For the second consecutive week, the New England Patriots didn’t appear to do much with high energy and complete discipline.
Outside side of Damien Harris’ three-touchdown day, the Patriots were flat in the 33-21 loss to the Buffalo Bills in Week 16. Mac Jones had his third straight game that was unimpressive and the defense had no answers for slot receiver, Isaiah McKenzie — who finished the day with 11 catches for 125 yards and a touchdown.
The Patriots lost control of the AFC East and they’re slipping in the playoff race as other teams in the conference are gaining steam. One of the biggest issues for New England while facing Buffalo was the inability to convert third downs. The Patriots had a season-low 1 for 10 conversion rate, leading to a stoppage of many key drives.
On WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show,” Bill Belichick discussed this issue and identified it as the biggest problem.
“I think there were a lot of things we did well, we just didn?t do them well enough, often enough,” Belichick said. “Obviously, the biggest problem in the game was third down. Had we done a better job on third down, then things probably would have looked differently. Third and fourth down on defense, a combination of it.
“We were 1-for-10 on third down on offense. And then 6-for-12 (on defense), and they were 3-for-4 on fourth down. That would have been a big factor in the game had we done that better.”
Not only were the Bills efficient on third and fourth down attempts — they didn’t punt the ball once in the game. This was the first time a team has ever went without punting against a group that Belichick coached.
“We had some long-yardage situations,” Belichick continued. “They weren’t all third-and-10’s, but there were some and that was a problem. Just in general, we didn’t do very well on third down. On a couple of them we converted on fourth down, but just overall our third down offensive and defensive execution just wasn’t good enough against a team like Buffalo.”
The Patriots are now 9-6 with the Jacksonville Jaguars ahead and a playoff run to still look forward to.
“There’s still a lot of football left to play,” Belichick said, “We’ll see how things go here. Hopefully we can play our best football in January. That’s what we need to do, and that’s what we’re planning to do. We’re going to work hard and try and do that. As you said, the last couple of weeks have been disappointing, but we’ll turn the page here and move on to Jacksonville this week and the last game and see where things are at that point. There’s still a lot in our control. I think before we write the finale to the season, we’ll see how we finish playing. These are the most important games of the year.”
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