(Don’t worry, the players’ association will agree to this after some brief haggling.)
So here’s the question: In Goodell’s Great Re-Draft of Everyone, who goes first? Reigning Most Valuable Player Josh Allen? Or his potential successor as MVP and as the king of the AFC East, Drake Maye?
It has to be one or the other, right? Allen, who leads the Bills into Gillette Stadium Sunday afternoon against Maye and a soaring Patriots team that hasn’t played a game of this magnitude since at least 2021, might be the most physically talented quarterback of all time.
He’s 29 years old, can throw the ball over the mountains and moves like a getaway car, and by all accounts has A-plus character. He’s thrown for 3,083 yards and 22 touchdowns this season, and has run for another 487 yards and 12 touchdowns for a Bills offense ranked fifth in scoring (28.9 points per game) and second in yards (383.7 per game). If the Patriots gave out a Most Respected Opponent award, he’d win it in a landslide.
Yet in the re-draft, he might go second to the 23-year-old Maye. Of all of the remarkable occurrences in this Patriots season, Maye’s Year 2 leap from extremely promising but raw rookie to superstar quarterback that does everything well is the most extraordinary and important development.
While Allen seems to be activating all of his Superman skills for the stretch run — he passed for three touchdowns and ran 40 yards for another in last Sunday’s 39-34 win over the Bengals — it is not at all hyperbolic to say that Maye has had a better season.
Maye has thrown for 3,412 yards and 23 touchdowns with just 6 interceptions (to Allen’s 10). He leads the NFL in completion percentage (71.5, on track to be the seventh-best in NFL history) and is second to the Cowboys’ Dak Prescott in passing yards for the Patriots’ second-ranked passing offense (249.7 yards per game). He is also a dangerous if more selective runner, picking up 319 yards and scoring a pair of touchdowns.
Maye’s true breakout game in front of a national audience came in the Patriots’ 23-20 win in Week 5 at Buffalo. He completed 22 of 30 passes for 273 yards. He was at his best in the second half, going 13 for 14 for 184 yards and guiding the winning drive, which culminated with an Andy Borregales 52-yard field goal.
Now we have the anticipated rematch, featuring arguably the two most coveted players in the league. The Patriots enter on a 10-game winning streak and rested after a bye, with a victory clinching the AFC East title. Meanwhile, the Bills, who have back-to-back wins over the Steelers and Bengals, will be looking to avenge the Week 5 loss and keep their chances of winning the AFC East title for a sixth straight season alive.
Kick it off, Borregales, and let’s get this thing started …
Three players worth watching other than the quarterbacks
James Cook: The Bills made some puzzling strategic decisions in the Week 5 meeting, including not throwing more to tight end Dalton Kincaid, who caught all six of his targets for 108 yards. But the most baffling decision? Giving Cook, one of the most dynamic running backs in the league, just 15 touches (all carries, with just one target in the passing game). Cook, who is third in the NFL in rushing yards (1,308) and has seven 100-yard games this season, will surely be more of a factor this week against a Patriots run defense that has been less stout in recent weeks.
Marcus Jones: The nickel cornerback and dazzling punt returner has been one of the recurring Patriots stars this season, and that was the case in the previous meeting. Jones picked off an Allen pass deep in Patriots territory late in the third quarter, one of the biggest plays of the game. In their last game before the bye vs. the Giants, he returned a punt 94 yards for a touchdown, and is now averaging a staggering 18.8 yards per return. Is this the week Jones gets a play or two on offense? You know it’s happening at some point.
Stefon Diggs: The former Bill was triumphant in his return to Buffalo, catching 10 of 12 targets for 146 yards, accounting for several of the most important plays in the game. Can he do it again Sunday at his new home? Diggs was quiet in the Patriots’ two most recent games, totaling five catches for 46 yards in the wins over the Giants and Bengals. Since his Buffalo redemption/revenge, he has just one game with more than 69 receiving yards (105 vs. the Jets on Nov. 13). Chances are he’ll be back to his best this Sunday.
The flashback
Usually, we mention the historical records of the Patriots versus their opponent in this spot, then take a detailed look back at one of their showdowns.
This week, we’ll still do the former — the Patriots have gone 81-51-1 in their 133 meetings since the franchises’ debuts in 1960. But I want to veer away from diving into a specific game due to a statistic that I read in a couple of spots this past week.
Mike Vrabel, who coached the Titans from 2018-23 before coming back to where he belongs this year, is 6-0 in games coming off the bye, including one against the Bills. Even considering that he had some pretty good teams early in his Titans tenure, that’s a remarkable record — one that suggests he’s one of those coaches who can work wonders when he has more prep time.
Out of curiosity, I wanted to take a peek at each of those six wins and how they played out.
2018, Week 8 bye: The Titans beat the Cowboys in Dallas, 28-14, with 14 unanswered points in the second half. Jonnu Smith (name sounds familiar) scored the go-ahead touchdown on a 7-yard reception in the third quarter. Ex-Patriot Dion Lewis (19 carries, 62 yards) was the Titans’ leading rusher, not Derrick Henry (6 carries, 27 yards, 1 TD).
2019, Week 11 bye: The Titans scored four touchdowns in the second quarter — including two by Henry, one a 74-yard breakaway — to rout the Jaguars, 42-20.
2020, Week 4 bye: The Titans, who went into the bye 3-0, returned in Week 5 and throttled Sean McDermott’s Bills, 42-16. Smith had two touchdown receptions from Ryan Tannehill, and Henry ran for two scores. The best player for the Bills? Diggs, who caught 10 of 16 targets for 106 yards.
2021, Week 13 bye: The defense was the star of this show. Four Titan defenders collected interceptions from Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence in a 20-0 victory.
2022, Week 6 bye: Randy Bullock booted four field goals, Andrew Adams intercepted a Matt Ryan pass and returned it 76 yards for a touchdown, and the Titans held off the Colts, 19-10.
2023, Week 7 bye: DeAndre Hopkins caught three TD passes (61, 47, and 16 yards) from Will Levis in a 28-23 win over the Falcons. For Atlanta, kicker Younghoe Koo drilled three field goals and never once kicked the ground while approaching the football.
Grievance of the week
This isn’t a gripe that pertains to this particular game or the news of the NFL week. Rather, it’s just something that’s been rattling around in my head during this delightful Patriots reemergence, even more so after I wrote about the 2001 champs this past week.
I wish Bill Belichick hadn’t dismissed the importance of camaraderie during the dynasty.
The Patriots had a joy about them during their improbable rise in ’01 that was unique. Partly because of the country’s we’re-all-in-this-together attitude in the aftermath of 9/11. Robert Kraft loved to say, “We are all Patriots,” and the team’s underdog status and willingness to forgo individual glory (such as being introduced as a team during the Super Bowl) made them easy to root for, not just in New England but nationally. They embodied what most among us wanted this country to be.
But as the Patriots grew into a dynasty, one running nearly 20 years with two distinct phases, their pursuit of excellence was more ruthless than joyful.
Belichick is the greatest coach of all time despite how his movie’s final scenes are playing out, and no one can complain about the results.
But when extraordinary players and competitors such as Tom Brady and especially Rob Gronkowski get burned out by Belichick’s taciturn approach, I can’t help but think that maybe those guys deserved praise for doing their jobs the way they did.
It’s one of the reasons to like Vrabel, who looks like the avatar of a tough player turned tough coach, but is actually willing to show some vulnerability and tell his players that he’s proud of them. That’s how camaraderie and trust are built. I hope this team continues to prove that the pursuit of excellence can be joyful.
Prediction, or how did a player of Allen’s size, speed, and arm strength end up at Wyoming? …
It’s so nice to have a Patriots game with real stakes again. A win likely vaults Maye into front-runner status for the MVP, ends the Bills’ reign atop the division, silences the soft schedule chatter, sustains their chances of earning the AFC’s No. 1 seed and a bye, and — somewhere down the list — earns everyone a new hat and T-shirt. It’s going to be a shootout, and it’s going to be tense to the end, but this is the Sunday that everyone learns without a doubt that the Patriots are true contenders again. Patriots 38, Bills 34.
Chad Finn can be reached at chad.finn@globe.com.
