Now THAT IS how a bad team should lose.

Eliminate the inconspicuous enemy who expects victory. Achieve too much for a while. Be perky and annoying. Mosquito-like.

Then you go back to standard operating procedures when the lack of talent, experience and general good football skills become apparent. Add a few “Are you kidding me?!?!” Losses of the ball negate the good and leave with the inevitable L.

It’s a low bar. But it’s both realistic and — somehow — one the 2024 Patriots couldn’t pull off this season.

Sunday’s 24-21 loss to Buffalo was the first of its kind for the Patriots. One in which there was more good than harm.

🔊 Patriots Talk Podcast: More good than bad from Pats in frustratingly close loss to Bills? | Listen and Subscribe | Watch on YouTube

Among the 12 losses, the Patriots had no-show losses to the Jets (24-3), 49ers (30-13), Texans (41-21), Jaguars (32-16), Cardinals (30-17) and Dolphins (34-15).

They were “so close that they may not be far from feeling mediocre losses on the horizon” against the Rams (28-22) and Seahawks (23-20).

And they asked themselves, “How can you lose to THIS team in THIS situation?” Losses to Miami and Snoop Huntley (15-10), the Titans and Mason Rudolph (20-17) and the Colts and Anthony Richardson (25-24 ), after enabling a 19-play, 80-yard go-ahead drive with a two-point conversion.

But aside from the season-opening win, there was no other game that signaled legitimate progress like this one. Heck, in some ways this loss was better than the wins over the struggling Bears and Jets.

The circumstances mattered.

The way the bye loss to Arizona played out – a flat performance marked by penalties and poor plays, followed by Jerod Mayo’s disastrous postgame press conference – seemed to have robbed the team of any late-season opportunity to awaken optimism.

Then came a game in freezing Buffalo against a team that had beaten both the Lions and Chiefs and had scored 90 points in its last two games behind MVP front-runner Josh Allen. The conditions for humiliation were present.

And they played their mighty asses off.

There was the necessary miss that led to them giving up a 46-yard touchdown run by James Cook. And with the momentum on their side, there was another pick from Drake Maye that probably got at least three points off the board.

There was Rhamondre Stevenson’s league-leading seventh fumble of the season that led to a Bills field goal.

And there was a screen pass called by Alex Van Pelt from the Patriots’ 12-yard line in the fourth quarter that forced not-very-good right tackle Demontrey Jacobs to execute a cut block (which he didn’t), and then Maye needed to calmly process the impending disaster and throw the ball to the ground (which he didn’t), resulting in an easy touchdown.

And there was disarray on offense that led to timeouts being burned, time running out far too often and a delay of game occurring at a critical moment in the fourth quarter.

But the coach’s aggressiveness showed when he used Maye on planned runs. In the second quarter there was a successfully executed fake punt.

The questions about the Patriots’ game management – punting on fourth-and-1 from their 34 after they pulled off the fake punt and punting on fourth-and-5 in the fourth quarter – are legitimate. But in both cases Mayo’s strategy was right.

The Patriots forced a punt from the Bills after giving the ball back in the second quarter. And they forced a punt after the Bills gained 31 yards in the fourth. Had they failed on fourth down and given up 31 yards, the Bills would have kicked a game-winning field goal. So they extended the game, gave themselves a chance and got the ball back with 4:30 to go.

The fact that it took about 13 plays and 3:16 to score from there is beside the point. It shouldn’t take that long. But they’re not that good, so…

The bottom line is that the Patriots have gone from a dysfunctional loss to a pedestrian team in Arizona to a mostly functional loss to an elite team in Buffalo. You didn’t have to squint to see the progress on the field.

And it was hard to miss Maye making the most impressive podium statement of the entire season in the aftermath as he stepped up for the embattled coaching staff.

Drake Maye and Hunter Henry are defending Jerod Mayo and Alex Van Pelt following the team’s loss to the Bills, and there have been unnamed reports in recent weeks that the team’s coaching staff may be on the hot seat ahead of the 2025 offseason.

“To be honest, I think the talk about our coaching staff and stuff like that is nonsense,” he began. “Coach Mayo, we are behind him and he has trained us hard. He wants to win. We all want to win. We are all frustrated. AVP (Alex Van Pelt) has done great in my opinion over the last few weeks. We only play away, and basically I turn the ball over.

“I think it’s just a testament to the fact that these guys keep fighting, we keep fighting,” Maye continued. “Shoot, we’re not going to make the playoffs; We’re out of contention and these guys come in frustrated when we don’t score. They have energy in training and they have energy in games. We want to win. There are people who don’t even play yet who are on the sidelines screaming and wanting to win.

“So I think we’re building something good, something that feels right here, and I’m proud to be a patriot.”

Those last six words? From a player of Maye’s talent at the end of a chaotic season? Spoken to a fan base that is increasingly angry and alienated from the team?

They make you hit the pause button when you hear the catastrophic weekly recounting of how lost this team has become over the last five years.