Josh Allen (left) again has the Bills where Drake Maye wants to lead the Patriots, to the top of the AFC East standings.
Josh Allen (left) again has the Bills where Drake Maye wants to lead the Patriots, to the top of the AFC East standings.Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
Welcome to Season 14, Episode 5 of the Unconventional Preview, a serious yet lighthearted, nostalgia-tinted look at the Patriots’ weekly matchup …
As one may recall with some fondness, for nearly two full and glorious decades, the Patriots set the bar not just in the AFC East, but the entire NFL.
The numbers and feats of the Patriots dynasty become more impressive the further away they get in the rearview mirror: from 2001-19, they won 17 division titles, reached the conference championship game 13 times, reached the Super Bowl nine times, and hoarded six Lombardi Trophies.
The Patriots’ two-decade run of dominance will almost certainly go unmatched in NFL history, though the Chiefs are about halfway there with miles and miles to go.
They were what every other franchise aspired to be. They were the measuring stick for every opponent, every week, for years upon years.
Six seasons, one brief playoff appearance, and a couple of seismic shifts in fortune after Tom Brady’s New England farewell, circumstances around Foxborough are at least getting interesting again.
And now they’re the upstarts hoping to measure up.
The Bills, led by reigning NFL Most Valuable Player Josh Allen, are yet to win a Super Bowl, but they seized command of the AFC East after the Patriots’ downfall, winning the last five division titles and starting 4-0 this season.
Allen, who might be the most all-around physically talented quarterback in NFL history, is off to a dominating start, throwing for 964 yards and 10 touchdowns while leading a Bills offense that ranks second in the league at 33.3 points per game.
The Patriots are coming off a 42-13 throttling of the Carolina Panthers, their most satisfying and hopeful win in years. Second-year quarterback Drake Maye, whose similarities to a younger Allen are apparent, delivered a poised and efficient performance a week after the Patriots’ mistake-addled loss to the Steelers, completing 14 of 17 passes for 203 yards and a pair of touchdowns, while running for another.
Maye actually has more passing yards than Allen this season (988), with seven touchdowns, for a Patriots offense averaging 25.5 points per game, seventh in the league. But he still must learn how to protect the football the way Allen gradually has over his eight seasons.
The Bills feature the league’s No. 6 passing offense (240.5 yards per game), which is no surprise. That Maye and the Patriots are right behind them in seventh (235.0) is a surprise, and one they hope to confirm as sustainable Sunday night, in their final visit to Highmark Stadium.
Allen and the Bills are the measuring stick for Maye and the Patriots. They aspire to be where the Bills are. We’re about to find out just how close they are.
Kick it off, Borregales, and let’s get this thing started …
Three players worth watching other than the quarterbacks
Stefon Diggs: Well, obviously. Diggs is practically guaranteed to be the most discussed non-quarterback during Sunday night’s broadcast, and for good reason.
The 31-year-old first-year Patriot is one of the most accomplished receivers in Bills history, ranking fourth in franchise history in receptions (445), receiving yards (5,372), and touchdowns (37).
He accomplished all of that in just four seasons (2020-23), catching more than 100 passes for over 1,000 yards in each one of them, including a spectacular first year with the Bills, when he led the NFL in receptions (127) and receiving yards (1,535) while aiding Allen’s ascendance to superstardom.
But it was often complicated. Receivers get slapped with the diva label often, sometimes fairly, sometimes not. In Diggs’s case … yeah, it was pretty fair. Despite averaging nearly 10 targets per game (644 in 66 regular-season games) during his four seasons, Diggs increasingly clashed with the coaching staff and even Allen, who got tired of his antics. After posting 100 yards in five of the Bills’ first six games in the 2023 season, Diggs did not do it once over the final 11. He was traded to the Texans in April 2024.
Now Diggs is with the Patriots, helping another immensely talented but raw young quarterback find his way. He leads the Patriots with 19 receptions for 213 yards, and is coming off a stellar game against the Panthers, when he had six receptions on seven targets for 101 yards, including big gains of 20, 30, and 33 yards. It was the 37th 100-yard game of his career — and first since Week 6 of that 2023 season.
Diggs, who has an uncanny ability to find an opening in the defense, has developed fast chemistry with Maye. He says he is “sentimental” about his return to Buffalo. He is going to want the ball as much as he ever has, and you’d better believe the Bills know it.
Stefon Diggs had six receptions on seven targets for 101 yards against the Panthers last Sunday.
Stefon Diggs had six receptions on seven targets for 101 yards against the Panthers last Sunday.Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
TreVeyon Henderson: You’d better believe I’m going to keep predicting his breakout until it happens. And it will happen, soon, perhaps Sunday night.
Henderson, the Patriots’ most electric skill player, has had some things working against him so far. Foremost? Rookie mistakes. He picked up his third holding penalty in pass protection (and fourth overall) against the Panthers last Sunday.
He’s also one of three skilled running backs at Josh McDaniels’s disposal, and unless Rhamondre Stevenson has another fumbling fit Sunday night, it’s going to continue to be a job share among Henderson, Stevenson, and Antonio Gibson. Last Sunday, Stevenson led the Patriots backs with 28 snaps, while Henderson had 15 and Gibson 9.
But Henderson’s talent is obvious and enticing. He’s had a half-dozen runs this season that appeared one good block away from turning into an open-field sprint. He can run between the tackles, too — his first career touchdown last week against the Panthers came on a hard-charging 5-yard run. He finished the day with 32 yards on seven carries, a 4.6 average.
The Bills’ run defense has been a weak spot this season, allowing 164.3 rushing yards per game, second-worst in the NFL. Last Sunday, the Saints — whose running attack isn’t exactly reminiscent of the ’78 Patriots’ — ran for 189 yards on 34 attempts.
The Bills have been without defensive tackle Ed Oliver for the past three games and linebacker Matt Milano for the past two, and while both returned to practice this week, the defense should still be susceptible to cutback runs and misdirection plays, both of which are Henderson strengths. And it is imperative that the Patriots commit to the run, thereby keeping the ball out of Allen’s hands and shortening the game.
James Cook: The Bills’ fourth-year running back already has two 1,000-yard rushing seasons to his credit, and in 2024 he led the NFL with 16 touchdowns on the ground. Yet he’s been overshadowed, in part by Allen’s star power, and in part by the out-of-date perception that he’s not quite as good as his older brother, four-time 1,000-yard rusher Dalvin Cook.
There’s no more overlooking him now. On Thursday, Cook was named the AFC Offensive Player of the Month after running for 401 yards and a league-best 5 touchdowns in September. He has posted three straight 100-yard rushing games, including 117 yards on 22 carries last Sunday against the Saints, and has at least one rushing touchdown in every game. Only the Colts’ Jonathan Taylor has run for more yards (414).
The Patriots’ run defense, with tackles Milton Williams and Christian Barmore holding down the middle, is one of the league’s best statistically, tied for second-best in the league (77.5 yards per game). But Williams did not practice Thursday because of an ankle injury, and if he can’t go, his absence would expose a Patriots linebacking corps that has been spotty overall.
Grievance of the week
I’m in my mid-50s. My Apple music account would confirm that most of what I listen to is the same awesome stuff I listened to in my mid-teens. All I know about Bad Bunny firsthand is that his comic timing made him just about the best thing about the terrible “Happy Gilmore” sequel. I can’t name one of his songs. But he’s an obvious choice as the Super Bowl halftime performer. He’s one of the most streamed artists in the world — he had more than 78 million streams alone last month on Spotify — and is a huge concert draw, at least in countries where he is comfortable touring, which does not include this one right now. Certain performatively offended crybabies among us don’t like this choice, which is one more confirmation that it’s the right one.
The flashback
This game is the 12th prime-time meeting in the long history of the Patriots and Bills (they’ve met 131 times previously) and the fifth on “Sunday Night Football.”
The last Sunday night football showdown between the teams was longer ago than I’d realized. It happened 18 years ago, on Nov. 18, 2007, and it went as most games did for the Patriots during that extraordinary if ultimately heartbreaking season.
The Patriots, coming off their bye week, clobbered the host Bills that night, 56-10, to improve to 10-0.
That game may have marked the pinnacle of Tom Brady and Randy Moss’s collective powers.
Moss caught four of Tom Brady’s five touchdown passes — a 43-yarder in the first quarter, and then three more in the second as the Patriots took a 35-7 lead into halftime.
Brady finished 31 of 39 for 373 yards and those five TD passes, while Moss had 10 catches for 128 yards and the four scores. Brady became the Patriots’ all-time leader in touchdown passes in that game, while Moss’s TD total also set a franchise mark, as did his 16 for the season.
Prediction, or Lee Evans had a better career than you remember …
The Patriots had just eight wins total in the dismal 2023 and ’24 seasons, but two somehow came against the Bills, including last year’s unnecessary win in the final hours of Jerod Mayo’s one-and-done as head coach. The Patriots are a better and far more aesthetically pleasing team than they’ve been in recent seasons. But prevailing in prime time in Buffalo against a Bills offense fully capable of exposing the weaknesses in the middle of the Patriots defense is probably too much to ask right now. The Patriots will measure up … just not fully, quite yet. Bills 33, Patriots 28.
Chad Finn can be reached at chad.finn@globe.com.