Patriots Playoff hopes slim after Thursday night loss to the Bills

The New England Patriots playoff hopes are officially on life support after a 24-10 loss to the division rival Buffalo Bills at Gillette Stadium on Thursday night.

The score indicates a somewhat close game, but it was quite the opposite. Josh Allen and the Bills came into town and reminded the Patriots and their fans that the gap between the two teams is not close; in fact, it’s quite a significant gap.

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Outside the Marcus Jones touchdown play, the Patriots offense gained 125 yards on their first eight possessions. They ran 36 plays during that period, an average of 3.47 yards per play. The Patriots offense ran a total of 51 plays, 24 of those plays went for two yards or less, and they had three accepted penalties on offense. That is 27 times the Patriots moved the ball for two yards or less. 53 per cent. Check out the top football odds for betting on the NFL.

The Bills, on the other hand, looked more than competent. They held the ball for over 38 minutes, converted 9 out of 15 third downs and went three for three in the red zone. Josh Allen made the necessary play whenever the Bills needed a play to keep the Buffalo offense on the field.

Another week, another test was failed by the “elite” defense. Outside of the two possessions to end each half, the Bills went three and out only once compared to four times by the Patriots. The Bills crossed midfield on every non-kneel down possession except for two times. The Patriots did not cross midfield in five out of their eight possessions.

I can go on and on with statistics, but the bottom line is that the Patriots have proved once again that they are nowhere close to the top of the division, not to mention their standing in the conference.

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The path ahead for the Patriots is bleak, and players visibly showed frustration Thursday night. I am not a professional reader but the Amazon Prime crew showed a shot of Mac Jones on the sideline, and it looked like he was screaming, “Throw the bleeping ball; the bleeping quick game sucks.” He’s right, the quick passing game is not working, but the Patriots offensive line can not hold serve for even two seconds. It is fair to mention that the Patriots offensive line coach is Matt Patricia, the same person calling draw plays with less than a minute left in the first half.

When asked about the performance on third down, wide receiver Kendrick Bourne shared his two cents “via Andrew Callahan of the Boston Herald.”, “Yeah, man, we need to scheme up better. We need to know what they’re doing. We need to know what they wanna do on third down.”

The Patriots face a gauntlet down the stretch, and it looks like they will need to reach ten wins to make the playoffs. That means they will need to win four out of the next five: @Arizona. @Las Vegas, vs Cincinnati, vs Miami and @Buffalo. It’s a daunting task, and it does not help that the players seem to be losing hope.