As the Buffalo Bills committed not one, but two final-drive penalties to hand the Denver Broncos a stunning road win Monday night, it was hard not to view this New England Patriots season as anything other than a major missed opportunity.
The AFC East in 2023 was supposed to be a juggernaut, with two of the NFL's best teams in the Bills and Miami Dolphins and a possible dark-horse Super Bowl contender in the Aaron Rodgers-led New York Jets. That has not happened.
If the season ended after Week 10, just one AFC East team would qualify for the postseason: the 6-3 Dolphins, who currently own the conference's No. 4 seed.
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The Bills, who lost as 7.5-point home favorites Monday, are 5-5 and have not looked remotely dominant since early October. They lost four of their last six games. Their only two wins during that span were one-score squeakers against bad opponents (the Giants and Buccaneers).
Buffalo on Monday was flagged for pass interference to put Denver in range for a game-winning field goal, then again for 12 men on the field on a missed kick by Wil Lutz. Lutz drilled the re-kick, and the Broncos won 24-22.
The Jets are 4-5 and riding a two-game losing streak. Rodgers reportedly hopes to return from his torn Achilles by mid-December, but with a tough remaining schedule, New York could be out of contention by then.
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The Patriots are miles outside the playoff race at a miserable 2-8. All they have to look forward to are a potential top-five draft pick and an impending roster overhaul that could also include a head-coaching change.
But five of New England's losses this season were one-touchdown games, with four decided by five points or fewer. In all five, the Patriots had the ball in the final minutes with a chance to win or tie.
Four of their would-be game-winning drives advanced into opposing territory before stalling out, including the penultimate possession of Sunday's 10-6 loss to the Colts that ended with Mac Jones' inexcusable red-zone interception and subsequent benching. The lone exception, in Week 6 against Las Vegas, featured a blatantly dropped deep ball by DeVante Parker.
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Had the Patriots turned even two or three of those near misses into wins, they'd be very much alive in the AFC's wide-open playoff race. Twelve of the conference's 16 teams have either four, five or six wins, and seven non-playoff teams are within one game of the final wild-card spot with eight weeks remaining.
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Alas, the Patriots did not win those games because they simply are not a good team. They're prone to making critical errors at key moments, and they have been all season.
The Denver upset also diminished New England's rock-bottom campaign in a different way. The Patriots, who beat the Jets in Week 3 and Bills in Week 7, now don't have a single victory over a team that currently is above .500.
Featured image via Mark Konezny/USA TODAY Sports Images
