It was a tale of two halves for the Buffalo Bills as they completed a 14-point comeback to defeat their division rival New England Patriots 24-21 on a cold Sunday afternoon.
"No matter who we play in our division, the Jets, Patriots or the Dolphins, this will be a tough one," LT Dion Dawkins said. "This will be a nailbiter no matter what. They played us well, they played us hard, and we know nobody's ever going to just give us a win."
While the Patriots had a 3-11 record coming into Sunday's contest, the team knew not to underestimate this Patriots team as they are a division opponent.
"That's a better team than their record shows and these division games are tough," QB Josh Allen said. "It's someone that we're used to, and they've seen us quite a bit over the last few years, and they came out ready to play today."
The Bills' eight-game streak of scoring 30 or more points came to an end, as New England scored on their first two drives of the game and kept the Bills offense off the field. The Bills only had one drive in the first quarter as the Patriots dominated the clock, using nearly 13 minutes with their first two drives, while the Bills offense only had the ball for roughly 3 minutes.
"We got to do a better job of just doing our jobs and playing good sound, fundamental football, and then getting off the field on third down," McDermott said.
Head coach Sean McDermott and players agreed that they need to play better, with McDermott saying that they played sloppy including drawing 13 penalties.
"We've got to come out with more discipline," McDermott said. "Can't beat yourself… The first half just beating ourselves and not getting into a rhythm on offense… There are some young players out there, too, who are going to learn from some of those situations and experiences."
"We've talked about this before - starting with our momentum building throughout the whole game, and we were just starting kind of lackadaisical, letting things that we should defend go by," Epenesa said. "We got settled in, as we see, we just started making things happen."
Despite all the struggles of the first half, the Bills found themselves only down by a single touchdown entering the second half.
The second half looked completely different from the first half, as the Bills offense and defense settled in. In the second half, the defense forced three turnovers.
"Once you get one, energy levels rise," DE A.J. Epenesa said. "It's a momentum game."
The takeaway flurry was started by LB Dorian Williams when DE Greg Rousseau poked the ball away from RB Rhamondre Stevenson and Williams recovered the football.
"I love watching (Dorian) fly around and hit somebody. It juices me up when I see him do what he does," Epenesa said. "He sticks his nose in the fan. No matter who's got the ball, it could be an o-lineman who picked up a fumble, they're going to feel that, so it's fun to watch, and it gives everybody juice."
The defense continued their day when DB Cam Lewis caught his first career interception intended for TE Austin Hooper when the Patriots were threatening to score in the redzone.
"Big. Any time you get an interception in the end zone when they're down there, it's a huge momentum swing," Allen said of Lewis.
McDermott had high praise for Lewis as he stepped in to start at safety with both Taylor Rapp and Damar Hamlin missing the game due to injury.
"Here's a young man that… hadn't played a lot of safety for us, even in practice," McDermott said. "And then with the injuries, all of a sudden, he's starting at safety, as opposed to just, be ready to go as the backup safety, and also the backup nickel, starting dime, and then four core special teams player. He gets pushed into the starting role at safety the last two weeks, and I think he's done a real nice job."
During his scrum, CB Christian Benford stepped in with reporters to ask Lewis, now that he caught his first career interception, is he going to pay for the DB dinner to which Lewis laughed and declined.
CB Taron Johnson sealed the game away when QB Drake Maye threw a backwards pass that bounced off the hands of Stevenson and ended up in the end zone and Johnson jumped on top of the ball to score what would be the game-winning touchdown. Johnson gave credit to DE Greg Rousseau for making an incredible play and was thankful to be in the area to finish the play.
"All the credit goes to him, he made an amazing play, I was just there to finish it," Johnson said. "He made the play just helping our team."
While the Bills were happy to get the win, they know that they have work to do with two more AFC East games left on their schedule against the New York Jets and the New England Patriots in New England.
"They forced a few delay of games and false starts today," Allen said. "We got a good team in the Jets coming here next week, Hall of Fame quarterback and we have you ready to go."
McDermott pointed out things that they need to improve upon, but also said that he did not want to focus too much on the negative.
"There's a lot of good the way these guys fought, came back in the second half, took the ball away, and set our offense up in some situations," McDermott said. "All in all, I'm super grateful that we won the game, but I think we can play better than that and I think the players agree."
Check out the best on-field and in the locker room images from the Bills Week 16 win against the Patriots. This gallery is presented by Ticketmaster.
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