Josh Uche strip sacked Josh Allen with 1:11 left in the first half, with Matt Judon recovering to set New England — who had two timeouts in its pocket — up at its own 42.

Trailing 17-7, and with a defense that showed little signs of slowing Allen down, going down and trying to score a touchdown would have been a priority for any functioning offense.

Sadly, the Matt Patricia led Patriots don’t have that. After a 14-yard run by Rhamondre Stevenson, Mac Jones zipped a sideline pass to Jacobi Meyers that picked up nine yards, setting up second-and-one at the Bills 35 and 45 seconds showing on the clock.

Did New England use the short yardage chance to take a shot to the end zone? What about a play action pass? Nope, those things would have made sense. Instead, the Pats handed the ball off to Stevenson, who shockingly was hit in the backfield and gained no yards. 11 seconds then ran off the clock before Bill Belichick decided to use one of the two timeouts.

How do you follow up a stupid play? With an even dumber one. New England ran a quarterback sneak out of the timeout that got the first down, but instead of calling two plays in the huddle knowing you were going to sneak it, the Pats decided to call their second timeout with 32 seconds left.

If any team in the league did this, Patriots fans would be laughing at them.

“How stupid,” Donny in Marlboro would be yelling from his couch.

“This wouldn’t happen with Bill,” 35 different dudes from Quincy would laud.

Except it does. All too often now. Two incompletions and a four-yard pass to Hunter Henry later and Nick Folk was lining up for a 48-yard field goal and because nothing went right for the Patriots on Thursday, the normally reliable kicker doinked it off the crossbar.

On a drive where Belicick decided to play like a wuss, not trusting his quarterback to score a touchdown, they couldn’t even convert a field goal.

It’s embarrassing and downright malpractice what has happened with the Patriots offense this year. After no second half adjustments, and showing no real threat to get even close to the end zone, New England walked away with a 24-10 loss to the Bills in a game that somehow felt worse than the 47-17 throbbing Buffalo put on the Pats in the playoffs last year.

This was supposed to be the game New England showed how much progress it made since that playoff loss. All the players in the second year in the system were supposed to make a jump. The defense was supposed to be faster. The scheme was supposed to be better.

12 games in and everything has regressed. While all the talk is about how bad Patricia was and how mundane the offense is, the Bills did whatever they wanted to the Patriots defense. 24 points doesn’t show just how dominant Buffalo was.

Josh Allen did whatever he wanted. Stefon Diggs showed why he’s one of the best wide receivers in the league.

The Bills got Stefon Diggs for a first round pick and are paying him 24 million a year. He had seven catches for 92 yards and a touchdown, and had the Patriots been able to score any points and make it a game, those numbers would have been even more inflated. New England had no answer for him. If the game was on the line, I would have been running to whatever gambling site I could find to take Buffalo.

How about the big investments the Patriots made on offense? Hunter Henry — making nine million dollars this year and holding the highest cap hit of 15 million dollars on the team — had two catches for 13 yards.

Nelson Agholar, the second highest cap hit on New England of just south of 15 million dollars, recorded two catches for 17 yards. Jonnu Smith, another big investment in 2021, had two catches for six yards. What about Kendrick Bourne, who looked like a promising player last year? Well, he came up big with one catch for 15 yards, putting his season-total at 19 catches for 226 yards.

The only player outside of Stevenson (who is the only guy worth watching on this team) who did anything for the offense on Thursday was the cornerback they drafted in the third round.

The coaching is bad. The personnel sucks. The offensive line can’t pass block or run block and your quarterback can’t make plays once things break down. Other than that, everything is great!

The Patriots aren’t an offseason away from being competitive. That would have been the case if they took some strides forward. They have six wins this season against teams led under center by Mitch Trubisky, Jared Goff, Jacoby Brissett, Sam Ehlinger and Zach Wilson twice. In those six games, they’ve held those stiffs to 8.6 points-per-game.

In their six games against the Dolphins, the Ravens, the Packers, the Bears, the Vikings and the Bills (AKA the teams that have actual competent offenses) they’ve given up an average of 29 points-per-game. Belichick can still scheme up against the stiffs, but the Pats simply don’t have the talent to hang with the big guns.

Firing Patricia is a must, but just bringing in a real offensive coordinator won’t be able to make up the gap in talent this offense severely lacks. It’s no easy to find a No. 1 receiver and two starting tackles in one offseason while also needing to add high end corner talent, more pass rush, a true run stopper in the middle and more speed at linebacker. That’s a multi-year fix.

They also need to figure out if Mac Jones is the guy, and I don’t know how you can do that with everything that’s surrounding him this year. Personally, I don’t think he will ever be elite. But, how can you judge him when they can’t run the ball, can’t block in front of him and can’t get open? What quarterback can succeed in that situation?

There’s a million reasons the Patriots are stuck in purgatory, sitting at 6-6 and looking like a lock to be picking between 11-18, with no shot of beating the big dogs in the league but not shitty enough to be in contention for the real difference makers atop the draft.

A lot needs to change before New England is back to the team I grew up watching, and it’s depressing to watch.