Bills at risk of dropping out of top 10 in power rankings. Are the Patriots the cure?

The Buffalo Bills, who face the New England Patriots on Sunday at Gillette Stadium, are paying the price after barely beating the New York Giants 14-9 on Sunday night.

The Bills fell in the majority of the power rankings this week. NFL experts aren't counting the Bills out yet, but their formerly effusive praise of Buffalo is now more tempered.

Is it time to worry for Bills mafia? Heck no! Buffalo is 4-2, not 3-3 or 2-4.

Mike Florio of the Pro Football Network might have the best reminder for this Bills team right now when he wrote this NFL truth: Every year, good teams escape with wins that should have been losses.

Meanwhile the New England Patriots are in a six-team scrum to see which one gets the No. 1 draft pick in 2024. (Longtime Bills fans will get a chuckle from Florio's take on the Patriots and their legendary coach.)

Here are the rankings for both teams:

USA Today

Bills ranking: 5 (no change)

Patriots ranking: 31 (no change)

Bills: Trust issues are becoming evident for a team that's won three laughers, including the Week 4 runaway from the Fins, but had trouble waking up in its other three contests. New England should pose little problem in Week 7, but then Buffalo will be under the prime-time microscope for three in a row.

Patriots: Among their many, many failings? No team has fewer takeaways (3). And no team has a higher percentage of drives (81.7%) that end without points.

NFL.com

Bills ranking: 7 (⬇ one spot)

Patriots ranking: 29 (no change)

Bills: The Bills survived as the Giants cost themselves points at multiple key junctures Sunday night, one being the final play of the evening. I'll never kill teams that show guts and mental toughness and win without their "A" game. But, boy, Sean McDermott's decision to throw the ball on that third-and-9 late, resulting in an incompletion and, ultimately, the Giants getting the ball back, would have been a tough one to swallow had the Bills allowed 1 more yard at the end. Josh Allen made the circus TD throw to Quintin Morris, and it's plays like that that make us love him. But he also continues to appear frustrated having to play small ball so much, and that emotion seemed to boil over on Allen's ill-advised involvement -- with an injured shoulder -- in a third-quarter fracas with the Giants. This team sure likes to keep us guessing every few weeks.

Patriots: It’s broken-record time, as the Patriots once again fell in an early (double-digit) hole they couldn’t pull themselves out of, stricken by too many mistakes. At least the Patriots showed some fight, as they gave themselves a remote chance to pull off a comeback against the Raiders. Following the blowouts to Dallas and New Orleans, it’s progress. But for anyone holding out hope that there’s some untapped Bill Belichick magic, I’d remind them that the roster is in incredibly tough shape. Even in August, with nearly everyone healthy, the personnel (especially on offense) felt thin compared to the other AFC East teams. Now, with so much of the defense banged up, it’s not pretty. Oh, and the Bills and Dolphins are up next.

CBS sports

Bills ranking: 8 (⬆ two spots)

Patriots ranking: 29 (no change)

Bills: It wasn't pretty against the Giants Sunday night, but they found a way. Against a better team, they lose.

Patriots: They competed against the Raiders, which is progress. It's hard to believe it's come down to that for this group.

Pro Football Talk

Bills ranking: 8 (no change)

Patriots ranking: 32 (no change)

Bills: Every year, good teams escape with wins that should have been losses.

Patriots: Bill Belichick will own the all-time record for losses before setting the all-time record for wins (if he ever does).

Sports Illustrated

Bills ranking: 5 (⬆ two spots)

Patriots ranking: 32

Bills: I am running a bit counter to the current Bills narrative, which is that Sunday night’s near loss to the Giants was an example of them running out of steam, or ideas, or Josh Allen letting everyone know that he’s not always going to be able to turn into Wolverine at the last minute. But I actually liked their insistence on getting the run game going. James Cook had what you might consider the third-best game of his career when considering a healthy volume, and a healthy yards-per-carry average. The Bills challenged the Giants at one of their (very few) remaining strengths: the defensive interior. Cook was especially good off the guards Sunday.

Patriots: The Patriots faked the cool field goal block thing! DId you see that!? That was neat. Totally worth the re-watch of that game. Totally worth the time in my life I won’t get back. In all seriousness, the rest of this season should be an audit. Bill Belichick said it best: the Patriots need to start over. Keep Jabrill Peppers for finally doing something about all the free space Las Vegas was gobbling over the middle of the field and knocking loose an interception, though.

Touchdown wire

Bills ranking: 2 (⬆ one spot)

Patriots ranking: 28 (⬇ two spots)

Bills: Well that was a stupid game, wasn’t it? Even with the ugly win, I trust the Bills to figure it out. They have to clean things up offensively, but it’s better to know that now rather than in December.

Patriots: Every great empire falls- Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, and now, New England. The Patriots went 10 quarters without scoring a touchdown and their expired Yoplait yogurt cup at quarterback is throwing to a bunch of guys that no one else wanted. They are a bad football team.

33rd Team

Bills ranking: 6 (⬇ two spots)

Patriots ranking: 29 (no change)

Bills: The Buffalo Bills’ Week 5 loss to Jacksonville was forgivable because the Jaguars are a quality team that essentially hosted the Bills in London. Following that up with a near loss to the Giants, despite being at home in front of a national audience, is not. Josh Allen is a perennial MVP contender whose Bills already have three blowout wins. Hoisting the Lombardi trophy is the ceiling for this team, but they’ve had two bad weeks in a row. That pushes Buffalo outside of the top five for now.

Patriots: The New England Patriots have been on a gruesome three-game run where they’ve been outscored 93-20. Now, New England gets Buffalo and Miami in the next two weeks. It’s nearly impossible to see how that can go well for this injury-reduced Patriots team.

Pro Football Network

Bills ranking: 7 (⬇ three spots)

Patriots ranking: 29 (no change)

Bills: The Buffalo Bills are one of the most interesting teams in the NFL. They teeter between a roster that absolutely dominates opponents and puts stinkers on the field. Their offense has been absolutely dominant in 2023, and although their defense was decimated by injuries in the London game, the unit has some depth and a ton of continuity remaining to survive. Taking care of business against the Giants won’t win Buffalo any favors, even with a defense lacking many of their core players. In the battle for AFC dominance and a playoff bye, the Bills absolutely must win the most winnable games. Even if it’s ugly, they can’t allow what happened to them against the Jets in Week 1 to happen again in 2023.

Patriots: The Patriots are a complete disaster. Mac Jones has apparently watched too much All-22 of the more mobile quarterbacks in the NFL because he’s out there attempting physics-defying throws … for him. He is not a cross-body wizard, but he’s trying his best to be more than a distributor. We’ve seen him have success in that role before, but the Patriots’ weaponry is a bare cupboard.

The Sporting News

Bills ranking: 8 (⬇ two spots)

Patriots ranking: 31 (⬇ two spots)

Bills: The Bills took a while to get going offensively against the Giants in a rare modest home performance from Josh Allen. They did figure out how to beat a bad team and need to do that better with the Patriots up next.

Patriots: Bill Belichick has good reason to throw tablets. The offense was still inept in Las Vegas with Mac Jones and his receivers, despite the running game rolling. The defense did its job, but this is definitely his worst Patriots team since 2000, pre Tom Brady.

Yahoo! Sports

Bills ranking: 5 (⬇ one spot)

Patriots ranking: 31 (⬇ three spots)

Bills: The Bills are still an analytics darling. And they are 4-2, which is not a bad place to be. But their poor performances are hard to ignore, and there have been three of them in six games. The Bills are Super Bowl contenders, but they need to clean up things in a hurry.

Patriots: The Patriots' next two games are against the Bills and Dolphins. This could continue to spiral downward for New England. The next question is how long Mac Jones can keep his starting job if the Patriots continue to look this bad.

Fox Sports

Bills ranking: 6 (⬇ one spot)

Patriots ranking: 32 ( one spot)

Bills: The Bills really tested the theory that all wins are good wins. That 14-9 stinker against the Giants was about as horrible a game as it's possible to play while escaping with a victory. We don't apologize for wins, but it is worth wondering who can step up and take some pressure off Stefon Diggs to do everything for Josh Allen.

Patriots: I guess it's a step in the right direction that the Patriots were competitive in Vegas, but it's still a loss to a Raider team that lost Jimmy Garoppolo in the second quarter and hadn't scored 20 points all season prior to Sunday.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bills vs Patriots: Power rankings show Buffalo has ground to gain