There are times when you take the field and you just get your butts kicked from start to finish. That’s what happened, rather uncharacteristically, to Bill Belichick’s Patriots in their wild-card loss to the Bills on Saturday night. The 47-17 total didn’t really represent the full extent of the one-sided thrashing, but the unpresented nature of the whomping, and the historical nature of it, tells the larger story.
Bill Belichick has been the Patriots’ head coach since 2000, and there were all kinds of things that happened to Belichick’s team on this night that had never happened to a Belichick team before.
No team had ever scored touchdowns on their first four drives against any Pats team coached by Belichick, but the Bills did, and they extended that into the second half, with touchdowns on their first three drives. The Bills also became the first team in the Super Bowl era to score touchdowns on each of their first five drives in the postseason.
Josh Allen completed 21 of 25 passes for 308 yards, five touchdowns, and no interceptions, making him part of a very small group of quarterbacks who threw more touchdowns than incompletions in a playoff game. Tom Brady did it against the Jaguars in the 2017 playoffs, Kurt Warner did it against the Packers in the 2009 Playoffs, and Peyton Manning did it against the Broncos in the 2003 playoffs.
Want more? The Bills became the first team with no punts and no turnovers in a playoff game since the Colts did it in 2004.
Buffalo’s 19 first downs in the first half were also the most amassed against a Belichick Patriots team (they had 29 total).
Allen’s five passing touchdowns was the most in Bills postseason history, and this was the 10th time in postseason history that a quarterback threw for more than 300 yards and at least five touchdowns.
The 47 points Buffalo scored were also the most ever against a Belichick Patriots defense, exceeding the 42 the Chiefs put up in the 2017 season opener. The 24-point halftime deficit was also unpresented.
24 points is the largest halftime deficit in Patriots playoff history, and tied for the largest halftime deficit in any game under Bill Belichick (Week 12 2013 against Broncos).
The Patriots went on to win that Week 12 game vs the Broncos, 34-31. pic.twitter.com/wdRPYK0aRF
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) January 16, 2022
Clearly, there was no comeback this time.