When you're the Patriots and have established a winning reputation over the course of years, of course you can accept barely scraping by a bad team.
When you haven't made the playoffs this millenium and you are a perennial bad to mediocre team, everyone is reading the tea leaves to see if there is a sign you have actually progressed to a good team. I personally don't think the wins are particularly impressive in retrospect. Further, you could make a plausible case that for whatever differences there might be between McD and Jauron, this is still largely a veteran team of overachievers who "bought in." That means one has a slight edge in the close games where veteran leadership might tilt the game your way.
Who would you rather be right now, the Rams with a young signal caller that seems to have turned the corner towards franchise qb with young talent on both sides of the ball and a qb whisperer for head coach or this group of Bills? The former seems to me clearly a team on the rise. We might get there, but I think this team is a question mark. They need to hit on a lot of draft picks and infuse youth and more talent. Character and buying into the process needs the spice of a few superstars if you're going to be a consistent Super bowl contender.