Patriots blasted after horrific offensive performance

While it came in a losing effort, the New England Patriots offense looked a lot better in Week 12’s game against the Minnesota Vikings than expected. The Patriots faced the tough Buffalo Bills in Week 13. Fortunately, New England had a full week of rest and was playing at home, two things that couldn’t be said in Week 12. Could the Patriots carry that offensive momentum into Thursday’s game against Buffalo? Not so much.

While the Patriots played a decent game on defense, the Bills came away with a 24-10 win. New England’s offense struggled mightily throughout. The Patriots picked up only 182 passing yards, 60 rushing yards, 14 first downs and possessed the ball for only 21:52. They were dominated by Buffalo in all of those statistics.

Both New England’s Mac Jones and Buffalo’s Josh Allen completed 22 passes. But Allen threw for 28 more yards than his counterpart. And while a quick pass did produce the Patriots’ only touchdown of the night, Jones was frustrated by his team’s conservative passing attack.

He was not the only one. As the game was developing and after it was over, several in the NFL world were all over Twitter bashing New England’s anemic offense.

Patriots offense completely unprepared for this game. No answers for anything. They needed a touchdown on that drive.

Game is likely over without one, and they had absolutely nothing in their bag to pull out.

— Brett Yarris (@brettaverse) December 2, 2022

And this struggle is not simply limited to Thursday night, or even recent weeks. New England is on track to have its worst offensive season since well below Tom Brady arrived.

Thursday’s loss moved the Patriots to 6-6 on the season. And while New England does have the tiebreaker over the current No. 7 seed in the AFC, the New York Jets, the Jets are two ahead of the Patriots in the loss column. Additionally, New England would also need to jump the Los Angeles Chargers.

Next on the schedule for the Patriots are road games against the Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders. New England will then finish its season with home games against the Cincinnati Bengals and Miami Dolphins and a road game in Buffalo. The Bengals, Dolphins, and Bills are 7-4, 8-3 and 9-3, respectively. The Patriots may not be out of the race now. But if their offense doesn’t get a lot better soon, it won’t be long until they are.