FOXBOROUGH — With a chance to clinch the AFC East on Sunday afternoon, the Patriots wilted in the second half at Gillette Stadium.

Josh Allen erased an early 21-point deficit, and Buffalo stormed back to beat the Patriots, 35-31. The defeat snapped New England’s 10-game winning streak and kept Buffalo alive in the divisional race.

After the loss, coach Mike Vrabel was asked whether he’d told his team this was a learning experience during his locker room speech.

“That’s exactly what I told them,” Vrabel said. “We have an opportunity to improve like we have when we won, the same as today when we lost and came up short. There’s a lot of good stuff in there that I’m proud of and that we’ll be able to use as a positive, and a lot of stuff that we have to correct and make sure that we fix. And we’ll do that tomorrow and try to get as healthy as we can and put a plan together for Baltimore.”

The Patriots took a 24-7 lead into halftime, but struggled to contain Allen and the Bills offense in the second half. At one point, Buffalo scored touchdowns on five straight possessions.

“We weren’t able to get any stops,” Vrabel said. “When we had an opportunity to make a play, we weren’t able to make it. Penalties. And that’s how this game goes. A few small plays make the difference. We were very prepared for this team to — we were going to need 60 minutes to beat this team. This is a good football team. We had a lot of good football in there. And we had a lot of plays that, a few plays we’d like to have back that we’ll have to learn from.”