It was a tough loss for fans to watch and a tough game for players to be a part of.

The Bills defense hung tough, holding Patriots quarterback Tom Brady to zero touchdowns, but the team ultimately lost to New England 25-6 in Buffalo’s first home Monday Night Football game in a decade.

The Buffalo offense was driving, down 18-6 in the fourth quarter, but Patriots cornerback Devin McCourty picked off Bills quarterback Derek Anderson and took it 84 yards for a game-sealing pick six — an exclamation point for a Patriots defense that smothered an anemic Bills offense.

“That’s just the situation, that’s how our team is built right now,” said Bills linebacker Lorenzo Alexander. “Obviously having a young quarterback, and having Derek coming in in the middle of the year is not conducive to having a high-octane type of offense. Our defense, we have the ability, and we’ve shown it, but it’s hard to do it, especially when you’re playing teams that score a lot of points.”

“It’s tough, you know, you come out and you hold those guys to one touchdown, but you still can’t get the win,” said Bills cornerback Tre'Davious White. “It’s tough, but we can’t do nothing about that. We just got to show up, turn around, we got a game Sunday, so it’s back to the drawing board.”

“Hold Aaron Rodgers to one touchdown, I think. Tom Brady, kind of the same thing, but we don’t do nothing on offense. It’s not fair for them,” said Bills running back LeSean McCoy.

Frustration boiled over for McCoy, who started the game with a 12-yard run, but finished with just 13 yards total on 12 carries. McCoy is now at just 244 yards at the midway point of the season — a tough reality to swallow for the perennial Pro Bowler.

“10 years; I’ve had bad games, but this is just the worst,” McCoy said. The flow, the season, everything; it’s just bad. I’ve got 200 yards, and it’s game eight? That’s never happened to me. So yeah it’s different, it’s a different season. I’m 30 years old, been playing since high school. This stuff has never happened to me. So yeah it’s tough.”

When asked specifically about Tuesday’s trade deadline, McCoy simply said “Who knows man?”

Buffalo actually moved the ball much better Monday night, notching 333 total yards — a sizeable improvement from their 31^st ranked NFL average of 234 yards per game. However, their efforts couldn’t produce touchdowns, their second straight game without getting into the endzone. The points all came off the foot of kicker Stephen Hauschka, who connected on field goals from 47 and 51 yards out.

Despite hanging tough, the Bills lost nearly every aspect of the game. They trailed New England in first downs (22-16), lost the turnover battle (2-0), committed more penalties (6-5) and lost in time of possession (31:50-28:10).

New England improved their AFC East leading record to 6-2 while Buffalo remains last in the division at 2-6. The Bills will hope to turn it around when they host the 4-3 Chicago Bears this Sunday at New Era Field.