The New England Patriots end the season on a sour note and miss the playoffs for the second time in three seasons. The Patriots lost to the Bills 35-23. New England had a tough road heading into Buffalo the final week of the season before a crazy Monday Night Football situation gave the Bill extra motivation. Despite some help from the Jaguars on Saturday night, the Pats didn’t receive any help from the Jets or Browns when they needed it most.
SPECIAL TEAMS STRUGGLES
The most surprising part of this loss was the struggles of New England’s special teams. The special teams play has been solid most of the year, including providing the only touchdown in a win against the Jets earlier this season. But, on Sunday, the kickoff coverage was atrocious. New England gave up two kickoff returns for touchdowns, including one on the opening kickoff. Maybe they should’ve had the former special teams coordinator they re-hired working with the special teams instead of the offense.
PATRIOTS OFFENSIVE IMPROVEMENTS
It was a mixed bag for the Patriots offensively, but given the year they’ve had, that’s an improvement. Mac Jones completed 26 of 40 passes for 243 yards and three touchdowns. But he tossed three interceptions. Jones, Damien Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson each ran the ball a combined 23 times for 107 yards. But none scored a touchdown. And the Patriots scored two red zone touchdowns Sunday. That’s impressive considering they entered the game with the worst offensive red zone scoring percentage while Buffalo entered with the best defensive red zone scoring percentage. It’s a performance to build off of next year, hopefully with an actual offensive coordinator.
EMOTION FUELING BILLS
The Buffalo Bills had the most trying week of any team in the NFL. They watched a teammate, Damar Hamlin, collapse on the field and emergency personnel administer CPR for nine minutes Monday night. Both the Bills and Bengals decided to stop the game. Buffalo then got an emotional boost when Hamlin started breathing on his own and was able to Facetime the team this week. Hamlin’s health is obviously the most important thing and the team was ready to show out for their fallen brother.
AFC PLAYOFF PICTURE
In less, but still, important news, the NFL decided not to finish the Bills-Bengals game. That decision threw the AFC playoff picture into a mess. The Bills, despite not actually losing a game, lost the number one seed to the Chiefs. It was something we all knew had to be addressed, but most didn’t want to do it until we had an update on Hamlin. The NFL is in a bind, but the Bills still lost the number one seed despite not actually losing a game. It’s a tough scenario that has led to any AFC Championship game featuring the Chiefs, Bills and/or Bengals to be played at a neutral site. We can debate all day if this is the correct course of action, but it’s the one the NFL chose and everyone will abide by it. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Kansas City, Buffalo and Cincinnati moving forward.
Meanwhile, the Patriots had control of their own destiny but let it slip away on kickoff coverage. If New England had won this game, they would’ve been in the playoffs. With the loss, they needed the Dolphins and Steelers to both lose to make the postseason. Both Miami and Pittsburgh won sending New England home early.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR PATRIOTS?
The offseason. Bill Belichick must regroup and figure out how he is going to try to improve this team. Will Mac Jones still be the starter next year? Will it be an open competition in training camp? Who will be calling plays for the offense? Will Matt Patricia still be on offense or will they bring in someone like Bill O’Brien? Who will they draft? Will they move up? Will they move down? It’ll be interesting to see. It’s been 20 years since the Pats missed the playoffs twice in three seasons. The last time it happened, they rebounded by winning the Super Bowl. I don’t think that’ll happen again, but in the NFL, you never know what will happen in the offseason to make a team better or worse. But it will be fun to see.
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