Patriots Defend Losing First Overall Pick With Meaningless Win Vs. Bills

The New England Patriots were one loss away from securing the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.

While the fans wanted the Patriots to not beat the Buffalo Bills at home to close out the regular season, the players wearing New England colors had other designs on the game.

“I feel like if you go into a game explicitly trying to lose, that’s a locker room killer more than anything else,” defensive end Keion White told reporters after the Patriots 23-16 victory, per team-provided transcript. “If we were trying to lose or we weren’t putting ourselves in the best position to win, then I feel like some of the guys would feel that, and we would be even more like, oh whatever, checked out. We didn’t, a lot of our guys who don’t get a lot of time stepped up, stepped up big. We can be proud of that for sure.”

White wasn’t the only Patriots player who was focused on the game at hand rather than the upcoming draft.

“Obviously, never come out on the field to lose,” quarterback Jacoby Brissett said, per team-provided transcript. “The guys did a good job, and excited that a lot of those guys got a chance to play.”

“We’re not worried about the draft as players in the locker room,” linebacker Christian Elliss told reporters. “We’re worried about winning. We’re worried about putting our best foot forward. As for me, I’m an honor guard with everything that I do, so I encourage that to my teammates too, so we went out there and tried to win.”

The Bills, like the Patriots, rested pretty much most of their starters for the contest, but that didn’t allow New England to feel they could take the game off.

“I can’t really control what they do,” Elliss said when asked if he thought the Bills were trying to not win the game. “We can only control what we do. I know that they had some of their out, we took some of our guys out too. … Whoever was out there on the field, they played their hardest.”

Running back Antonio Gibson rushed for 41 yards on 12 carries. Even though beating the Bills dropped the Patriots down to the fourth pick in the draft, Gibson was thrilled to end the season on a high note.

“We finished off strong,” Gibson said. “But, it’s not the season we had, so that’s something we’ve got to go into the offseason with. Hopefully, that drives a lot of people. It’s a season you want to forget, but we shouldn’t forget. That should be our motivation this offseason, to do what we need to do, work a little bit harder to come back next year and change things around.”