The Buffalo Bills beat the New England Patriots 24-21 at Highmark Stadium on a cold Sunday night.
It was the first of their two divisional matchups this season, hich will come only weeks apart as the regular season nears its end.
While Buffalo got the win at home and improved to 12-3 on the year, players and coaches saw room for improvement.
“Got to come out in the first half ready to play,” QB Josh Allen said after the game. “And I don’t think that’s something that we did great today. Missed some opportunities. Wish I had a few back. That’s every game, but glad our defense and our special teams can step up. They scored on defense, obviously, and we won the turnover battle again, and it’s complementary football, and our defense had our back today.”
The 2024 campaign for these two franchises has been a tale of two very different clubs in terms of where they are.
Going into the matchup, Buffalo was 11-3 and the Patriots were 3-11, yet the game proved to be a close one.
“Didn’t start the way we wanted to,” LB Terrel Bernard noted, as New England got an early 14-0 lead on its first two drives of the game. “We made some adjustments and then we were able to play more like ourselves down the stretch there. I think it’s a good learning opportunity for us.”
The Bills have locked up their fifth consecutive division crown and are competing for the No. 1 seed and a first-round bye in the AFC playoff picture. To do so they’ll need to win their remaining two games and the Chiefs would need to lose their last two matchups.
The Bills will face the Jets at home before traveling for a regular season finale rematch to New England, who got ahead early in their first meeting.
“Good to get a win, it’s hard to win. Don’t take those for granted. Number One. Two, we thought we played sloppy in the first half in particular, and overall,” HC Sean McDermott said about the game. “We’ve got to clean some things up. The second half was a lot better, controlling the line of scrimmage offensively, and defensively with the takeaways. But you can’t start a game the way we did with the kickoff return and just getting off to an overall bad start. So I applaud the guys for, you know, finding a way and the coaching staff as well. [We made] some good adjustments at halftime. But again, we’re planning on coming out of this game and we’ll look at the tape and make sure we continue to adjust.”
Despite coming in with only three wins on the season, the Pats gave the Bills a run for their money in a game that figured to be an easier win on paper for Buffalo.
“That’s a better team than their record shows and these division games are tough,” QB Josh Allen added. “It’s someone that we’re used to, and they’ve seen us quite a bit over the last few years, and they came out ready to play today.”
McDermott continued to focus on where his team could improve.
“We got to do a better job of just doing our jobs and playing good sound, fundamental football, and then getting off the field on third down,” McDermott pointed out. “We’ve got to come out with more discipline,” McDermott said. “Can’t beat yourself… The first half just beating ourselves and not getting into a rhythm on offense… There are some young players out there, too, who are going to learn from some of those situations and experiences.”