Blame it on the bye?

To be certain, the New England Patriots haven’t been the same team since the NFL’s mandated week off earlier this month. The seven-game winning streak that had fans, pre-Omicron, booking flights to Los Angeles for mid February has been replaced by a two-game losing streak that had them leaving Gillette Stadium early Sunday after the Buffalo Bills scored the clinching TD with just over two minutes left in a 33-21 win.

And it’s got the Patriot players, many of whom hadn’t been in this situation of a playoff race before, feeling a sense of urgency.

“If we don’t finish the way we need to finish,” Patriots veteran safety Devin McCourty said, “we’ll be at home.”

Sure, there are a lot of possibilities, as now the Patriots are in the mix with a lot of other AFC teams, no longer in the driver’s seat for the AFC East and if they lost their last two games, they could miss out on the playoffs altogether.

That won’t happen. New England has Jacksonville next Sunday here at Gillette, and let’s face it, the Jags with or without Urban Meyer are a mess, losing to the Jets yesterday.

But the fact is the Patriots have lost the last two games because the best player on the field was on the other team. Nine days ago it was Indianapolis back Josh Taylor, and yesterday it was Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen.

Give the Finesse Bills credit, they played with a little more force on Sunday than three weeks ago but Allen was behind it all. He was superb, rushing for 64 yards and then throwing for 314 and three TDs, and the Bills incredibly did not punt once. The one failure they had in fact was not having Allen bull his way in from a yard-and-a-half out, instead having him roll out and throwing the ball at receivers who couldn’t quite make the catch.

And he did overthrow an embarrassingly wide open Jake Kumerow in the end zone on the Bills’ long field goal drive to start the third quarter that made it 20-7.

And oh, he nearly gave the game away when Mr. Interception, Pats corner J.C. Jackson, ironically couldn’t snare a ready-made pick six that would’ve likely changed the game in the fourth. Instead Allen survived that and directed a game-clinching, 13-play, 75-yard TD march. He knew when to hold it, knew when to fold it, and knew when to flip it to the likes of Stefon Diggs or an outspoken Isaiah McKenzie (11 catches for 125 yards, really?).

“We’ve played him a bunch of times now,” McCourty said. “We let them kind of play it on their own terms. I think Allen got in a zone and was seeing things well.”

Conversely, we’re seeing the difference right now in Foxborough as we begin the Mac Jones Era. Jones had a chance late in the half to perhaps drive the Patriots down the field and get a score before the half, but failed. Compare the day Allen had with Jones’ Sunday: 14 of 32 for 145 yards, zero TDs, two interceptions (although the last one was on a desperation heave).

“I can play a lot better, I can lead a lot better,” said Jones, who really had no other insight, wouldn’t talk about practice, etc.

The interview auditorium in Foxborough clearly had a different vibe, than after the losses earlier in the season. Players were quiet, not enthusiastically pointing ahead , talking about Jones’ toughness, the team’s cohesion, etc.

No, besides the usual robotic talk of looking at the film, correcting the mistakes, etc., there were some not-so-subtle warnings from the veterans, even though a subdued Kyle Van Noy said “The season’s not over yet.”

But, as McCourty said, “It’s that point in the season when you’ve either got to get it done, or you don’t.”

Sunday Josh Allen wouldn’t let them get it done. End of story.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.

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