Notes, musings, and observations from the New England Patriots’ 24-21 defeat to the Buffalo Bills.
Happy Holidays, everyone!
I’m sure there are more than a few of you out there who work for some real Scrooges and are currently reading this week’s Fan Notes from the office, where you’ll be until 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve before they finally allow you to get out of there to go be merry and bright. I’ve been there, and it sucks.
On the plus side, I can’t imagine that there are any New England Patriots fans too despondent over yesterday’s loss. It was supposed to be a blowout, and instead it was a close game that the Pats could have won if they weren’t the same version of themselves week in and week out without fail. We have ourselves a real scorpion and the frog scenario here, so we may as well embrace it.
1. In case you aren’t familiar with The Scorpion and The Frog, it’s an old fable where a scorpion needs to get across a river, but it can’t swim. So it asks the frog to carry it across. The frog is worried that if he agrees, the scorpion will sting him, but the scorpion promises not to. After all, stinging the frog means that it too will be killed when the frog dies in the middle of the river. So the frog agrees to carry the scorpion. Halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies, “I am sorry, but it is my nature.”
2. In the case of the 2024 Patriots, they are both scorpion and frog, maybe some kind of Scorpifrog or Frorpian or Froggyscorp. They start to cross the river, and for a while things are going pretty damn OK. But then they sting themselves right at the deepest part of the water and down they go. We can sit here and get mad and question it and wonder what the hell is going on, but when it comes to this team, it’s simply their nature.
3. Be warned, today’s Fan Notes are going to be all over the place and even more nonsensical than usual. It’s officially Christmas Crunch Time at Casa de Shane and I still have a ton of shopping and wrapping and cleaning and all that other stuff I put off all season to do, so my mind is pretty discombobulated.
4. I also got into the egg nog a little early yesterday and may or may not have seen two Rhamondre Stevensons on screen all afternoon. Which means twice the fumbles!!
5. Ultimately a 24-21 loss to the Bills, in Buffalo, is a result you can be pretty happy with. Seeing as how they held their own early, scored a beautiful opening drive touchdown, and kept the Bills to under 30 points for the first time since October, you kind of have to appreciate what we saw overall.
6. But what you can’t do, EVER, especially against the best team in the AFC, is start the second half with three possessions that end in a fumble, red zone interception, and godawful backwards-pass-lateral-fumble-thingy-drop for a touchdown. The fact that this game wasn’t 40-14 after the third quarter might be the best takeaway from this game.
7. That play was everything wrong with the Patriots all wrapped up in beautiful Christmas paper and placed lovingly under the ugly tree. Demontrey Jacobs completely misses his block and falls down. Maye fails to see Greg Rousseau barreling towards Rhamondre Stevenson and doesn’t adjust. Mondre sees the ball bounce right off his hands. And then four Bills fall on the ball in the end zone before a single Patriot even knows what just happened.
8. I’ve kind of learned to take Patriots games this year as a series of individual moments as opposed to one big-picture product. The Patriots have, in my opinion, played three complete games all season, and they’ve won them all. There have been a few contests where one unit played well but the others didn’t, and they’ve lost those. There have been a few games, like Jacksonville, where nobody showed up at all. And then there have been games like this one, with pockets of brilliance accompanied by levels of incompetence I once thought was reserved only for burglars raiding homes while rich guys take their entire family, including their deadbeat freeloading brother, to Paris for the holidays.
9. Because in this case, the Patriots were simultaneously as prepared as they have ever been for a game and as undisciplined and over their heads as it got. What is abundantly clear about this squad is that they simply don’t know how to win games. I don’t mean that in a “execute the game plan and we’ll be fine” kind of way, although that’s worth discussing as well. This team just doesn’t have what it takes to dig in, make the plays they need to make, come up with a score or a stop at a key moment, and grab victory by the jingle bells. For every beautiful deep pass or perfectly executed run, there’s a bad play call, a mental error, a turnover, or some other type of tomfololery.
10. And it’s tough, because as a whole I actually liked a lot of the offensive scheme we saw from AVP. Pre-snap motions. Rub routes. Power runs that set up play action. Letting Maye off the leash a bit. But they coupled it with… well, all the other stuff.
11. And the defense held one of the NFL’s best offenses to 17 points. Tackling was effective and they forced a pick (which they of course tried to return to start at the 1-yard line instead of the 20). This loss isn’t on the D, which isn’t something I thought I’d say today.
12. I want to praise the coaching staff for the overall game…but I just can’t do it. They showed some stones by calling a fake punt at their own 22 yard line, but then punted on 4th and 1 from midfield. They punted on 4th and 5 from their own 46, down 10 with 8:46 left. I don’t know if New England’s final TD sequence was on the coaches or more on Maye still being a rookie, but it was first and goal from the Bills eight-yard line with 2:32 to go and all three timeouts. New England needed nine plays and 1:19 to get it across the goal line. I didn’t even know that was possible.
13. In the first of what will hopefully be many showdowns between Josh Allen and Drake Maye, I’d say the kid more than held his own. His stats are better than Allen’s all across the board, and overall, Maye is having a better rookie season than Allen’s was. In no version of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, or Christmas Future am I saying that Maye is the next Allen. But I’m also not not saying it, either.
14. Where this game was ultimately lost was through the running backs. James Cook rushed for 100 and a score, with a long 46-yarder to get the Bills back in it. Rhamondre Stevenson ran for 60 yards with two fumbles, one of which was returned for a TD. I know that Drake Maye is officially credited with that disastrous play — which, to be fair, he never should have thrown with the defense barreling down like that — but that was a soft lob that Mondre should have caught. New England couldn’t consistently move the ball on the ground and the Bills could.
15. The biggest gift I’m unwrapping from this game was how Josh Allen, one of the smartest, toughest, most accurate quarterbacks in the league, decided that wherever Christian Gonzalez was, he was going to focus on the other side of the field. Gonzo was targeted once all game and gave up zero catches.
16. Another big gift? New England jumped up the draft order this week and are now picking second overall.
17. Just be prepared for an inevitable two-win streak to close out the season when they beat the Chargers because they always beat the Chargers and then the Bills are resting everyone for the playoffs in Week 18. Jerod Mayo’s job is safe next year regardless of how the season shakes out, but two wins to close out the year might cool down his hot seat a few degrees.
18. And finally, whatever it is you celebrate this time of year, I hope it’s a great one. Enjoy some good company, even if it’s only your own. Eat some good food. Laugh and relax and unwind. Drink some holiday cheer. Only two games left in the season and then there’s no Patriots football until August of 2025. Football is a lot like pizza — even when it’s bad, it’s still better than no pizza. So, cherish the moment.