Mike Vrabel blames refs after Buffalo Bills' Week 15 win over New England Patriots

Mike Vrabel took a bold stance the day following his New England Patriots’ Week 15 defeat at the hands of the Buffalo Bills.

Rather than cite his team’s ineptitude during his weekly radio appearance on WEEI’s The Greg Hill Show, the Patriots’ head coach decided to blame the referees for their role in his team’s demise during the AFC East tilt.

#Patriots HC Mike Vrabel on officiating in the game vs. the Bills, via @TheGregHillShow:

“They do have a difficult job. The consistency — sometimes I struggle with it. I’ll say this: the Bills lead the NFL in offensive holds, and I’ll leave it at that. That would be hard for me… pic.twitter.com/7IMSIDTJyu
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) December 15, 2025

Shifting blame

The Patriots blew a 21-0 lead during an embarrassing defeat on Sunday afternoon, giving way to the Bills both defensively and offensively while being outscored 28-7 over the final two quarters of the game. Buffalo completely dominated the final 30 minutes of the contest, doing so on both sides of the ball.

But for Vrabel, he felt the loss was perhaps just as much affected by the officiating crew administering the game.

“It is a difficult job — they do have a difficult job,” began the Patriots’ head coach. “Consistency, sometimes I struggle with it.”

Vrabel continued, “I’ll say this — the Bills lead the NFL in offensive holding. And I’ll leave it at that. And that would be hard for me to understand, how the team that is coming into the game leading, and that’s how they play, didn’t have one yesterday. That’s hard for me to understand.”

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Jan 26, 2025; Kansas City, MO, USA; Buffalo Bills guard O'Cyrus Torrence (64) against the Kansas City Chiefs during the AFC Championship game at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Inaccuracy

The first part of Vrabel’s statement is true. The Bills lead the NFL in offensive holding with 28 ruled against them, which is one more than the Dallas Cowboys and Kansas City Chiefs, per NFLpenalties.com. However, the second element of his statement is simply inaccurate.

The Bills were, in fact, called for offensive holding during Sunday’s game, and it was a pretty consequential ruling from the officials. The call, which was made against right guard O’Cyrus Torrence, came with 10 minutes 15 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter and nullified what would have been a four-yard touchdown run from Josh Allen on third-and-14.

So, not only was Vrabel wrong in his assessment of the officiating on Sunday, but his take was embarrassingly untrue.

For anyone with eyes, it was obvious that the Bills were simply the better team for the entirety of the second half of the game, the officiating crew notwithstanding.

Vrabel is one of the more well-liked coaches by opposing teams’ fan bases. But if he continues to make comments like the ones he made in the wake of his team’s worst loss ever inside Gillette Stadium, failing to take ownership of a loss, he will quickly wear out his welcome around the league.

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