FOXBOROUGH — Leading the Bills by 3 points and with less than eight minutes to play, the Patriots’ offense took the field on Sunday with a sense of “We’ve been here before” hanging over Gillette Stadium.

Trying to protect late leads with clock-busting drives hasn’t worked well this season, the team’s failure to do exactly that notably evident in last-minute losses at Baltimore and Seattle, both of whom capitalized on the Patriots’ inability to close out games.