It’s been far from picturesque over the first month of the season, but fans of the New England Patriots finally got the full Mike Vrabel experience on Sunday Night Football.
In his previous stop with the Tennessee Titans, Vrabel’s group quickly developed a reputation of being a plucky, hard-nosed team that could hang with NFL heavyweights and knock them off at the first sign of weakness — especially as a big underdog in a prime-time spot.
Sunday night checked all the boxes for the Vrabel legacy game. The Patriots rolled into Buffalo’s house as a 7.5-point underdog, went toe-to-toe with the Bills for four quarters, and wound up capitalizing on three Buffalo turnovers and 11 penalties to secure the first major win of the Vrabel era, 23-20.
New England earned that one. Quarterback Drake Maye was brilliant. Wide receiver Stefon Diggs was immense. The defense, after an up-and-down start to the season, was competitive against Buffalo’s lethal rushing attack and literally took the ball away from the Bills in some critical moments.
That was a fun night to be a Patriots fan, especially given the state of the team over the past two seasons. It’s important to remain grounded in reality, though, as New England was fortunate to overcome some brutal fourth-quarter penalties and another Rhamondre Stevenson fumble in a big spot.
It all comes back to Vrabel, who was visibly dialed in on the sideline, working the officials and managing the clock, just as advertised.
But he got a little carried away in a pivotal situation at the end of the first half, and some questionable decisions nearly came back to bite the Patriots in the end.
The Patriots were fortunate to survive their botched end-of-half situation against the Buffalo Bills
The top story from New England’s monster win over the Bills was Maye’s play in the second half. He took the field in the third quarter trailing 10-6, and played absolutely lights out to outduel Allen and lead the team to victory.
One of his signature drives of the game actually came prior to halftime — an 11-play, 69-yard march that featured a 22-yard dart to tight end Hunter Henry to set the Patriots up inside the Bills 20 yard line. With less than a minute left in a half that was still tied 3-3 at that point, it was an opportunity to finish with a monster touchdown and take a seven-point lead into a second half — in a game that was sure to open up offensively for both sides.
Vrabel’s management of those next 60 seconds or so ended up being an easy second guess.
New England immediately went into clock-killing mode, forced Buffalo to burn its remaining timeouts, and were in a perfect spot after Maye scrambled for a first down on second-and-7.
That, as Greg Bedard of the Boston Sports Journal discussed postgame, is where Vrabel got way too cute with the clock. The coach stood next to an official on the sideline, watched the clock tick down from 37 seconds, and visibly voiced his desire to take a timeout with 18 seconds remaining.
“Kayson Boutte had a false start on 3rd and goal, and then from the 12, the Patriots got an end zone pass interference call on Tre'Davious White,” Bedard wrote. “But because Vrabel waited about 16 seconds to take his timeout, the Patriots had one play from the 1-yard line with four seconds left. Patriots could have had three tries from the 1 if Vrabel had acted earlier. The Patriots only got a field goal out of being at the Buffalo 7 with 37 seconds left and two timeouts remaining.”
Mike Vrabel doubled down on his own gaffe by settling for a 19-yard field goal with 1 second left
Here’s an unpopular opinion that no one’s really talking about: The Patriots were fortunate to have enough time to even kick their 19-yard field goal that gave them a 6-3 lead at halftime.
Because they wasted so much time worrying about playing keep-away with Allen, they found themselves stuck in a brutal situation after a Buffalo pass interference penalty in the end zone — first-and-goal from the 1-yard line with 4 seconds left.
The Patriots wound up trying a quick-hit pass to Henry in the flat, which fell incomplete; but had Maye taken another split second to release the ball — or Henry bobbled it one more time before dropping it on the turf — there could easily have been all zeros remaining on the clock.
New England was extremely fortunate to still have 1 second remaining. As deflating as it felt watching in real time, trotting out the kicker and taking the points made sense, as that whole sequence could have been a complete disaster heading into the locker room.
The brutal truth? Nine times out of 10, you’re not beating the Buffalo Bills on the road by kicking 19-yard field goals and scoring 23 total points. Patriots fans watched as opponents walked into Gillette Stadium and tried to play perfectly, only to see Tom Brady and company routinely burn them at the end, often for being overly conservative and leaving points on the field.
Give credit to Maye and the Patriots for making some unbelievable plays and surviving a wild second-half battle with Allen. But had the Bills prevailed, New England's missing points at the end of the second quarter — and the sequence that led it there — would have been the story of the week.