Plays That Defined 2023: Bills vs. Patriots, Week 17

Photo by Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

A win is a win but a blowout would have been preferred

The Buffalo Bills’ 2023 season is in the books but there’s one little thing missing. Illustrations. Let’s pretend last year is an actual book, with each game a chapter. It’s up to us to find one play or “illustration” that best shows us the theme of that chapter.

Make sense? I hope so because we’re about to take a look at some plays and vote. Remember, it’s not necessarily the best play we want, it’s the one that best illustrates...

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Chapter 16: Buffalo Bills vs. New England Patriots

By many objective measures, the New England Patriots were terrible last season. At least the offense and their record. Which made it harder coming to terms with losing to them in Week 7. Ten weeks later it was time for revenge. Unfortunately, the Patriots’ defense was actually quite good in 2023 decided to show up big time against the Bills. Stymying quarterback Josh Allen and the offense on most of their drives, Buffalo’s defense stepped up and helped control the game for a Buffalo Bills win.

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Patriots’ kickoff return TD (Q1; 15:00)

In 2022, when the Bills hosted the Patriots at the end of the regular season, the game began with an exciting kickoff return touchdown to put Buffalo on the board. In 2023, when the Bills hosted the Patriots toward the end of the regular season, New England returned the favor as seen here. Kickoff return touchdowns are about as fluky as plays get, so this type of coincidence is incredibly fun.

Additionally, looking at the scoreboard for this game, you might wonder how Buffalo’s defense allowed a Bailey Zappe-led team to score three touchdowns. They didn’t. Overall the Pats’ offense was handily held in check. This score helps highlight that.

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Incomplete pass (Q1; 13:23)

It wasn’t just Bailey Zappe who had a tough day. Josh Allen ended the day with a 50% completion rate on 30 attempts and under 200 yards with no passing TDs. The offense only had one drive over 75 yards. Allen’s first six passes were incomplete. His first drop back was a sack. While the above clip isn’t what we expect from Allen, it was typical of this game.

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Rasul Douglas’ pick-six (Q2; 12:47)

As noted above, New England’s score was a bit of a mirage when it comes to how the offense performed. The same applied to Buffalo with seven points coming from the defense. This was one of four turnovers and the obvious choice for the surrogate play.

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Patriots’ punt (Q3; 3:09)

By this time in the series, maybe I’m just looking for oddities to keep myself occupied — or maybe this play is actually insane and deserves a shot at the title. But Skare, you’ve already made the case of a great defensive outing with the pick-six, what possible merit could this punt have?

This punt resulted after an 11-play drive. You read that right. ELEVEN PLAYS! It took 7:41 seconds. That’s more than half of the third quarter. It gained a mere 36 yards and put the Patriots just outside the realm of comfort with a field goal.

Making matters worse for New England is the possible cowardice from head coach Bill Belichick. Punting from the opponent’s 39-yard line seems wild with Chad Ryland making a 56-yard field goal from the opponent’s 38-yard line the week before to beat the Denver Broncos.

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Josh Allen runs for four yards (Q4; 2:00)

Speaking of drives of 11 plays, despite their woes most of the game the offense closed when they needed to. Ahead by one score and looking to keep the ball away from New England, Josh Allen and company orchestrated a long drive to sap every last second off the clock and take the win. This first down cemented Buffalo’s ability to run it out.

It also took Josh Allen off the field with a shoulder injury, and made room for Kyle Allen to inflict the kneeldown.

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