Maybe it’s time the schedule debate moved off New England and onto Buffalo.
That’s the shift this Week 4 result invites, especially after the Patriots walked out with a win over the Bills and changed the tone around both teams. For months, the conversation around New England centered on whether its success was real or simply the product of a soft slate. Now Buffalo has a similar issue sitting right in front of it, only the scrutiny hasn’t followed.
The Bills’ first three wins came against the Texans, Lions and Chargers, and those opponents had a combined 2-10 record after Week 4. That stretch was enough to push Josh Allen to the top of the MVP race, but the schedule chatter that clung to the Patriots never seems to stick to Buffalo.
That’s especially glaring given how the Patriots were treated throughout 2025. Even when they were winning, the line was that the opponents were the whole story.
It didn’t matter that Mike Vrabel was coming off a Coach of the Year season. It didn’t matter that the offensive coordinator was widely viewed as one of the league’s best.
It didn’t matter that Drake Maye finished one vote shy of MVP to 17-year veteran Matthew Stafford.
It also didn’t matter that New England had a cornerback playing like a top-5 player at his position or a receiver who topped 1,000 receiving yards for the first time in New England since Julian Edelman in 2020. The argument stayed the same: the Patriots weren’t really that good.
Now the standard seems different for Buffalo.
Allen and the Bills got their first three wins against teams with a combined 2-10 record after Week 4, yet the national conversation has mostly skipped over that detail. Allen has still been treated like the league’s clear star, even after Sunday’s loss to the Patriots, when Maye outplayed him and Allen’s late interception helped seal the game for New England.
That wasn’t Allen’s only rough patch, either. He threw two interceptions last week against the Chargers and also fumbled. Maye had been dealing with those kinds of issues earlier this season, but the reaction around Allen hasn’t matched the noise that surrounded the Patriots.
Nobody has to turn that into a crisis. But if the schedule was fair game when New England was winning, it should be fair game now. Otherwise, the message is pretty obvious: the criticism lands harder on the Patriots than it does on the Bills.
And for Patriots fans, that’s the part that never seems to change.
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Romeo Doubs recent improvement has given New England at least a little early validation for how it handled the position, even if the full picture is still developing. Across the league, former Patriots target Michael Pittman Jr. has not exactly stormed out of the gate after being traded to the Steelers, with his production lagging behind the expectations that came with his extension, and that contrast only sharpens how much these receiver decisions matter for a team trying to get the room right. [Read more 🡒]