FOXBOROUGH — Maybe in the weeks and months ahead, it’ll be determined that the 2023 Buffalo Bills aren’t actually that good. It might be that Sunday’s Patriots win was as much, if not more, about the Bills’ issues than New England’s resurgence.
At that same point, Patriots fans might be lamenting what this win did to their place in the draft order.
But hindsight is for later. The big picture can wait.
On this classic New England Sunday afternoon in October, the Patriots showed heart, fight and some promise. They looked like the team hopeful fans thought they’d be in the preseason and came out and beat a seemingly good team.
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After getting blown out by the Cowboys, embarrassed by the Saints and beaten by a lousy Raiders team, any win would have been cause for celebration. But the way the Patriots won added something to the joy. New England led most of the game. They started strong in the first quarter and built on it, but these were the Bills. New England hasn’t really been a good team since Buffalo pummeled them 47-17 in the 2021 Wild Card round.
The Bills dethroned the Patriots from AFC East supremacy and have been smushing New England’s collective face in the mud since.
So when Buffalo turned a long drive into one touchdown and a Kendrick Bourne turnover into another to pull ahead with 1:58, it looked like another bad sequel with an unhappy ending. This sort of scenario has not gone well for Mac Jones.
Really no scenarios have gone well for the third-year quarterback since he was a rookie. But this year he’s become the on-field face of the Patriots’ decaying fortunes, a fate that he somewhat deserves, but not in the amount he’s receiving it.
But there he was standing in the huddle trailing a team that’s humiliated him over his career. Somewhere in the back of his head, Jones had to know that failure to deliver would only send more scorn his way while success was something he’d never actually tasted.
But with the vocal support of his teammates, he suppressed whatever doubts he had and led the Patriots 75 yards down the field and out of the dark for at least a day.
“I don’t think a lot of the talk and stuff that happens with (Jones) is fair, honestly,” said tight end Mike Gesicki, who caught Jones’ winning touchdown. “He’s done an unbelievable job blocking all of that out and internally leading us throughout all that adversity. You hear all the talk about us with a chance to win the game and we can’t close and all that stuff. Today, we had a chance, and he stood in there and delivered play after play after play. Ultimately, we won the game off several great plays, but ultimately off a great ball by him. So, I’m really happy for him and just excited for this to ultimately propel us forward.”
Who knows what happens next? The Patriots won’t be tanking, but they weren’t really going to be doing that anyway. Will they be selling before the Halloween trade deadline? They probably still should be at 2-5, but Bill Belichick has a case to make against it now if he chooses to
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Whatever happens, they made the next 10 Sundays more watchable. A team that had been boring and listless was interesting and likable and more worthy of paying attention to.
“Overcoming adversity on both sides of the ball, and that makes me proud because that’s something you can build off of,” David Andrews said. “We’ll correct mistakes. But you need that adversity, seeing that overcome, building confidence, things like that. It was a great drive at the end. … Going home, having a beer and sitting outside is going to feel real good.”
Follow MassLive sports columnist Matt Vautour on Twitter at @MattVautour424.
