Chism's One-Handed Grab, Woodson's Pick Lift Patriots Past Bills in a Classic

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2026 — They will be talking about this one in Foxborough for years. Down three with 1:50 left on the road, in a building where the Bills had never lost, Drake Maye lofted a ball toward the end zone — and Efton Chism reached up with one hand and ripped it out of the air for a 23-yard touchdown. The Patriots went for two and got it. Then, with Buffalo driving for a tie, rookie Craig Woodson intercepted Josh Allen at the New England 19 with 1:14 to play. Patriots 29, Bills 26. Instant classic.

The finishOne hand, two points, one statement

The final two minutes were a masterclass in clutch football. Trailing 26-21, Maye marched the Patriots down the field with the poise of a quarterback far beyond his years, finishing 22 of 37 for 269 yards and three touchdowns against one of the league’s best defenses. The throw to Chism was a prayer; the catch was a miracle. One hand, full extension, toe-tapping in the back of the end zone with a Bills defender draped over him.

Then came the call that will define the game: rather than kick the extra point and take a one-point lead, New England went for two — and converted, going up 29-26 and forcing Buffalo to need a touchdown rather than a field goal. It was aggressive, it was correct, and it was the kind of decision that separates contenders from pretenders in October.

The quarterbackMaye grows up on the road

Maye’s favorite target on the night was Kayshon Boutte, who hauled in two touchdown catches for his first career multi-TD game as a Patriot. The connection between the young quarterback and his receiver was the engine of the upset: when New England needed a play, Maye looked Boutte’s way, and Boutte delivered. Three touchdown passes, zero panic, one hostile stadium silenced.

The interception was the cruel bookend to a brilliant Maye performance — a reminder that even in his best games, the gunslinger impulse is still there. But on this night, the good outweighed the bad by a mile, and the Patriots’ belief in their young quarterback looks smarter every week.

The BillsA fortress falls

For Buffalo, the loss stings in layers. It is the Bills’ first defeat of the season, and their first ever at the new Highmark Stadium — a building that was supposed to be a fortress. Josh Allen was excellent for most of the night, going 23 of 33 for 253 yards, and he broke the franchise record for touchdowns from scrimmage with the 88th of his career, passing O.J. Simpson. Keon Coleman torched the Patriots’ secondary for six catches, 116 yards and a score.

And none of it mattered, because the final two drives ended in catastrophe. Allen’s interception — picked by Woodson at the New England 19 with 74 seconds left — was the kind of mistake the Bills’ franchise quarterback almost never makes in that spot. Buffalo moved the ball at will between the twenties all night and came away with the cruelest kind of loss: the one where you outplay the opponent for 58 minutes and lose it in two.

The other sidelineAllen’s record, Buffalo’s heartbreak

It would be wrong to frame this as a game Buffalo gave away — the Bills were magnificent for long stretches, and Josh Allen’s night deserves its own paragraph. Twenty-three of 33 for 253 yards, the franchise record for touchdowns from scrimmage (88, passing O.J. Simpson), and a fourth-quarter drive that had the stadium shaking — Allen did everything a franchise quarterback is supposed to do. Keon Coleman’s six-catch, 116-yard breakout was the best game of the young receiver’s career, and for 58 minutes the Bills looked like the team to beat in the AFC.

That’s what makes the ending so brutal. Great teams don’t just lose games; they lose them in ways that replay all winter. The interception — Woodson reading Allen’s eyes at the New England 19 with 74 seconds left — was a rookie making the play of his life against a quarterback who almost never makes that mistake there. Buffalo will win plenty of games this season. But the first loss, at home, in the new building, to a division rival’s kids? That one leaves a mark.

What’s nextA division up for grabs

The AFC East just got very interesting. The Bills are no longer unbeaten, no longer invincible at home, and suddenly looking up at a Patriots team that just walked into their building and stole a win with a rookie’s one-handed grab and another rookie’s sealing interception. New England’s young core — Maye, Boutte, Chism, Woodson — announced itself on the division’s biggest stage.

Buffalo will be fine; great teams lose games like this. But the tape of those final two minutes will follow the Bills until the rematch. And in Foxborough, they will be showing Chism’s catch on the stadium big screen for a very long time.