Fan Notes from the Patriots’ loss to the Bills

Happy New Year, everyone! Whether you were out partying last night or in bed by 9:30 p.m., hopefully you rang in 2024 exactly the way you wanted to. Except for the people who set off a bunch of fireworks in quiet neighborhoods where everyone owns dogs. You folks can all sit on a tack. The Patriots closed out 2023 the same way they opened it — with a loss at Buffalo.

But that’s OK. Nobody had New England winning this game anyway. 1. If you believe in the concept of string theory, there’s a parallel universe out there somewhere in which the Patriots won this game. And amazingly, that universe was almost this one, despite the fact that they turned the ball over four times and at one point looked so comically awful on offense that I couldn’t help but think that they were doing it on purpose.

2. But in spite of that, courtesy of an opening kickoff touchdown and arguably the best defensive performance of the entire year, the Patriots almost swept the Bills and hung with one of the hottest teams in the league in a very tough place to play. 3. This is one of those games you are, for the most part, pretty happy with this year.

Team Tank saw the Patriots jump right back up into the top 3 for draft positioning, courtesy of a wild Arizona Cardinals upset , and Team Wins saw this team put up one helluva fight and make Buffalo earn every inch they gained. 4. Which, unfortunately, wasn’t all that many inches, considering three of Buffalo’s four scoring drives all started inside the New England 30 yard line.

I was worried that the defense would be so exhausted by halftime that they were going to pull an FSU and just sort of opt out of the second half. 5. But they didn’t. There is absolutely zero quit in this team, on either side of the ball. It’s just that the zero quit defense looks a lot like Rocky vs.

Apollo and the zero quit defense looks a lot like Luke vs. Dragline . 6. Which is another reason I’ve never been able to root for the tank. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it here — zero judgment if you’re all in on the losses, I get it. But this group just has too many likable players, too many injuries, and too much heart for me to cheer for their demise.

7. To stay on the D for a bit, with their best safety out, their thumper LB hurt mid game, their secondary completely banged up, and with very little time to rest in between drives — not to mention forced to constantly defend a short field — this defense only gave up one long TD drive, and 51 of the 75 yards on that drive came on a big play where Dalton Kincaid somehow managed to outrun Kyle Dugger.

They almost forced a red zone fumble right after the opening kickoff touchdown, held Josh Allen to under 170 yards passing, and no Bills player caught more than four passes. That’s the kind of performance that usually gets you wins. 8. Except, of course, that this is the Patriots, and that means we’re going to have yet another weird game.

9. And was this ever a weird game. I wonder if there has ever been a game in NFL history where the score was 10 7 midway through the first quarter in which neither QB had completed a single pass and the teams only had one first down between them. 10. Bailey Zappe has to be one of the more confusing players I’ve watched as a fan, particularly the quarterback position.

Nobody thinks he’s the answer, that much is clear now; I mean even the cameraman spent significantly more time than he needed to zooming in on a ready to go Mac Jones on the sideline. But he has also made some throws this season that I’d put up against anything Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes has done all season.

The problem is that he bookends those throws with some that has me thinking New England might as well trot me out there; I can be just as incompetent, and I could certainly use the money. 11. It actually isn’t so much the throws themselves; he put a few in the dirt, but for the most part he’s an accurate QB.

It’s just that he doesn’t seem to know how to read disguised coverages, call out the right assignments, check to hot reads, and do what he needs to do against a fierce pass rush to get the ball out quickly. 12. In his defense, he’s playing with a banged up offensive line and probably the weakest receiving corps in the NFL.

You can’t make burgers with Play Doh, even when you have that really cool meat grinder looking thing and the Play Doh comes out looking just like ground beef. 13. Did anyone else think Play Doh tasted kind of good? Salty and fun to chew? No? Just me? OK then, moving on. 14. I couldn’t help but feel like Kevin Harris was underutilized yesterday.

He only got two carries and was only out there for a handful of snaps. Guessing that the logic there was that the Pats were more in Max Protect mode and Zeke is the better blocker. 15. It’s tough to knock the Special Teams when they open the game repaying the favor Buffalo did to them in Week 18 of last year...

but you figure by the 25th consecutive punt that drops inside the five yard line, Myles Bryant might start just calling for the fair catch so at least the Patriots can punt outside of their own end zone. 16. I also have to acknowledge that the Special Teams include Chad Ryland, who is currently kicking at a 62.5 percent success rate.

When a professional kicker in the NFL has only a slightly better make right than my GPA in high school, you kind of have to think something is up. 17. If you’re looking to be more of a glass half full kind of person in 2024... Adam Vinatieri’s rookie season saw him kicking 77 percent, as did Gostkowski’s.

So maybe there’s hope. 18. It’s just kind of wild, though, to be in field goal range — pretty much any distance of field goal range — and feel that there’s only a 50 percent chance the Patriots walk off the field with points. 19. It would have been really fun to have been a fly on the wall at Charmin headquarters the day somebody came into the weekly pitch meeting with the idea for a family of talking bears as their new mascots for toilet paper.

I wonder if they had some mock ups done, or if they had some elaborate backstory planned. Would also love to know where the germ of the idea originated. 20. By the time the Patriots defense needed one more stop to get the ball back for a chance to take the lead, the D was simply too exhausted and beat up.

So it’s hard to get too upset at Buffalo’s final drive. They had been put into no win situations for most of the game, and the fact that there was even a comeback opportunity is all on them. Plus, when you turn the ball over four times, you don’t deserve to win, full stop. 21. Enjoy Josh Allen you can, everyone.

I’m a fan of his, and I want to see him makes some noise in the playoffs. But I also know that it’s just a matter of time before he takes off on 3rd and 25 and leads with his face as he tries to get one more yard on a QB scramble that wouldn’t even result in a first down anyway and he’s just going to snap in half.

Love the attitude and the toughness, really wish he’d think about the longevity of his careers. Just don’t think he’s wired that way and he never will be. 22. I’m very happy that Christmas and New Year’s fall on a Wednesday next year. Not only do we all basically get two weeks off, but I won’t have to worry about juggling holiday plans and writing these articles and watching these games amid all the festivities.

Watching football and spending time with family just don’t mix. One game to go, then it’s all over. Let’s all milk the hell out of it. Because even bad football is better than no football..