With the New England Patriots’ emphatic 42–10 win over the New York Jets, paired with Buffalo’s stunning 13–12 home loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, the Patriots clinched the AFC East title. The Bills, once framed as the division’s lone power, were dethroned. Their five-year hold on the crown was snapped.
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The team most casually dismissed as one of Buffalo’s “sons” now sits alone at the top. Earlier this season, Hailee Steinfeld, wife of Bills quarterback Josh Allen, brushed off the AFC East with a viral one-liner: “You’ve got the Buffalo Bills… and the Bills’ three sons.” On Sunday, that comment resurfaced in brutal fashion.
The irony couldn’t have been sharper. While the Bills were failing to close out a one-point game in Orchard Park, the Patriots were rewriting their post–Tom Brady identity behind quarterback Drake Maye, who turned MetLife Stadium into a showcase. Maye completed 19 of 21 passes for 256 yards and five touchdowns, posting a near-flawless 99.8 QBR, the highest ever recorded.
By the time New England’s division title was secured later in the day, Maye had already been pulled, his work finished early in the third quarter.
“Winning the division is what we’re focused on,” Maye said afterward. That division, the one ruled by the Bills for five years, now belongs to New England. The Patriots hadn’t won the AFC East since 2019, the final chapter of the Brady–Belichick era. Since then, Buffalo had turned the division into its own playground, claiming five straight titles and establishing itself as the unquestioned power.
Steinfeld’s remark wasn’t just trash talk; it reflected a widely held belief. What it failed to account for was the Patriots’ rapid transformation under first-year head coach Mike Vrabel and the emergence of Maye as a legitimate star. Picked apart by injuries and written off after consecutive 4–13 seasons, New England flipped from worst to first in one year, finishing 13–3 and undefeated on the road.
Vrabel, who once helped Buffalo play the role of chaser during New England’s dynasty years, handed Maye the game ball in the locker room and put it plainly: “I’m glad we’ve got No. 10 pulling the trigger.”
As the Patriots eye the AFC’s No. 1 seed in Week 18, the contrast is impossible to ignore. The quote that reduced the AFC East to a one-team show now reads like a snapshot of a past era, not the present reality.
