Bill Belichick’s biggest gripe with the New England Patriots’ performance on Sunday: their third-down execution on both sides of the ball.
Though the Patriots went 5-for-6 on fourth down in their 33-21 loss to the Buffalo Bills at Gillette Stadium, they were a season-worst 1-for-10 on third down. Defensively, they allowed the Bills to convert on six of their 12 third downs and three of their four fourth downs.
“I think there were a lot of things we did well, we just didn’t do them well enough, often enough,” Belichick said Monday morning on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show,” as transcribed by WEEI.com. “Obviously, the biggest problem in the game was third down. Had we done a better job on third down, then things probably would have looked differently. Third and fourth down on defense, a combination of it.
“We were 1-for-10 on third down on offense. And then 6-for-12 (on defense), and they were 3-for-4 on fourth down. That would have been a big factor in the game had we done that better.”
During his Monday morning news conference, Belichick said the third-down disparity “was really the story of the game.”
“Obviously, (we’ve) got to do a better job in both areas,” the Patriots coach said.
Buffalo’s success on third and fourth down allowed Josh Allen and Co. to consistently stage long, fruitful drives. The Bills drove into the Patriots’ red zone on all seven of their non-kneeldown possessions and scored four touchdowns.
After Damien Harris scored to cut New England’s deficit to 26-21 with seven minutes remaining, Buffalo converted two third-and-10s and a fourth-and-1 on a long touchdown drive that put the game away.
On offense, the Patriots faced third-and-7 or longer on seven of their 10 third downs — and also failed three times to convert on third-and-3 or less.
“We had some long-yardage situations,” Belichick said on WEEI. “They weren’t all third-and-10s, but there were some, and that was a problem. Just in general, we didn’t do very well on third down. On a couple of them, we converted on fourth down, but just overall, our third-down offensive and defensive execution just wasn’t good enough against a team like Buffalo.”
