The Bills are becoming Rex Ryan, for better and (mostly) worse

ORCHARD PARK, NY -- Several Buffalo Bills were composed and reflective in their postgame locker room on Sunday afternoon at Ralph Wilson Stadium. They were pure pros. It was startling to see.

Because for three hours and 19 minutes against the New York Giants, the Bills were far too little of that.

Four personal foul penalties. Seventeen total penalties. Two nullified touchdowns due to penalties. Poor tackling at the worst moments. Listless offense too much throughout.

It was a 24-10 Giants victory, but it was as much a Bills head-case, a Bills blow-up, another instance where coach Rex Ryan’s team literally played like he spews -- full of nonsensical hot air spattered all over the place followed by emotional, clueless, mistake-prone play.

Both teams are 2-2. But somehow, the Giants left with clearer integrity.

You get it with Ryan. He wants his team fast and furious, the baddest bunch on the field, the bully, the fighter. It is a workable concept kept within the context of the rules. It is a comical one when his team plays with such lack of composure.

It happened right here in a Week 2 loss to the New England Patriots.

Rex and the Bills promised then to clean it up.

This was just as messy. Too much extra Bills business following the whistles. Too reactionary in too many instances.

Stuff that gets you beat.

“I know we have to get smarter, better,” Bills defensive end Jerry Hughes said, who courageously, remorsefully claimed his half of the team’s four personal foul penalties. “We are getting a little hot-headed in the middle of some plays and after some plays, and teams are feeding off that. The officials are. I must say, I’ve never had an official tell me to, `F--- OFF!’ like one did today. I mean, I’ve never heard one drop the F-bomb like that. We weren’t the only ones losing our tempers out there.”

The Bills can blame the refs and they can blame the opponent for goading them, but, really, they are confusing the importance of winning games over winning chest-thumping moments.

And, laughably, Ryan tried to defend it, talking about how he was “proud” of his team and that they are always willing to fight.

He did also say in his postgame news conference: “I’m not as sharp right now as I probably should be.”

No kidding.

“We play with a lot of emotion and it does come from everyone having that tremendous desire to win,” Bills receiver Chris Hogan said. “We are letting that emotion get the best of us. It hurts. It changes games. It’s early. We have the time to perfect emotion in the heat of the battle. We are going to have to address that again.”

Hogan is right. The Bills cannot win with “the refs are out to get us” or the opponents are poking and prodding us mantra. How quickly will the Bills show that passion and fight mean little without intelligence and composure?

That is becoming the crux of their season.

It was clear in the Giants locker room that they had focused on letting the Bills self-destruct. They clearly believed that if they won the physical battle, the Bills would start barking in critical game situations and eventually explode.

It was as much a part of the Giants game plan as their inside knowledge on Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor. Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo was part of the Baltimore Ravens staff in each of the last two seasons when Taylor was a Ravens reserve quarterback.

“Coach Spags had a sense of what it took to keep him in the pocket,” Giants linebacker J.T. Thomas III said. “He helped us focus on some key things that made a difference in defending Tyrod. Coach’s grasp of all of that really affected the game. And then, too, we are a more athletic, fast, aggressive defense than people think.

“I know we are a team that started 0-2 and lost some late leads and lost our poise. We are starting to straighten that out. Either you are going to be a hard-nosed team that has passion yet poise and composure or you are not. That simple.”

Giants defensive end Kerry Wynn added: “We knew we had to keep our composure against this team. We knew there were certain things we just weren’t going to get into with them. When you are hitting people at full speed all day, all afternoon, things happen. That’s just football. But what are you going to do about that? How are you going to handle it?”

Listening Buffalo? How about turning all of that passion into simply winning the next play?

The Giants did.

The Giants negated the Bills running attack, created key turnovers and early and late in the fourth quarter produced two plays that buried the Bills.

With 12:13 left, the Giants defense stopped the Bills on fourth down at the Giants’ 1-yard line. Thomas and cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie made the hard, saving tackle on running back Karlos Williams, who had grabbed a flare pass from Taylor.

Thomas explained: “Good defenses communicate. Good defenses see things before they happen. We all followed our keys. I saw the back take a step my way. I knew the play was coming my way. Getting that first fast step toward the play made all of the difference.”

With 7:42 remaining, running back Rashad Jennings took a quick, far-left pass and ran 51 yards for a touchdown down the sideline only two minutes after Buffalo had trimmed the Giants lead to 16-10. The Bills blew a slew of tackles on the play. Jennings’ points were the game’s final ones.

It unfolded from a third-and-3 play near midfield.

“I was thinking third down, get the first down,” Jennings said. “All I was thinking was get the first down. I was surprised the way it ended. A lot of good things happen when you just focus on what you are supposed to do.”

He was supposed to get 3 yards. He got 51.

But he focused, first, completely on the initial 3.

There is another lesson in that for the Bills.

“We are the team I thought us to be,” Giants coach Tom Coughlin said.

This morning Buffalo is searching for a composed answer to that.