The New England Patriots are Back

This is attributed to the preposterous amount of postseason success I've experienced as a Boston Sports fan my entire life, but regular-season wins haven't felt monumental for me more often than not over the last quarter-century. Last night in Orchard Park, New York, was not one of those occasions. A genuine Patriots win that felt like a true arrival for a team that's been in purgatory since 2022, and something massive a now scrappy 3-2 squad can build off of with minimal resistance up ahead on the schedule.

While my fears of a big Dalton Kincaid game were warranted and the Patriots' fumbling issues persisted (at least early on), this team came to play and genuinely beat a Bills team that was eager to beat themselves up with penalties, turnovers of their own, and just simply by taking too long to get into the offensive swing of things. Drake Maye answered the bell, Stefon Diggs answered the bell, hell, even Andreas Borregales answered the bell on a 51-yard game-winner that couldn't have been more down the middle if he tried.

While aspirations at the divisional crown might be a bit ambitious still, with Buffalo still being a really good team, one thing is for sure after Sunday night: the New England Patriots, in their current iteration, are back as power players in the NFL, and they have their definitive guy in Drake Maye.

Stonewalling James Cook

James Cook and the Bills' O-Line vs. the Patriots D-Line was one of the key matchups in this game, and while I wasn't super surprised the Patriots "won" this game within the game, they facilitated Cook's worst game on the ground so far. Zero runs of 10+ yards when he had at least one in each of his first four games, and just three runs of 5+ yards, and a season worst 3.3 yards per carry on 15 attempts.

Greg Bedard's guy Khyris Tonga was huge in the run game all night, as were the likes of Christian Barmore and Harold Landry. The big thing, though, is you were not seeing Cook hit the second level much, and when he did, he was there for only a matter of moments, which is a credit to the Patriots linebackers here, who may not have been as good in pass defense.

Another surprising thing about Cook was that the Bills never really adjusted to the lack of quality run game opportunities with him, and didn't get him involved as a pass catcher until their final drive, which ended up being a dropped pass on a delayed screen. Odd choice by Bills OC Joe Brady, but never interrupt your enemy when they're willing to make a mistake like that. Shoutout to Zak Kuhr while we're here and on the subject of the Patriots defense. This was his best game as a DC this year and it couldn't have come at a better time.

14 Point Swing

Hard to really overstate just how huge the Patriots closed the third quarter and then started the fourth with a touchdown off of a pretty bad Josh Allen interception.

This was a pretty good play call by Joe Brady, in all honesty, since Allen has (in theory) a couple of options here in the checkdown to Cook, or then one of Khalil Shakir on the deep in or Curtis Samuel on the post if the defense were to bite hard on one or the other. Well...the Patriots play this perfectly in a C2-Man look, give Allen no bailout lanes, and he decided to throw to Shakir just enough late that Marcus Jones had enough time to bite on this and make a chasedown interception. Why Allen didn't take the checkdown to Cook here (the play was a 2nd-and-13), I don't understand, but hey, take advantage of bad football whenever you can, and boy, did the Patriots ever.

As for the score that made this a 10-point game, watch Mack Hollins here on the outside, and you'll understand how he's been in the league as long as he has. You'll also not be surprised to hear he had another big block on Rhamondre Stevenson's other TD as well.

As big as the game winning field goal and ensuing kickoff by Andy Borregales was, this to me was the stretch where I thought the Patriots were going to win this game. Textbook example of what taking advantage of bad football looks like and they did this in their most high pressure outing of the year. Awesome complementary football on display.

Maye to Diggs

I don't know what else I can add to the discourse on either Drake Maye or Stefon Diggs after last night by stating anything other than that's EXACTLY why you pay Diggs 22 million per to come to New England. Anger/Hate/Spite are the ultimate motivators, and he channeled that into something tremendous and was worth every single penny of that contract on this night of all nights.

As for Drake Maye, just watch these two plays and tell me that after the opening five game stretch to this year that he isn't worthy of being considered a top 10 QB at the bare minumum.

You probably don't even need a full hand to count how many other guys on the planet are making those two exact plays right now, and especially in a primetime divisional rivalry game. Ending with no TDs is a little bit of a shame since Maye was legitimately flawless otherwise, but he made no shortage of winning plays, and if you rate this as his definitive career outing, I don't blame you in the slightest. He was absolutely unfazed in one of the toughest road environments in the league, and the Bills had no answers for him.

Final Score: New England Patriots 23, Buffalo Bills 20

Gaffney's Three Stars from Patriots-Bills 1:

1st Star: Drake Maye (22/30 for 273 Yards, 3 Rushes for 12 Yards)

2nd Star: Stefon Diggs (10 Receptions on 12 Targets for 146 Yards)

3rd Star: Marcus Jones (4 Receptions Allowed on 7 Targets* [Excludes final play of game] for 43 Yards, 1 PBU, 1 INT)

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