Bedard: Jerod Mayo and this coaches were minutes from complete vindication vs. Bills and then ...

Man, Jerod Mayo, you and your merry band of coaches were almost there.

Franchise-altering win. Program affirming performance. Complete vindication. Shutting people the hell up.

All of it.

And then your team retreated back into its shell, you fell back to play-it-safe/keep-the-score tight mode, and a possible statement win against the Bills and Josh Allen, in the cold and in front of #BillsMafia, went by the wayside. So the Patriots are left with their 12th loss and fifth in a row - one shy of their season-high six-game slide from Weeks 2 through 7.

Afterward, Mayo conducted his postgame press conference like a coach looking to preserve his job by shutting the hell up and saying much, much less than usual. Or someone told him to stick a cork in it to end Walk It Back Mondays with Mayo. Or he took a recent class at the Bill Belichick School of Communications. Maybe all of it.

Opening statement: "Good evening. Never feel good after a loss. Our expectations still remain high, and we’ll get better. We’ll learn from this, and we’ll move forward. Fire away."

Fourth down decisions? "I’m not going to get too much into the thought process on that. I tried to do what’s best for the team."

Punting from midfield in the fourth quarter down two scores: "To me, it’s a field-position thing."

Why the onside kick with three timeouts? "It was a good onside kick. We didn’t come up with it, and that was the decision I made."

More designed runs for Drake Maye? "We’re always looking for ways to win."

The beat went on and on. I guess Mayo didn't have to wait until Year 2 to make podium corrections.

Can't say the same about his in-game coaching, which showed so much promise early in this game and then devolved into another convoluted and conflicting mess.

Make no mistake, the Patriots team that took the field at Highmark Stadium against the 11-3 Bills were the exact opposite of the group we saw last week, after a bye week against the Cardinals and fell behind 23-3 against a team that was eliminated from postseason contention from the pesky Panthers and their new coach, Dave Canales, on Sunday.

They were ready to play. The coordinators employed simple but effective gameplans on both sides of the ball that their players could actually execute at a high level. Penalties and negative plays were at a minimum. They frustrated the heck out of Allen, something they could not do the first time they saw Aaron Rodgers and Tua Tagovailoa this season (trailed a combined 55-3). Oh, and knock me over with a feather, New England ran a fake punt from its 23-yard line ... and called two designed runs for Maye!

The Patriots, for the first time since Week 1 in Cincinnati, actually looked like a capable NFL outfit that seemed to be going in an upward direction. Mayo was outcoaching Sean McDermott - someone who wasn't an interim coach, or days from being fired.

I don't know about you, but this looked like a head coach and coaching staff with a sense of urgency, like they were feeling the pressure to perform and show something before, say, the midpoint of 2025. You might say they looked like a group coaching for their jobs. If that was indeed the case, then good. About time.

After that? Well, then the clock struck midnight on everybody. Rhamondre Stevenson fumbled again (league-leading 7th). Drake Maye threw an interception to no one from the Bills' 16-yard line when the Patriots trailed 17-14 late in the third quarter to take at least three points off the board (those would have been handy later). And then Alex Van Pelt called a play from the New England 12 that was way over the skis of his players to execute in that spot, in that stadium at that area of the field.

In order for this play to work, Demontrey Jacobs had to successfully cut athletic DE Gregory Rousseau (so far this season, that's been, at best, a 50-50 proposition - and he had issues all game) in a hostile road environment, Stevenson and Maye had to sync their depth so it wasn't a lateral, Maye had to throw a catchable ball in the cold (this one was a bit of a heater), Stevenson had to catch it (84.2% this season), not fumble it (dicey) and three on-the-move blocks by the tight ends and Antonio Gibson had to be executed to bring up at least third and manageable after 2nd and 8.

What are the chances of all that happening for this group in Buffalo, in those conditions? 10%? 20%? A play is only as good as the players capable of executing it with all the variables at the time of the playcall. That was my issue with Van Pelt against the Cardinals, and he regressed to his mean in the second half on Sunday.

And then Mayo, who coached with gusto in the first half, looked like he was playing four corners in the fourth quarter. We're close, we've showed something, just don't let this turn into the Jaguars game again. Keep it respectable.

And for the record, I eviscerated Belichick for coaching scared and not to get blown out in a 24-10 loss to the same Bills in 2022. 

"I thought actually we played pretty competitively," Belichick said at the time.

And last season against the Chiefs.

After giving up 24 straight points to the Bills on Sunday, and three straight offensive turnovers, the Patriots faced 4th and 5 at the New England 46 with 8:33 remaining. And punted the ball back to Allen trailing 24-14. That's like punting the ball back to Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. It's a loser's mentality, or...

Let's also not forget that, for the game, the Patriots were 7 of 12 on third downs, 2 for 2 on fourth downs - a combined 64% - or that the Patriots had failed to force the Bills into a three-and-out. Buffalo's fewest plays in a drive were 4, and that was only because that's all they needed to score their first touchdown. Since then, it was 6, 7, 9, 6 and 10 plays.

"For me, it’s all about – our timeouts, especially at that point in time, were definitely important," Mayo said. "When you have three timeouts at the end of the game, you have a chance to get the ball back, and we didn’t do it."

The Patriots did end up forcing a punt - after six plays and 4:29 off the clock. Even when Mayo could have called the first of three timeouts on the third down scramble to preserve another 35 seconds, Mayo didn't. They would have had over 5 minutes remaining, two timeouts and the two-minute warning down two scores.

Still, the Patriots wound up with the ball at the Bills' 4-yard line with 2:26 remaining and all three timeouts. It took them 10 plays (and about 35 Bills penalties) to score with 1:17 remaining. Talk about ineptitude.

Even with all that, the Patriots only needed a field goal and still possessed all three timeouts. Forcing overtime was still possible, and then Mayo decided to ... onside kick?!

"It was a good onside kick. We didn’t come up with it, and that was the decision I made," Mayo said.

It was a tale of two halves from Mayo and the coaches on Sunday. The first half was aggressive, like they were trying to prove something for the first time in a long time. The second half looked like they felt they had accomplished something and were just trying to run out the clock on a likely job-solidifying performance - which was accompanied by Mayo's Sgt. Schultz routine at the podium after the game.

Like Belichick near the end, Mayo appeared to be in self-preservation mode. Don't hate the playa, hate the game, I guess.

I miss the days when the Patriots are actively going all-out to win games. Those were the days.