Gale force winds turned the first half of Patriots-Bills into a beautiful disaster

The wind blew so hard in Buffalo it set the Patriots’ offense back 100 years.

The New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills’ Week 13 showdown was supposed to be a battle to determine the AFC East’s top team. Instead, it was a showcase of man vs. nature.

The Patriots and Bills’ Monday Night Football showdown took place against a backdrop of sustained 25-35 mile per hour winds and gusts approaching 55 mph. It was a forecast that sent afternoon passing prop bets and the scoring total tumbling in the run-up to the coin toss. ESPN’s pregame team, broadcasting live from the field at Highmark Stadium, was nearly sent end-over-teakettle as well.

Any notion this would be a typical football game was erased by a kickoff that sailed over New England’s return team, out of the field of play, and roughly seven rows into the stands:

After back-to-back-to-back three-and-outs from the center of a wind tunnel, Jake Bailey, the Patriots’ All-Pro punter, took a fourth-and-five snap, tucked into the ball with the full force of his leg, and … uncorked a mighty 15-yard kick into the indifferent gaze of mother nature.

The Bills squandered that field position with a fumble, clearing a path for New England to take the lead behind a 64-yard Damien Harris toss sweep touchdown — one of 10 rushing plays Bill Belichick called to start the game.

Mac Jones didn’t throw a pass until his fourth drive of the game. It was an adventure unto itself, but a completion:

This was the only pass the Patriots attempted in the first 30 minutes of the game.

Josh Allen fared better, finding targets downfield both with and without the wind. He was gifted a red zone possession when N’Keal Harry was sent out for the first punt return of his career in the middle of a windstorm, for reasons understood solely by Bill Belichick.

It went roughly as poorly as it could have. Allen turned the very next play into a 14-yard touchdown strike:

The Patriots, despite holding a 161-74 lead in total yards, had exactly as many first downs (five) as the Bills en route to an 11-7 halftime lead. New England adjusted to the weather by instituting an offense that would have been right at home at the NFL’s inception. The Bills, with 41 passing yards, looked like early-2000s Texas Tech by comparison.

And that’s how a game that was supposed to tell us who the best team in the AFC is instead may just be a barometer for which team is better geared to play football inside a tornado. Gusting winds made the first half of New England-Buffalo a sloppy, delightful mess. Let’s hope they keep whipping in the second.