The Patriots squandered a chance to essentially clinch an AFC East title in their 33-21 loss to the Bills on Sunday.
As head coach Bill Belichick said on Monday morning, the story of the game came on third and fourth down, where Buffalo had the advantage (Bills – 9-16, Patriots – 6-16).
Looking deeper into the discrepancy, the Patriots lost to the Bills because they tried to beat Buffalo at their own game.
The game script turned into New England’s passing attack versus Josh Allen and the Bills’ passing offense. As one would expect, that development didn’t favor the Patriots.
Patriots quarterback Mac Jones finished with a total EPA of -0.6 on his 36 drop-backs. In comparison, Allen added 21.7 total expected points on 49 drop-backs against the Pats defense.
Furthermore, the Bills had tremendous success throwing against New England’s man coverages while the Pats couldn’t separate against Buffalo’s secondary in man-to-man schemes.
Although it wasn’t going to be as drastic as the Week 13 windstorm, the Patriots couldn’t turn Sunday’s game into a rock fight in the trenches. Instead, they played on Buffalo’s terms, where execution in the passing game won the day.
Here are various advanced stats from the Patriots’ loss to the Bills on Sunday:
MAC’S PASSING METRICS
Over the last two games, the advanced metrics aren’t friendly to rookie quarterback Mac Jones who hasn’t been as sharp with his downfield accuracy and isn’t processing coverage as quickly.
In New England’s losses to the Colts and Bills, Jones’ completion percentage over expected (-9.7) ranks 29th out of 32 qualified quarterbacks in that span, a significant dropoff from the first 13 games of the season for Jones, where he ranked fifth in the metric (+4.2).
Jones is also holding the ball for much longer over the last two weeks with a 3.1-second average time to throw. In the first 13 games, Mac’s average time to throw was 2.51 seconds.
Whether it’s a product of secondaries clamping down on New England’s receivers or not, the reality is that New England’s passing game, including Jones, isn’t executing well enough.
Although it’s difficult to say for sure without knowing the call, some of Mac’s inaccuracies appear to be instances where he’s not on the same page with his receivers.
For example, Jones has Hunter Henry winning on the “sail” route against zone coverage, with Kendrick Bourne’s vertical route clearing out the sideline. The Pats love this concept against zone, and Mac has hit it all season. This time, Henry flattens his route path through his break like it’s a deep out pattern, but Mac throws it like Henry should be running a corner or seven route. As a result, the ball isn’t in the right place.
There were many examples, especially against zone coverage, where Pats receivers were breaking their routes off in ways that Jones wasn’t anticipating.
As much as we want to blame one player or area of the offense, the failures for New England’s passing attack are a product of everyone operating at a suboptimal level.
The good news is that it doesn’t appear that Mac Jones suddenly is no longer an accurate quarterback, but rather the timing and cohesiveness in New England’s offense aren’t there.
PASS PROTECTION STATS
One silver-lining from Sunday’s loss was that the Patriots’ offensive line mostly did its job to keep Mac Jones clean and produce a potent rushing attack against Buffalo.
Jones was under pressure on 30.6% of his drop-backs, but the pressure mounted late when New England became one-dimensional, and the O-Line was only responsible for six pressures.
Plus, the Patriots added 0.30 expected points per rush (98th percentile) with a 50% success rate on their 27 carries in Sunday’s loss.
On Harris’s 31-yard run, the Pats ran a G/TE counter scheme where right guard Shaq Mason pulled to kick out the edge defender and Jonnu Smith led through the hole. By pulling from the backside, the scheme allows left tackle Isaiah Wynn to combo up to the second level, and Wynn’s block springs Harris for a big gain.
Although it wasn’t enough to produce offensively, New England’s offensive line mostly held up its end of the bargain.
DEFENSIVE PRESSURES & RUN STOPS
In a game where Bill Belichick’s defense failed to force a single punt for the first time in his coaching career, the Patriots’ defense wasn’t good enough in any area to stop Buffalo’s offense.
With that said, New England hurried Bills quarterback Josh Allen on 20 occasions yet only hit him four times and registered zero sacks. In other words, a lot of close but no cigar this week.
On his 20 drop-backs while under pressure, Allen attempted 19 throws and scrambled once. The Pats rushed with three and four-man rushes to keep Allen in the pocket, then had their short zone defenders or spies at the second level jump Allen when he took off running.
The results were mostly awful. Allen found outlets while in scramble mode and was able to get out of pressure by throwing into the voided areas as the short zones collapsed on him.
In the red zone, the Pats made stops by hurrying Allen into errant throws or throwaways.
On their only drive that didn’t end in points, Pats rookie Christian Barmore used a push-pull technique to disengage from right guard Daryl Williams and hurried Allen into a throw behind Emmanuel Sanders, resulting in a drop by the Bills’ wideout.
This time, Kyle Van Noy breaks through the line after the initial coverage holds up and hurries Allen into one of his four throwaways, holding Buffalo to three points in the red zone.
There was a cat-and-mouse game going on between New England’s front seven and Allen that didn’t go the Patriots’ way on Sunday. In short, the Pats’ pass rush was aggressive in closing down Allen’s space when he extended plays, which left openings in coverage.
Although it felt like the Patriots didn’t pressure Allen, they did, but it came at the expense of breaking down the coverage structure, and that’s why it didn’t have a significant impact.
Remember, effectively pressuring quarterbacks is about marrying the rush with good pass coverage to sack the QB. You can’t expect one without the other.
RUN STOPS
The Bills ended up nearly producing a net-positive EPA on the ground with a 44% success rate, which falls in the 73rd percentile even though the defense won more run plays than the offense.
Leading the way in run defense for the Patriots was nose tackle Davon Godchaux, who had three stops. Lawrence Guy, Daniel Ekuale, and Barmore each added two stops.
Things were more in New England’s favor than not when the Bills ran the ball, but it wasn’t as one-sided in that department as the Week 13 matchup.
COVERAGE STATS
Although we aren’t making excuses for the Patriots’ defensive backs, the breakdowns in the secondary were more systematic than lacking physical traits.
New England’s man coverages were shredded because the Pats failed to play team defense where corners taking outside leverage weren’t receiving inside help from their teammates.
The biggest loser in the scheme breakdowns was Myles Bryant, who was torched by Bills wideout Isaiah McKenzie and allowed a team-high 89 yards into his coverage.
McKenzie motions into a tight bunch set as the outside receiver on their critical third-down conversion in the fourth quarter, with Bryant taking outside leverage in cover-one. McKenzie gets a free release at the line, Kyle Dugger allows him to run past him without a jam, and nobody closes off the middle of the field. Expecting Bryant to turn on the jets and recover to force an incompletion is a big ask for any cornerback.
On Stefon Diggs’ touchdown, it was more of the same. Pats corner J.C. Jackson has outside leverage on Diggs and expects post-safety help. Instead, Devin McCourty helps in the other direction and leaves Jackson vulnerable on the quick post. Again, especially with Allen’s arm strength, that’s nearly an impossible route to defend if Jackson doesn’t get inside help.
The Bills also feasted on the Pats’ secondary with the inside receiver (McKenzie) releasing into the flat out of bunch formations. Once again, Bryant is out-leveraged immediately, and if the Pats aren’t switching here, Bryant has no chance to cover McKenzie on this route.
New England needs its defensive backs to cover better than they did on Sunday, but Buffalo had a good plan of attack against the Patriots’ coverage rules and kept their foot on the gas.
As easy as it is to blame the players, the coaching staff never adjusted to the Bills’ strategy.
