Coming out of their Week 14 bye, the Patriots immediately stepped into the biggest game of their season, as they faced the Bills in what could have been a hat and t-shirt game to officially steal the division from the reigning champions.
It looked like it would be an easy win for New England, based on their impressive first-half performance, only for a total collapse and questionable officiating to completely derail their efforts and hand them their first loss since September.
Although blaming referees is never something any team or fanbase wants to do, both the Bills and Patriots could do just that with how John Hussey's crew called their matchup. Unfortunately for New England, though, they were the biggest losers of the day, with phantom PI calls giving the Bills extended opportunities to score.
When it happened for a third time, even some Patriots legends had to express their opinion about it.
Dont'a Hightower saw the problems the Patriots were facing thanks to the NFL officials
In the midst of a disastrous second half by the Patriots, a defensive pass interference call on third down gave the Bills a fresh set of downs to march down the field and score, which they did.
It didn't take long for former Patriots linebacker Dont'a Hightower to respond to the ruling, echoing what every New England fan was feeling at the moment.
That’s such a BS flag…under thrown ball with defender head getting back and it’s still a flag….and they keep the ball…GTFOH
— Dont'a Hightower (@zeus30hightower) December 14, 2025
It was, unfortunately, not the last questionable flag (or non-flag) of the day for the Patriots, but playing embarrassingly bad defense certainly doesn't help their case of blaming officiating for making things more difficult.
This was a full meltdown in the second half after a dominant showing by the AFC East leaders, and now they'll be fighting for the division crown until the final game against the Dolphins.
It's a frustrating loss, and they will have to clean a lot of things up before heading to Baltimore next week if they still want a chance to be divisional champions.