Tale of Two Halves: Thoughts from the Patriots Week 15 Loss

NFL
Written By Mark Scalia

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend yesterday's Patriots-Bill game.

Pre-game vibes were HIGH. Mike Vrabel was 6-0 coming off a bye coming into the game and the Patriots had the opportunity to beat their top division rival to win their first AFC East title in the post-Tom Brady era. Last but certainly not least, I was watching the game in a luxury box with an open bar and all the food I wanted out of the cold.

The game could not have started any better. The Patriots started with the ball and quickly had an 8-play, 73-yard drive concluding with a Drake Maye running touchdown to give them a 7-0 lead. The Patriots defense looked just as they did on Monday Night Football against the Giants early forcing 3 and outs on the Bills' first two drives.

The Patriots added another touchdown in the first quarter and another in the second to go up 21-0 and the game was looking like it was going to be an all day party with a division title as the reward at the end. Then things started to falter. After the Patriots' 3rd touchdown, Ray Davis took the kickoff 38 yards to the Buffalo 43 and another 15 yards was tacked on due to a face mask penalty. Allen and the Bills took advantage of the short field, scoring a touchdown to make it 21-7. The Patriots did get a field goal to enter the half 24-7.

With the exception of TreVeyon Henderson's 65-yard Touchdown, the second half was all Buffalo Bills and there was no hat and tee shirts yesterday.

So what went wrong? A lot.

Special Teams

Special Teams Coordinator Jeremy Springer has done an outstanding job this season, but yesterday his unit struggled immensely. Ray Davis ran wild taking his 4 kick returns 164 yards, for an average of 41 yards/kick.

Giving a QB like Josh Allen a short field to work with is not a recipe for success and he took advantage of it yesterday scoring 2 touchdowns on fields of under 45 yards.

In the 3rd quarter after Buffalo scored to trim the Patriots lead to 24-21, it looked like the Patriots would be in a great position to counter punch and start with great field position themselves as Kyle Williams took the kickoff 47 yards and into Buffalo territory. Seconds later we found out, it would be all for not as there was a hold by Marte Mapu on the return and the Patriots were pushed back to their own 29. The Patriots gave the ball back to Buffalo who scored and took the lead.

Special Teams is often overlooked but cleaning it up, especially for the playoffs will be of utmost importance.

Offense/Defense

The offense was abysmal in the second half. They produced only 80 yards of offense the whole half and 65 of those 80 yards came on TreVeyon Henderson's touchdown run.

If you look at the drives and how they ultimately stalled out, you'll see a patterns

  • First Drive: 3rd and 7; Sack - Leads to Punt

  • Second Drive: 3rd and 10; False Start; Next Play 3rd and 15; Holding - Leads to a 3rd and 25 Interception/Punt

  • Third Drive: Henderson TD

  • Fourth Drive: 2nd and 5; Sack - Leads to Punt

  • Final Drive: 2nd and 5; Sack

I didn't love the Patriots play-calling in the second half, but they really shot themselves in the foot. In 3 of the 5 drives, sacks pushed the offense out of manageable downs and into more difficult ones. On the second drive, the penalties just gave the offense no chance. The penalties were somewhat uncharacteristic of the Patriots since the early start of the season, so I'm not terribly worried about that going forward, but avoid sacks and negative plays should be a huge focus heading into Sunday Night Football against the Ravens.

I lumped offense and defense together because I truly believe a large part of the defense's struggles were because of the offense's inept second half. The Bills dominated the time of possession in the second half by more than 3:1 ratio. The defense HAD to be tired.

The run defense, which was once a huge strength of the team, was a BIG liability yesterday and a key part of the Bills win. James Cook ran for over 100 yards and averaged close to 5 yards/carry. It seemed as though the Bills could get 5 yards on first down whenever they wanted, leading to very manageable subsequent downs the rest of the way.

Missing Milton Williams was a big part of it yesterday as James Cook ran for 107 yards compared to 49 in the first meeting.

Milton Williams getting healthy will be massive for the Patriots and their deep playoff run hopes. In the 10 games Milton Williams started and finished for the Patriots, their run defense allowed an averaged 79.2 rushing yards. In the four games without him (he was injured early in the Jets game), they have allowed an average of 134.8 rushing yards a game.

In summary, it was a disappointing day for the team, but this season is far from over. The issues the Patriots had in the second half are easily correctable. I'm confident Mike Vrabel will do just that and that there will be a lot more exciting things to look forward to the rest of the way.

Mark Scalia