet, the offense did nothing to capitalize on key opportunities. Coach Sean McDermott put it well postgame, when he gave a somewhat harsh but honest answer on a question asking if he thought offensive coordinator Brian Daboll was doing a good job.
“Well, I didn’t think, honestly, we took advantage of opportunities tonight. I really didn’t,” McDermott said. “The ball is at the 40-yard line. We’re one-for-four in the red zone. We’ve got to figure that part of it out.”
This clearly illustrates McDermott’s frustration with the offensive unit and Daboll in particular, and it’s easy to see why. The Bills had great starting field positions the entire game, and on both of their final two drives they were able to find an offensive rhythm and make it into the red zone. On these two critical drives, however, the offense stalled in the red zone, and they came up with zero total points.
Daboll’s play calling was certainly dubious in this one, and during the whole game I just couldn’t understand why he didn’t call more designed runs for Josh Allen. Allen loves to run the ball, and on a windy night where the Bills’ running backs struggled, it would’ve been the perfect game for Allen to establish the run himself and create offense with legs.
While McDermott’s frustration with Daboll is understandable, he has to look in the mirror himself at a few questionable decisions he made. First, the challenging of a fourth-down sneak in the second half made absolutely no sense to me. Spot calls are rarely changed, and, in the pile of bodies around the line of scrimmage on that play, there was obviously going to be no indisputable evidence to overturn the call on the field. This cost the Bills a crucial second-half timeout and this combined with other time mismanagements throughout the half lead to the Patriots being able to run out the clock on their last drive of the game.
Additionally, deciding to attempt a 33-yard field goal with seven minutes left was a terrible move, as the kick was directly into the wind and had little chance of being made. Also, with the Bills down four, they still would’ve trailed after the field goal and needed a stop to get the ball back with a chance to win.
After this game, these two teams are headed in polar opposite directions. While the Patriots, since starting 2-4, have won seven straight games and are now the heavy favorites to get the number one seed in the AFC, the Bills are 7-5 and only a half-game up on the Steelers for the seventh and final wild card spot. Coming up for the Bills, a matchup against the defending Super Bowl champions, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, looms, and there is a real possibility that next Sunday night, the Bills will be 7-6 and positioned on the outside looking in on the playoff picture.
In the end, it seems as though the NFL community may have simply overrated the Bills, as they only have one win (their week five domination of the Chiefs) against teams with a winning record, and most of their victories have come beating up on terrible opponents.
It pains me to say this, as I, along with most other Bills fans, had Super Bowl expectations going into this season, but I just don’t see this team coming anywhere close to that. I still think there’s enough talent on the roster to sneak into the playoffs, but their performances in recent weeks have shown me that this team is not ready to compete with the class of the league.
Hopefully I’m wrong, and the Bills experience a miraculous turnaround, get hot when it matters, and make a deep playoff run, but until the offensive line starts to actually block, the running backs run with power and generate more yards after contact, the receivers stop dropping passes, Josh plays with more consistency overall, and the defense shows more physicality and toughness to stop the run, nothing is going to change. I hope my run-on sentence right there did an effective job demonstrating the truth to this team, which is that it isn’t just one singular part of the team that is causing their struggles, and every single player and position group has to take accountability and start playing better in order to turn this season around.