The New England Patriots simply weren't up to snuff Sunday against the Buffalo Bills.
After a Week 15 loss to the Indianapolis Colts ended a seven-game winning streak, the Patriots welcomed the Bills to Gillette Stadium for a Week 16 matchup with major playoff implications. New England never found its footing in the crucial clash, stumbling out of the gate en route to a 33-21 defeat that has Buffalo in the driver's seat in the AFC East with two weeks remaining in the regular season.
All told, it was a discouraging effort by the Patriots, who acknowledged having a bad week of practice leading up to their loss in Indianapolis and therefore should have been on high alert against Buffalo.
"Members of this Patriots organization are baffled as to why the Patriots started as slowly as they did today, understanding everything that was on the line in this game, understanding how a slow start to last week's game in Indianapolis ended up killing them," NBC Sports Boston's Phil Perry said Sunday during the network's postgame coverage. "And so for them to come out the way that they did, to have penalties, to have an interception by Mac Jones, to have poor execution on both sides. Their first offensive drive of the game, three plays, negative three yards. You can't do that against a good football team. This Buffalo Bills team, while we've been critical of them all year long, and rightfully so at times, they are a good football team. And you had the division on the line today, and you came out and you laid an egg. And then you're trying to play catch-up, and we know this team is not really built to play catch-up the way they're built offensively."
The Patriots fell behind 7-0 in the first quarter Sunday and went into halftime down 17-7. They managed to stay within striking distance for most of the contest, but they never could come up with the big defensive stop needed to swing momentum in their favor.
Now, New England faces an uphill battle in its quest to win the division, and it ultimately might need to settle for a wild-card berth. The Patriots will host the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 17 and then travel to Florida in Week 18 for their season finale against the Miami Dolphins.
It'll take a lot for the Patriots to miss the playoffs entirely, but they need to clean up their game and start stronger if they want any chance of making the deep postseason run that once seemed possible.
