Why the Pats stopped the Bills' offense - Allen got antsy and undisciplined (The Athletic)

[dave mcbride]

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6697771/2025/10/08/how-patriots-took-down-unbeaten-bills/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983&userId=6953080&source=dailyemail

 

(Fodder for @GunnerBill, @HappyDays, and @Kirby Jackson)

 

“New England did a really good job, for the most part, of keeping a roof on stuff, and we’re going to make Josh Allen hold on to the ball or take a lot of the underneath stuff,” Klassen says. “And I think at a certain point he got pretty antsy with that and started making a few mistakes.”

 

Allen’s bad games still look an awful lot like good ones, but New England did push the MVP into working further downfield than he normally does, and forced a red zone interception that kept Buffalo from taking a late third-quarter lead. 

 

Allen has attempted 51 passes of 10 or more air yards through five weeks, and 30 percent of them came Sunday against the Patriots. Part of that was the disastrous run game, but combined with an unsettled Allen, the Bills never seemed to be fully in rhythm. 

 

“It felt a little bit up and down where they rely more on splash plays than this offense typically has,” Mays says. “I just think about how methodical they felt for the most part over the four weeks. They haven’t been that explosive, but they’ve been ruthlessly efficient.”

 

The fallback was to lean on their MVP, which worked, but has a limited ceiling against a disciplined defense. 

 

“Even a lot of the chunk plays they had early, it was Josh Allen making some sort of crazy play outside of the pocket,” Klassen says. “[Like] the flea flicker that they hit down the left side. It was a lot of, ‘Josh Allen, save us!’ or these one or two designer plays.”

 

The Pats also challenged Buffalo’s receivers to beat them one-on-one, playing man coverage nearly 40 percent of the time. That’s always a risk against a quarterback who can run the way Allen can, but New England was able to leverage the Bills’ biggest weakness against them.  

 

“We’ve talked about this for years with the Buffalo Bills,” Klassen says. “They don’t have many we-can-just-beat-you-one-on-one receivers. Challenge them. If you feel (Patriots defensive back) Christian Gonzalez is going to blank this guy 80 percent of the time, OK, then you take the one in five losses that you take. Same with Carlton Davis and all those guys.”

 

[Kirby Jackson]

I take no joy in this. 🤣🤣 Can’t say I’m surprised though. That’s been my fear all year. Fortunately Kincaid is becoming a player.

[Jauronimo]

2 minutes ago, Kirby Jackson said:

I take no joy in this. 🤣🤣 Can’t say I’m surprised though. That’s been my fear all year. Fortunately Kincaid is becoming a player.

Its the same concern many of us had last year.  

[Coach Tuesday]

Both of our young coordinators got schooled - and not just on Sunday night, but on the days leading up to it.

[Yobogoya!]

Yeah Allen can make magic happen when he goes off script, but he can't do it alone. 

 

If we could rely on Keon to be the player he was in the 4th quarter of the Ravens game - but all the time - then that would be a big help. As it stands we just can't punish defenses on command for manning up and daring us to beat them. 

[Goin Breakdown]

I've said this in a few other threads over the week. It's Diggs in joshes head. I truly believe that Josh wants to prove his value to Diggs so much he doesn't focus on his tasks in front of him.

There's like 3 plays in a think of that could have lead to points  if Josh was just more calm and focused. 
 

This was Houston last year. 
 

 

[PatsFanNH]

I have said this before man to man on your WR as a Pats fan I wasn’t ever worried about the Pats have very good CB. I am just shocked Allen didn’t feast more on our LB covering the TE and RB. The Pats are vastly improved on both sides of the ball but unlike Buffalo they have holes still and our coverage LB is def one of them.

 

That said the Pats got significant pressure with just rushing 4 which is why as the OP said Allen got happy feet.  Now I know someone going to say how he had more time in the pocket than usual but watch the game the pocket was collapsing quickly and Allen extended a lot of plays and he is just hard bring down anyways.

 

All said the Bills are still the class of the AFC right now. I can’t see an AFC team really challenging them if I am honest. 

[Brand J]

9 minutes ago, Goin Breakdown said:

I've said this in a few other threads over the week. It's Diggs in joshes head. I truly believe that Josh wants to prove his value to Diggs so much he doesn't focus on his tasks in front of him.

There's like 3 plays in a think of that could have lead to points  if Josh was just more calm and focused. 
 

This was Houston last year. 
 

 

I’ve noticed the same: both games where Diggs was on the opposing sideline, there’s been a bit of an uncharacteristic performance from Allen. There were plays to be made that he’s made against other teams, but he presses.

[DrDawkinstein]

IMO, this was/is more a lack of coaching issue than a lack of WR issue.

 

12 minutes ago, Goin Breakdown said:

I've said this in a few other threads over the week. It's Diggs in joshes head. I truly believe that Josh wants to prove his value to Diggs so much he doesn't focus on his tasks in front of him.

There's like 3 plays in a think of that could have lead to points  if Josh was just more calm and focused. 
 

This was Houston last year. 
 

 

 

Yep, trying to show his ex how happy he is without them.

[machine gun kelly]

Allen had happy feet as everyone knows because the rest of the team fell down.  We need to get through ATL as after the bye, we have to hope Ogunjobi, Hoecht, and maybe of lucky Hairston can help.  Oliver should be back as well.  I was always a Milano supporter, but now as much as I love the guy, he can’t stay healthy.

 

I do hope we make a trade for a CB, as we can’t count on Hairston right now.  I don’t know about the class of the AFC, but we are not a dumpster fire.  That’s the Jet’s, and Dolphins.  We have three serious challenges in the Bucs, Chiefs, and Eagles.

 

the WGR guys keep saying Douglas is the most likely trade, and even though he had not such a good second year with us, he may still be better than what Tre is now.

[yall]

Glad the Athletic agrees with me. A few posters took exception to the fact that I said Josh had a "poor" game by his standards.

[Buffalo Ballin]

I respect The Athletic, but OMG? LOL.

 

This game was still winnable, if, only, Oh we don't know, if the Defense did their job. Y'know, get 3rd down stops. Also, limit opposing RB yards.

[Low Positive]

This article is hindsight at it's best. 363 yards of offense should be enough to win a football game. The Bills also had

• more total yards
• more first downs
• same yards per play
• better third-down conversion rate
• fewer sacks allowed (Bills sacked Maye 4 times)
• fewer punts

Yes, the Pats had slightly more passing yards, but the Bills had a bunch more rushing yards. If they stopped the Bills offense, then we stopped theirs even more. I know it didn't feel like it at the time, but that's what the stats and game fiim tell you. The more I keep watching the game film, the more I realize that it was a close game that the Bills lost because of two completely unforced fumbles and stupid pre-snap penalties. Erase either one of those, and they win a close division game. In fact, erase that stopid TE end around fumble, and the Bills might win going away because who knows what happens if the Bills go up 7-0 after forcing a punt on the opening drive. In fact, the Bills were moving the ball on both their opening drives, but fumbles and penalties, not the Pats defense, stopped them. But because Joe B has a weeks worth of long-form content to create from one game, we get BS like this. Sorry, but I'm starting to get exhausted by people looking for, and drawing, absolute conclusions from a game that was won because one team made completely preventable mistakes. The only takeaway from this game should be that the Pats are a good team now, and the Bills can't play sloppy football and expect to win anymore. That's it!

 

BTW, I hope Palmer is running laps today because of that idiotic illegal procedure penalty in the first quarter. That killed a drive, all because he can't line up right. Completely inexcusable.

[HomeskillitMoorman]

2 minutes ago, Buffalo Ballin said:

I respect The Athletic, but OMG? LOL.

 

This game was still winnable, if, only, Oh we don't know, if the Defense did their job. Y'know, get 3rd down stops. Also, limit opposing RB yards.

 

That always has been and probably always will be this defense under this regime. If Allen is off, you can't expect to win the game. If it's not a blowout because of the offense, this defense's version of "stepping up" is getting like 1 stop or FG allowance instead of a TD in the 4th quarter when they've allowed 27+ points and then people praise it. The bar is extremely low for that side of the ball, it has been for a long time. 

[DabillsDaBillsDaBills]

When the offense was playing patiently and Josh was taking what the defense gave him in the first half we scored 3 points on 5 drives. There were 2 lost fumbles (Knox and Coleman). 

 

When Josh played more out of structure and put on the super hero cape we scored 17 points on 4 drives in the 2nd half, but also has a red zone INT on a play he tried to force. 

 

Even with the bad INT i'll take that 2nd half performance over the 1st half every time. 

[Governor]

The Pats DL totally dominated our OL right from the start. When that happens, you get games like this. We were never winning at the line. The best we got was a temporary stalemate.

[KOKBILLS]

1 hour ago, dave mcbride said:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6697771/2025/10/08/how-patriots-took-down-unbeaten-bills/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983&userId=6953080&source=dailyemail

 

(Fodder for @GunnerBill, @HappyDays, and @Kirby Jackson)

 

“New England did a really good job, for the most part, of keeping a roof on stuff, and we’re going to make Josh Allen hold on to the ball or take a lot of the underneath stuff,” Klassen says. “And I think at a certain point he got pretty antsy with that and started making a few mistakes.”

 

Allen’s bad games still look an awful lot like good ones, but New England did push the MVP into working further downfield than he normally does, and forced a red zone interception that kept Buffalo from taking a late third-quarter lead. 

 

Allen has attempted 51 passes of 10 or more air yards through five weeks, and 30 percent of them came Sunday against the Patriots. Part of that was the disastrous run game, but combined with an unsettled Allen, the Bills never seemed to be fully in rhythm. 

 

“It felt a little bit up and down where they rely more on splash plays than this offense typically has,” Mays says. “I just think about how methodical they felt for the most part over the four weeks. They haven’t been that explosive, but they’ve been ruthlessly efficient.”

 

The fallback was to lean on their MVP, which worked, but has a limited ceiling against a disciplined defense. 

 

“Even a lot of the chunk plays they had early, it was Josh Allen making some sort of crazy play outside of the pocket,” Klassen says. “[Like] the flea flicker that they hit down the left side. It was a lot of, ‘Josh Allen, save us!’ or these one or two designer plays.”

 

The Pats also challenged Buffalo’s receivers to beat them one-on-one, playing man coverage nearly 40 percent of the time. That’s always a risk against a quarterback who can run the way Allen can, but New England was able to leverage the Bills’ biggest weakness against them.  

 

“We’ve talked about this for years with the Buffalo Bills,” Klassen says. “They don’t have many we-can-just-beat-you-one-on-one receivers. Challenge them. If you feel (Patriots defensive back) Christian Gonzalez is going to blank this guy 80 percent of the time, OK, then you take the one in five losses that you take. Same with Carlton Davis and all those guys.”

 

Or...

As Joe Marino is reporting...The Bills got NE into base D on 14 downs Sunday night...14...and they passed it 2 times... 2 times out of 14!!!! And the worse part was they got 43 yards on those 2 passes!!!!

That's what Joe is saying... Not saying I can confirm it. But if that's true I would be careful before pinning anything on Josh... Maybe Josh checked into some of those runs? But if we ran that much into base D, and that was the calls, he was being put into those awkward positions far too often IMHO... And I don't see how running 12 out of 14 times into Base Defense is "leaning into your MVP"... That bullspit... Sure they HAD to lean into him when they got behind the chains because of penalties and shorter run plays... But the D is literally giving Brady what he wants and he's not taking it... And that's not Josh's fault...

Not to say that Josh was perfect either... Just saying... 

Edited 6 hours ago by KOKBILLS

[PayDaBill$]

17 minutes ago, Low Positive said:

This article is hindsight at it's best. 363 yards of offense should be enough to win a football game. The Bills also had

• more total yards
• more first downs
• same yards per play
• better third-down conversion rate
• fewer sacks allowed (Bills sacked Maye 4 times)
• fewer punts

Yes, the Pats had slightly more passing yards, but the Bills had a bunch more rushing yards. If they stopped the Bills offense, then we stopped theirs even more. I know it didn't feel like it at the time, but that's what the stats and game fiim tell you. The more I keep watching the game film, the more I realize that it was a close game that the Bills lost because of two completely unforced fumbles and stupid pre-snap penalties. Erase either one of those, and they win a close division game. In fact, erase that stopid TE end around fumble, and the Bills might win going away because who knows what happens if the Bills go up 7-0 after forcing a punt on the opening drive. In fact, the Bills were moving the ball on both their opening drives, but fumbles and penalties, not the Pats defense, stopped them. But because Joe B has a weeks worth of long-form content to create from one game, we get BS like this. Sorry, but I'm starting to get exhausted by people looking for, and drawing, absolute conclusions from a game that was won because one team made completely preventable mistakes. The only takeaway from this game should be that the Pats are a good team now, and the Bills can't play sloppy football and expect to win anymore. That's it!

 

BTW, I hope Palmer is running laps today because of that idiotic illegal procedure penalty in the first quarter. That killed a drive, all because he can't line up right. Completely inexcusable.

Turnovers will kill you as will sloppy play - penalties.

 

With that said they knew running would be tough sledding.  I just think we needed to go the Tom Brady route, and  dink and dunked  them to death with the slot, RB’s and TE’s until they stopped crowding the line, then the running game opens back up.

 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by PayDaBill$

[Brand J]

2 minutes ago, KOKBILLS said:

Or...

As Joe Marino is reporting...The Bills got NE into base D on 14 downs Sunday night...14...and they passed it 2 times... 2 times out of 14!!!! And the worse part was they got 43 yards on those 2 passes!!!!

That's what Joe is saying... Not saying I can confirm it. But if that's true I would be careful before pinning anything on Josh... Maybe Josh checked into some of those runs? But if we ran that much into base D, and that was the calls, he was being put into those awkward positions far too often IMHO... And I don't see how running 12 out of 14 times into Base Defense is "leaning into your MVP"... That bullspit... Sure they HAD to lean into him when they got behind the chains because of penalties and shorter run plays... But the D is literally giving Brady what he wants and he's not taking it... And that's not Josh's fault...

Not to say that Josh was perfect either... Just saying... 

Yeah, Marino said going into the game the Patriots struggled mightily against multiple TE and RB sets where the QB passed and we did it a grand total of 2 times for 43 yards. That’s just piss poor scouting by Joe Brady and the offensive staff. You’re supposed to attack a team’s weakness, what they don’t do well and force them into adjustments which would then open up other opportunities. We didn’t force the Pats into anything. I almost never feel like the offensive or defensive staff schemes specifically for opponent and is ahead of the opposing coordinators. 

[Generic_Bills_Fan]

23 minutes ago, Buffalo Ballin said:

I respect The Athletic, but OMG? LOL.

 

This game was still winnable, if, only, Oh we don't know, if the Defense did their job. Y'know, get 3rd down stops. Also, limit opposing RB yards.

Game would’ve been a pats blowout by halftime if the defense wasn’t playing very well in the first half…this was very much a team loss.  Shouldn’t even be in a game with that many turnovers/penalties

 

pretty much gave up 3 points despite the pats having good drive starts. The other 3 points the bills offense fumbled and put the pats instantly in fg range 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Generic_Bills_Fan