Bills' expected cake-walk 2025 season now all of a sudden feels a lot harder

Let's be honest...
New England Patriots v Buffalo Bills - NFL 2025
New England Patriots v Buffalo Bills - NFL 2025 | Bryan M. Bennett/GettyImages

The Buffalo Bills all of a sudden find themselves in a bit of a pickle here in 2025, a season that was supposed to be a cake-walk. The Bills likely viewed themselves as a 5-0 team when Week 5 was all said and done, as they surely expected to beat the upstart Patriots at home, right?

Well, not only did they lose to the Pats, but the team does have some other issues that need correcting. At the end of the day, Buffalo will be fine and is a very good team, but this loss definitely puts things into perspective.

The Bills came into the 2025 NFL Season with one of the easiest schedules in the entire NFL and surely expected to walk-away with yet another AFC East title and perhaps the top seed in the AFC, but their loss in Week 5 does make things a lot more complicated, as not only are they 'down' a game to the Pats in the division, but it was a home loss as well.

Buffalo's Week 5 loss makes the rest of the season a lot harder

The New England Patriots have arrived. This win in Week 5 over the Buffalo Bills felt like a massive swing in the division. Now yes, the Miami Dolphins and New York Jets, teams that are a combined 1-9, are non-factors. They aren't going to win many more games this year and are likely going to be irrelevant in 2026.

However, what the Patriots were able to do on Sunday night does go all the way back to them drafting Drake Maye in the 2024 NFL Draft. Maye is the real deal, and this second-year breakout is absolutely legitimate. The organization's decision to hire Mike Vrabel does also get them on par with the Buffalo Bills with the head coach position as well.

Sure, the Pats' roster isn't quite at the level of Buffalo's, but one thing Mike Vrabel did time and time again with the Tennessee Titans was get the most out of his players. When you look at each team's remaining schedule, it's hard to see how the Patriots don't win double-digit games, and now that Buffalo has lost to them, the race for the AFC East might not be nearly as slam-dunk as many Bills' fans thought it would be.

It took just one game early in the season, but the Bills' 2025 campaign just got a lot more interesting,

More Bills news and analysis: