The Buffalo Bills were supposed to be the clear class of the AFC East once Tom Brady left New England for Tampa Bay.
Things were trending in the right direction for Josh Allen and Co. last season when they won the division and were within one victory of Super Bowl LV. But after only one campaign on top, the Bills now are looking like the Patriots’ little brother once again.
Buffalo had true home-field advantage Monday night, highlighted by a raucous crowd and nasty weather. But the Bills failed to make the most of the opportunity, instead falling to the Patriots in a rock fight. New England played bully ball all night and made a statement as it stayed atop the division and the conference standings.
It’s important not to dwell too much on losses, especially at this point in the season when focusing on the challenge at hand is imperative. But Peter Schrager believes the Bills should feel very down on themselves after Monday’s gut punch.
“It’s a statement that I think is reverberating up in Western New York right now because it’s almost, like, don’t look at the elephant in the room,” Schrager said Tuesday on NFL Network’s “Good Morning Football.” “Maybe this Bills team — ‘You don’t want to go up to Buffalo in cold weather.’ Maybe they’re not built for that, and that’s what this does. It’s demoralizing. To win that way, it’s such a style point. It’s the Bills saying, ‘We’re ready for it’ and then the Patriots saying, ‘Not only are you not ready for this, we’re going to embarrass you.’ That was an embarrassing stat line from Mac Jones. That they thought they could win a game with just having three pass attempts and they did. To me, waking up in Buffalo this morning, you have to feel so frustrated.”
Buffalo will have one more crack at New England before the postseason gets underway. And if the Bills are shoved in a locker again in that Dec. 26 contest at Gillette Stadium, the franchise as a whole might have to take a hard look at itself in the mirror and evaluate what it needs to do to actually hang with the six-time champions.
