Reeling Patriots get the worst possible greeting on Sunday: Josh Allen, at the pinnacle of his powers
The Patriots can’t even hope to contain Allen. Their best hope is their rookie quarterback continues to play with the poise and electricity his counterpart regularly shows these days.
Welcome to Season 13, Episode 15 of the Unconventional Preview, a serious yet lighthearted, nostalgia-tinted look at the Patriots’ weekly matchup …
Just what the Patriots need to see while suffering through a four-game losing streak, in a season already gone so wrong that it’s become fair to wonder whether rookie head coach Jerod Mayo will get a sequel: Josh Allen.
Perhaps the most talented all-around quarterback we have ever witnessed. A 6-foot-6-inch, rocket-armed, fast and nimble, evolved and upgraded version of John Elway is taking on the Patriots at the absolute pinnacle of his powers.
In the last two weeks, Allen has all but locked up the 2024 NFL MVP award. In a 44-42 loss to the Rams two weeks ago, he threw for 342 yards and three touchdowns, while running for 82 yards and three more touchdowns.
Last Sunday, in a 48-42 win over the Lions, he threw for 362 yards and two touchdowns, while running for 68 yards and two touchdowns. He has 25 touchdown passes and 11 rushing touchdowns on the season, and has thrown just five interceptions.
The Patriots can’t stop Allen. They can’t even hope to contain him. Their best hope is their own quarterback, rookie Drake Maye, continues to play with such poise and electricity despite the chaos around him that even more observers after Sunday’s game will say, “Yeah, you know, there really is a lot of Josh Allen in this kid Maye.”
That is the highest praise any quarterback can get these days.
Kick it off, Slye, and let’s get this thing started …
Three players worth watching other than the quarterbacks
Christian Gonzalez: One of the indictments of Mayo and defensive coordinator DeMarcus Covington’s coaching is that the Patriots have stumbled from the 15th-ranked defense in points allowed (21.5 per game) last season to 23d (24.1) despite having a healthy Gonzalez all season.
The second-year cornerback is their best player. An All-Pro in waiting, and he’s coming off arguably his best game as a pro, when he locked down Cardinals rookie Marvin Harrison Jr. in man coverage over and over again last Sunday. It will be fascinating to see how Gonzalez is deployed against the Bills, who have an allotment of diverse weapons in their passing attack.
Amari Cooper, acquired from the Browns in late October, is the Bills’ most dangerous receiver. Two weeks ago in the shootout with the Rams, he had his most prolific game since the trade, catching six passes on 14 targets for 95 yards. But last week, playing through a wrist injury, he did not have a target despite being on the field for 44 percent of the offensive plays.
The Bills also have the remarkably efficient Khalil Shakur, who has caught 71 of 88 targets this season and 110 of 133 over the past two, as well as rookie deep-threat Keon Coleman (20.9 yards per catch), and tight ends Dalton Kincaid (38 catches, 409 yards, 2 TDs) and Patriots nuisance Dawson Knox (19-285-1).
Gonzalez probably won’t see time on Shakur (71-774-4 TD) unless Cooper remains hindered. And Allen probably won’t challenge Gonzalez at all given all of his other options.
James Cook: As tempting as it must be for offensive coordinator Joe Brady to put the entire offense on Allen’s big shoulders, the Bills do a remarkable job of remaining balanced and unpredictable.
Allen has attempted 427 passes for the Bills’ seventh-ranked offense (369.6 yards per game), while the Bills have run 391 times. Against the Lions, the split was perfectly even: 34 Allen passes and 34 runs (including the quarterback’s own), totaling 197 yards and four touchdowns.
But then, Allen isn’t the only Bills skill player having a superb season. Cook, who ran for 1,122 yards last year, is on a similar pace this season with 878 on a 4.8 average.
The big difference: how often he visits the end zone. Last season, he had just two rushing touchdowns. This season, he has 13, three shy of O.J. Simpson’s single-season franchise record set in 1975.
Antonio Gibson: When a player finds success in a complementary role, it can lead to a tricky question: Is the player succeeding because he is being used just right, or does his success indicate that he should be used more?
In Gibson’s case, I tend to lean toward the latter. Against the Cardinals, Gibson had 64 yards on nine touches, including an explosive 29-yard burst to the outside. Against the Colts right before the bye, he ran seven times for 62 yards and a touchdown. The Patriots’ last five games, he has 29 carries for 170 yards, an average of 5.9 yards per attempt.
The flashback
Rather than look at a specific game in their mutual histories, as is normally done in this segment, I wanted to take a little bit of a different approach on the occasion of Maye’s first game against the Bills, a team the Patriots have faced 129 times. (The Patriots are 78-50-1, if for some reason you’ve lost track of the historical standings at home.)
I wanted to take a quick look back at how the most prominent quarterbacks in Patriots history have fared their first time out against Buffalo. So let’s do the, oh, let’s say top six in terms of passing yardage.
Why not seven? Because somehow Mac Jones is seventh (8,918 passing yards), and who the heck wants to revisit the McCorkle Years so soon?
Tom Brady (2000-2019, 74,571 regular-season passing yards): Completed 15 of 21 passes for 107 yards, got sacked seven times, and threw a touchdown and an interception in a 21-11 win in Foxborough in Week 9 of the 2001 season. The season ended well.
Drew Bledsoe (1993-2001, 29,657 passing yards): In his first NFL game after being the No. 1 pick in the draft, Bledsoe slung it for — uh, just 148 passing yards, completing 14 of 30 passes with two touchdowns and an interception in a 38-14 loss at Ralph Wilson Stadium.
Steve Grogan (1975-1990, 26,886 passing yards): All right, this is slingin’ it. In his third career start in Week 9 of his rookie season, Grogan connected on 25 of 46 passes for 365 yards, two touchdowns, and three interceptions in a 45-31 road loss.
Babe Parilli (1961-67, 16,747 passing yards): The Patriots were actually Parilli’s fourth pro team and second in the AFL. His first game as a Patriot against the Bills came in relief of Butch Songin late in Week 3 of the ’61 season, and he was 1 for 8 for 7 yards in a 23-21 win at War Memorial Stadium.
Tony Eason (1983-1989, 10,732 passing yards): Yep, ol’ duck-and-cover Tony is the fifth-leading passer in Patriots history. Bet you’re glad they took him ahead of Dan Marino in the ’83 NFL Draft now that you know that, huh? Eason didn’t play against the Bills as a rookie. His first game against them was a 38-10 Patriots win at Sullivan Stadium in Week 11 of the 1984 season, when he went 23 of 34 for 227 yards, with three touchdowns and two picks.
Jim Plunkett (1971-1975, 9,932 passing yards): The No. 1 pick out of Stanford in the 1971 NFL Draft took a pounding behind an often porous line during his five seasons with the Patriots, and it’s the exact kind of history the current front office cannot let repeat with Maye. Given the circumstances, Plunkett delivered an excellent performance in his first against the Bills during Week 9 of his rookie season, completing 9 of 16 passes for 218 yards, four touchdowns, and an interception while getting sacked four times in a 38-33 win.
Grievance of the week
Given that the entire Patriots franchise, save for Maye, Gonzalez, and a smattering of others, is essentially the embodiment of the “This Is Fine” meme at the moment, there are a multitude of football-related gripes to choose from for this space.
But we’re going to go off the menu with a sartorial grievance rather than a tactical one:
Has anyone noticed that the Bills are essentially wearing Patriots throwbacks this week, against the Patriots?
It’s true. The Bills announced Tuesday that they will wear a never-before-seen uniform combination — a white helmet and white pants, but with a red jersey and socks. The Bills have worn red before, most recently with their “color rush” gear, which includes red rather than white pants. (They look like a human Bloody Mary, not that the Patriots’ color rush outfits have ever been any better.)
But the Bills’ combo is strikingly similar to the best Patriots uniform in their history, which included the same color combination and the classic Pat Patriot helmet. The Bills’ Sunday best this week looks quite a bit like the Patriots’ game day wardrobe from 1973-83, and especially like what they wore from 1984-92, when the stripes moved from the middle of the sleeve to the shoulder.
The Patriots obviously have much more to worry about than a rival stealing their style. But it’s also pretty clearly a troll job by the Bills, and for some of us old-timers, it’s going to look like the Patriots are playing the Patriots, at least at the start of the game.
Prediction, or did you know Doug Flutie’s record as the Bills starting QB was 21-9?
It’s kind of wild, given the talent disparity between the two teams, that the Patriots actually beat the Bills last year, earning a 29-25 victory at Gillette Stadium in Week 7. Can they split with the Bills again this year?
Yeah, don’t go betting your Josh Allen rookie card on that.
The Patriots are teetering on disarray while the Bills look like the favorite in the AFC, no matter how many lucky stars favor the Chiefs. The weather shouldn’t matter. Clear and sunny skies, snow squalls, whatever, the Bills will remind the Patriots how far away from contention they really are. Bills 40, Patriots 16.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com