Bills pick apart D
Buffalo scores TDs on all seven drives
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -In Week 16, the Bills became the first team to never punt against a Bill Belichickcoached defense.
On Saturday night, they somehow did one better.
PATRIOTS NOTEBOOK
Buffalo scored touchdowns on all seven of its drives in a 47-17 Wild Card playoff win, the Patriots’ worst defensive performance ever under Belichick. The Pats had no answers for another spectacular performance by Bills quarterback
Josh Allen, who went 21-of-25 for 308 yards, five touchdowns and zero picks. The Bills smashed every adjustment Belichick made.
The Pats opened by playing predominantly man coverage from three-cornerback personnel, the same plan they executed in their regular-season meetings. After allowing two touchdowns, starting nickelback Myles Bryant was benched, and the Patriots pivoted to playing more zone from three-safety groupings. No luck.
Allen patiently led a 10play, 61-yard drive highlighted by a 22-yard strike to
Gabriel Davis against Pats backup corner Joejuan Williams, who was in man coverage. Bills running back
Devin Singletary then punched in a 3-yard touchdown, his first of two before halftime. But before Singletary’s second score, Buffalo wideout Stefon Diggs roasted the Pats’ No. 1 corner, J.C. Jackson, for a 45-yard gain down the right sideline.
Jackson was the Pats’ only available corner who played meaningful snaps in their season opener, with fellow starter Jalen Mills sidelined by COVID-19. Rookie reserve Shaun Wade also missed the game on COVID reserve. The Patriots replaced them with practicesquad defensive backs D’Angelo Ross and DeVante Bausby, who were forced into action starting on the team’s fourth defensive series.
All together, the Pats’ corner depth was reduced to Jackson, Bryant, Williams, Ross, Bausby and specialteamer Justin Bethel, who saw defensive action in the second half.
Leading 27-3 at halftime, Allen set the secondary ablaze again with a 34-yard rope to Emmanuel Sanders,
who dragged Williams’ zone coverage down the left sideline for a touchdown. The Allen-Davis connection struck next, a 19-yard score over the middle versus more soft zone. And the capper was a 1-yard touchdown to rookie offensive lineman Tommy Doyle.
The Pats’ 47 points allowed finished as the fourth-most in franchise history.
Dugger, Barmore active
Patriots safety Kyle Dugger, defensive tackle Christian Barmore and linebackers Dont’a Hightower and Jamie Collins were all active for Saturday’s Wild Card game despite serious injury concerns.
All had been listed as questionable on the team’s final injury report. Dugger and Hightower missed the team’s regular-season finale at Miami, where Barmore was carted off with a right leg injury. Collins missed one practice this week with
a hurt ankle, but is now available.
Practice-squad wide receiver Kristian Wilkerson was inactive, despite being elevated on Friday. N’Keal Harry got the nod over Wilkerson, who scored two touchdowns in his last game, a Week 17 blowout of Jacksonville.
The Bills ruled out a smattering of backups, including running back Matt Breida and tight end Tommy Sweeney, a Boston College product. Buffalo didn’t list a single player on its final injury report Thursday.
Will McCourty, Slater retire?
Patriots captains Devin McCourty and Matthew Slater are in the final year of their contracts and the back end of their respective careers.
Slater, 36, has contemplated retirement at the end of the past two seasons. McCourty, 34, floated the possibility of retirement in 2019, before announcing during the 2020 season he would return for another year.
What now? The future remains uncertain, but safety Adrian Phillips says the two are integral to the team’s success and culture.
“Yeah, Dev, that’s my dawg. He’s the ultimate pro,
him and Slater,” Phillips said. “Those guys have been here for a long time, they’re just the ultimate pros. They’ve won a lot of games.”
He later added: “You can
definitely see, like, the playoff atmosphere when you’re in New England. Like, it’s a totally different notch. And you can see it from the guys, just because they won Super
Bowls in the past, and they don’t let that define them. But you can just tell how locked in people are in the championship mindset that they have. And people feed off that.”