On Sunday evening, the Buffalo Bills suffered their first loss of the 2025 NFL season with a 23-20 home defeat at the hands of the divisional rival New England Patriots. The Bills trailed this game by 10 at one point in the fourth quarter before coming back to tie things up, but the team ultimately couldn't stop Drake Maye and the Patriots from driving back down the field for a game-winning field goal in the final minute.
While the Bills' hopes of an undefeated season are no more, the team is still trying its best to view the setback as more of a learning opportunity than anything else.
“We didn't play our game tonight, and that's frustrating,” said head coach Sean McDermott, per Alaina Getzenberg of ESPN. “And this is a pivotal learning opportunity for us right here. So, there were some other moments where I just feel like maybe we were too cute at times. And just overall, we've got to look at some things and just be honest with ourselves and learn from it holistically.”
Indeed, the Bills have several things they could learn from this game, including how to stop opposing wide receivers from continuously torching them, which has become a theme at this early juncture of the season. On Sunday, it was Patriots wideout Stefon Diggs dicing up his old team and making several huge plays in the fourth quarter.
No reason for concern for the Bills
While losing is never fun, the Bills know better than to sound any alarms in the wake of their first loss of the season. Sunday was the first time since the 2023-24 divisional round against the Kansas City Chiefs that Buffalo had lost in front of its home fans, but the streak had to come to an end eventually.
Perhaps a bit concerning for the Bills is the way their offense stagnated at times during the loss to the Patriots, as well as the interception (nearly multiple) that Allen threw. However, none of these figure to be long term issues.
Buffalo will look to get back in the win column next week when they hit the road to take on the Atlanta Falcons.
