Embarrassing loss in Buffalo still fresh in their minds, an aggressive Bills team returned favor to Patriots in AFC East showdown

FOXBOROUGH — What a difference a few weeks can make. 

By the time the dust had settled after the Bills’ decisive 33-21 win over the Patriots at Gillette Stadium — Sean McDermott didn’t dole out his usual routine of zingers in wake of a showdown with Bill Belichick’s club.

There was no genuflecting at the shrine of the Hoodie — much as he did when the Bills narrowly escaped a Pats team led by *checks notes* Cam Newton ... back on Nov. 1, 2020.  

And there was no revisionist retort or gloating on display from Buffalo’s head coach after he downplayed Belichick’s influence on a game where New England downright pantsed the Bills at a wind-swept Orchard Park back on Dec. 6.

Despite the ahem … colorful exchange that a hot mic managed to catch between Stefon Diggs and a Patriots fan after the wideout snatched a Josh Allen pass in the end zone — McDermott’s players didn’t sink the same venom into their postgame pressers when discussing their foe across the gridiron.  

There were no veiled shots at Mac Jones or New England’s offense on an afternoon where the Pats were thoroughly dominated in such a pivotal division showdown. 

Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer didn’t powerslam members of the Bills press corps into a table a la The Dudley Boyz at WrestleMania X-Seven. 

And yet, for as much as Buffalo tried to play it cool — it was rather evident that the stewing resentment of the Patriots was bubbling just under the surface throughout Sunday’s pressers.

"I think we were all criticized in the first game,” Poyer said when posed a question about McDermott taking heat for that home loss to New England. “I think we all wanted to play better. I think we all expected to play better and today we knew we had to come out today and execute. … Obviously, last game we played them — left a bad taste in our mouth.”

The Patriots can probably share a similar sentiment with the Bills after a loss like this. After all, Belichick, his coaching staff and his personnel on the field had next to no answers for the aggressive game plan that McDermott mapped out — and Allen executed. 

The stats speak for themselves. 

New England relinquished 428 yards to Allen and the Bills — with Buffalo not punting ONCE all day. That’s the first time that a team has posted zero punts in a game against a Belichick-coached team, which represents a span of 474 games. 

“Josh makes a quarter of a billion dollars — Josh is worth every penny of what he is,” Buffalo LT Dion Dawkins said postgame. “And I say that jokingly, but Josh is just one of those guys that he cares about his teammates, and he's over-competitor. And you see it — the media, people talk and Josh just keeps his mouth shut and his head down and just goes out and performs. I wouldn't have expected anything else.”

Buffalo’s opening drive was a sign of things to come in a game where McDermott and the Bills failed to take their foot off the gas against the Patriots' defense.

After Buffalo sent New England packing with a three-and-out on its opening drive, Allen and the Bills drove 61 yards down the field, eating up close to seven minutes off the clock. Staring at a 4th and 2 on New England’s 3-yard line, Buffalo went for the haymaker in Round 1 — with Allen connecting via a touchdown pass to Isaiah McKenzie to build an early 7-0 lead.

Allen’s ability to carve up a defense was an expected hurdle that New England has largely countered in previous meetings. But few on the Patriots' sideline could have predicted that McKenzie would be the one that consistently moved the chains on Buffalo’s receiving corps. 

McKenzie, who entered Sunday’s game with a whopping seven catches and 38 total yards on the season, hauled in 11 catches for 125 yards and one score — routinely finding the cracks in New England’s coverage, mostly at the expense of Myles Bryant. 

“I just felt it was my turn. And I had to step up for the team,” McKenzie said after a game in which the Bills were also hampered by the absences of Gabriel Davis and Cole Beasley. 

Even when New England’s offense — largely fueled by the efforts of Damien Harris — managed to start gaining some traction, Buffalo provided little in terms of a reprieve whenever the ball was back in its hands, answering with a field goal and two touchdowns on the subsequent drives after the Pats found the end zone. 

Harris’ third touchdown of the game might have cut Buffalo’s lead to just five points with under eight minutes to go,  but the Bills’ aggressive gameplan once again yielded fruitful results — with Allen scrambling for eight yards on a 4th-and-1 spot to extend the game-winning march down the field. 

Less than two minutes later, Allen hit Dawson Knox for a touchdown to ice the game for good. 

“To have that trust in us means a lot,” Allen said of Buffalo’s aggressiveness on fourth down. “But again, when you convert those and continue to convert those — what a killer it is for a defense. And that's a really good team we just played. They've had a lot of success this year, an elite defense. But again, having that trust to go for it on those fourth-down situations, that's big for us.”

Of course, as lopsided as Sunday’s score was, you could point out a number of self-inflicted miscues from New England that perhaps negated just how much postgame ammunition that Buffalo was going to have. 

A brutal drop from N’Keal Harry, which led to a tipped Jones pass and interception just a play later. Christian Barmore’s encroachment on 4th and 7. J.C. Jackson’s dropped pick. And, of course, the refs.

But you could also make the argument that the score should have been higher for the Bills, whose aggressiveness also saw them throw on three-straight plays on the Pats 1-yard line in the second quarter — leading to zero points on the board.  

Still, regardless of the plays you want to comb over and examine in search of silver linings, it’s hard to argue with the bottom line displayed on the scoreboard.

For all of the narratives presented just a few weeks ago that the Patriots’ brief exile from the AFC East throne was coming to an end, the Bills sure seem to have the last laugh — with McDermott’s club becoming the first team to win back-to-back games at Gillette Stadium since the 2005-06 Colts. 

The Bills may not be anchored by a QB with the pedigree of a Peyton Manning — but Allen sure isn’t a slouch.

And so long as he is serving as the conductor of Buffalo’s offense, it seems like a given that Buffalo’s days of functioning as nothing more than a fly in the ointment of New England have come and gone. 

“The team that we just played — that's a great team,” Allen said. “They came into Buffalo and they played us really well. And they came out and I think they played really well today. Again, whether or not we see them in the future, we don't know. But we had guys step up and make some plays tonight."