New England lost a tightly-contested divisional game in Week 17.

The New England Patriots entered their Week 17 game against the Buffalo Bills as two-touchdown underdogs. From that perspective, they did manage to outperform expectations by ultimately losing with a final score of 27-21.

However, the road upset — and thus a season sweep over their AFC East rivals — was right there for the taking. A disastrous first 20 minutes that saw four offensive turnovers in a span of six possessions, however, put the team in too big a hole to take advantage of a spirited performance by the defense and an early kickoff return touchdown.

In the end, the story was the same it was for much of the season: the Patriots simply shot themselves in the foot too many times and failed to make enough plays in crunch time to complete a comeback. As a result, they are now 4-12 on the year.

With all that said, let’s dive straight into this week’s film review to find both the good and the bad.

Offense

The story of the Patriots’ offense against the Bills starts and ends with its turnovers.

Quarterback Bailey Zappe threw three interceptions, including one returned for a touchdown, while tight end Pharaoh Brown joined the party by losing a fumble. Those four plays either directly or indirectly resulted in all 20 of Buffalo’s first-half points, and put the Patriots in a 13-point hole after they took an early lead.

Besides shifting momentum and points to the opponent, New England’s four giveaways also had something else in common: all of them happened on quick passing concepts.

Playing behind a makeshift offensive line that featured replacement players at both left tackle (Vederian Lowe) and left guard (Atonio Mafi), Zappe getting the ball out quickly made sense as plan. However, the execution as so often this year was simply too sloppy and gave an opportunistic defense chances to make plays.

You had Pharaoh Brown taking too long to make himself available (INT No. 1), DeVante Parker drifting too far upfield, allowing Rasul Douglas to beat him to the catch point (INT No. 2), Zappe missing a downfield opportunity to Parker before throwing a checkdown to Brown (fumble), and Reagor not adjusting his route despite seeing the safety creep down (INT No. 4). The mistakes simply were too many and too frequent.

You can also argue Zappe making poor choices on split-second decisions, but his receivers did him very few favors. The Bills made some great plays as well.

As so often this year, those issues individually might not have been a problem. However, the Patriots do not have the quality both at quarterback and the surrounding positions to keep the cumulative effect from leading to bad results.

That also was true outside of the turnovers. Too often on Sunday, the unit left meat on the bone.

As noted above, the upset was entirely possible even with the Patriots turning the ball over four times in one-and-a-half quarters of play. But those miscues put them under immense pressure they are usually unable to withstand: they needed to be close to perfect over the final 40 minutes of game time to succeed, and they could not do it.

Obviously, though, it was not all bad. The unit’s resilience after dropping behind multiple scores and struggling with ball security was encouraging to see, and some players had strong games even if the numbers or end result does not reflect it.

Bailey Zappe, for example, was able to maneuver the pocket despite being pressured on 18 of 31 dropbacks (with a significant portion of those coming on line stunts challenging the communication up front). Running back Kevin Harris showed some surprising burst on his 48-yard catch-and-run on a screen pass. And Sidy Sow had one of the best games of his rookie career despite going up against one of the league’s most potent pass rushes.

Sow did have his ups and downs all year, but his performance against the Bills was more proof that he should remain in a starting position in 2024. And he was not the only rookie O-linemen potentially entering that conversation for next year — or maybe even next week versus the New York Jets.

Fellow fourth-round pick Jake Andrews, who spelled starter Atonio Mafi at left guard for a handful of snaps, also had himself a nice game in limited opportunities.

Andrews had not taken the field on the offensive side of the ball until that point, but the Patriots apparently think he is worthy of a role bigger than the one he held for the first 15 games of the season. Him starting in place of Mafi, and therefore opposite Sow, during the season finale might be an option.

Speaking of positives for the Patriots offense, their success on screen plays against Buffalo also was notable. In total, offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien called four such plays: three actually developed and eventually gained 68 total yards.

The 17-yarder to rookie wideout DeMario Douglas in particular is worth revisiting. The Patriots, after all, were able to completely catch the Bills’ defense off guard on that one while building off of an earlier play they ran.

Moments such as this one were definitive positives for a Patriots offense that, at times this year, looked completely incapable of producing junk plays. At the end of the day, however, they did not happen consistently enough in a game that saw New England very much hand its opponents 20 points on a silver platter.

Defense

Turning the ball over four times in six possessions to open the game, giving the opponent one touchdown and three short fields, usually is the recipe for a blowout loss. However, the Patriots were still very much alive until the end of the game.

It is not hard to see why: their defense played one of its best games of the season, keeping the Bills offense to only 20 total points, 281 yards, 4.1 yards per play, a 47 percent success rate on third down, and a negative expected points added number of -0.05 per play. The Patriots accomplished this by a) being their usual stout selves against the run, and b) making quarterback Josh Allen feel the heat.

“I think they did a good job of rushing,” he said following his 15-of-30, 169-yard, 1-interception performance, “and just making me feel some stuff at my feet and just got the timing off just so ever slightly and that’s all it really takes. They played good coverage in the back end.”

The Patriots registered 15 combined pressures on 34 dropbacks, and were able to muddy the waters consistently to keep Allen off rhythm. The very first defensive snap of the day, a 10-yard sack and forced fumble by Deatrich Wise Jr., already set the tone in that regard. For Wise Jr., it was one of several notable plays.

Wise Jr. was the Patriots’ most disruptive player from a statistical perspective, despite playing a season-low 33.3 percent of defensive snaps and rushing Allen only nine times all game. He made sure to make the most out of them, and helped keep the Bills’ hyper-talented quarterback uncomfortable throughout the day.

Also standing out in the pass rush department were the ever-reliable Christian Barmore as well as rookie Keion White, who both registered two pressures each. In order to register those results, the Patriots did not just rely on their quality up front but their scheme as well.

Defensive play caller Steve Belichick called blitz on 12 of Allen’s dropbacks, and the results were not pretty for Buffalo: he went only 2-of-10 on those plays. However, one of those completions resulted in the Bills’ longest gain of the afternoon, a 51-yard catch-and-run by tight end Dalton Kincaid.

The Patriots seemed to be in a Cover 0 look on that particular play, not giving safety Kyle Dugger any help deep. The extra rushers did not get home in time, allowing Allen to hit the rookie for a sizable junk to set up his team’s only score after a pick-six put them up 20-7 in the early second quarter.

From that point on, the Patriots seemed to tune back on the aggressiveness. They stopped blitzing and relied mostly on zone rather than man coverage to get the job done. And while they still held Buffalo scoreless down the stretch, this also allowed the Bills to run out the clock in the late fourth quarter and with New England still within striking distance.

That was not the only issue the Patriots had against Buffalo on Sunday. Two more come to mind:

1.) The Patriots knocked the ball from Josh Allen on two occasions, but failed to recover any of those fumbles; just like the offense, the defense was unable to take advantage of some big-play opportunities that presented themselves during the game.

2.) The Bills found some holes in the NFL’s best run defense, and while they still only averaged 3.7 yards on non-kneel-down runs and a -0.05 EPA per play, they made enough plays to compensate for Allen’s lackluster day as a passer.

Those areas contributed to the Patriots’ loss, but they should not overshadow what was a second stout performance this season against an opponent that enjoyed plenty of success versus the unit between 2020 and 2022. If New England continues playing like that on defense, the team will have continue to have a chance in future matchups — especially if there is some improvement on the offensive side of the ball.

One final note on the defense: fourth-year edge Anfernee Jennings continues to play high-level football, and should be a priority for the Patriots come the 2024 free agency period.

Special teams

The Patriots’ much-maligned special teams operation opened the game with a bang, courtesy of a 98-yard Jalen Reagor kickoff return touchdown. The runback itself was spectacular, with the former first-round draft pick shooting through a hole in the coverage team, spinning out of a tackle attempt, and running by Bills kicker Tyler Bass as if he wasn’t even there.

Reagor deserves credit for his vision, contact balance and long speed on this play. The blocking up front, however, also cannot be left out of the conversation as Bill Belichick explained Monday.

“Pretty much all of them [were key blocks],” he said. “I think we had everybody. [Matthew] Slater and Pharaoh [Brown] got the kick-out blocks. A good double-team block by [Josh] Uche and [Marte] Mapu. [Jahlani] Tavai, Mack Wilson did a great job on the backside. It was obviously a good run by Jalen, getting past the safety and then running through fast. We pretty much had hats on everybody through the alley there.”

Reagor’s kickoff return was a highlight play for the Patriots and their special teams crew, and it was not the only positive to take away from the contest: the kickoff coverage unit also performed well, allowing a solid 21.0 yards per return.

Now comes the “however” part of all of this. The consistency in the game’s third phase was again lacking at times.

Whether it was punt returner Myles Bryant averaging just 2.0 yards per runback compared to Buffalo’s 9.0, or rookie kicker Chad Ryland missing yet another field goal attempt, the Patriots continue to have too many downs along with their occasional ups on special teams. Add the fact that Bills punter Sam Martin had an AFC Special Teams Player of the Week-worthy performance, and you see why New England might not have “won” the kicking game battle despite its banger of a start.