Rex Ryan and the Buffalo Bills seem to have a bright future, and they're certainly not lacking for confidence in themselves. In fact, a lot of people weren't lacking for confidence in them heading into their home game against the New England Patriots in Week 2 -- betting lines actually placed them dead even.
Rex Ryan’s Bills aren’t as good as the Patriots, but they’re getting there
Rex Ryan and the Buffalo Bills are certainly trending upward this season, but they couldn’t take down the rival New England Patriots on Sunday.
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Yet the Patriots retained their crown as the team to beat in the AFC East with a 40-32 win over the Bills at Ralph Wilson Stadium. They held off a late fourth-quarter comeback, and ultimately looked like the same team that easily took down the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 1. But the Bills’ effort made it clear that they won’t make the division a cakewalk for the defending champs.
Buffalo, despite an early lead, didn’t have much to show the Patriots through three quarters of play on Sunday. Quarterback Tyrod Taylor threw for just 100 yards and had two picks as the Patriots held a 37-13 lead going into the fourth. But then the Bills turned on the jets and put their chutzpah on full display. Taylor tossed two touchdowns and ran for one more to put the Bills back in it, giving the team a chance to win it in the final minutes of the game.
Although the Bills fell short of the comeback, is that a reason to suggest they aren’t going in the right direction, or that the hype is unwarranted following their upset of the Indianapolis Colts in Week 1?
Essentially nothing went right for the Bills on Sunday, at least before the fourth quarter. They put a focus on covering tight end Rob Gronkowski, but he had a touchdown and over 100 receiving yards on the day. And while Tom Brady had his share of incomplete passes, he still put up 466 yards and three touchdowns against Ryan's improved Bills defense, which was unable to force interceptions like it did against Andrew Luck and the Colts.
Prior to the game, Bills cornerback Stephon Gilmore said he wanted to cover Gronkowski, because he knew that he would be targeted the most. There was even talk of putting Gronkowski in triple coverage, which might sound good at first, but the Patriots still had Julian Edelman catch eight passes while Dion Lewis had over 100 yards from scrimmage. If there are multiple guys on Gronkowski, Brady could just find someone else, and he did that on Sunday.
This doesn’t mean the Bills are a bad team or that they’re not ready to compete overall, but there was just so much hype around them from observers and from the team itself. Few were expecting the Patriots to dominate like they did in the first half, and the Bills weren’t quite up to the challenge of supplanting the Patriots.
Ryan has a long history of putting a target firmly on Bill Belichick and his Patriots. When he was hired as the head coach of the New York Jets, he said, “I’m certainly not intimidated by New England or anybody else.”
And before the game this week, he said, “They’re kind of the hunted in my eyes, because they’re the world champions.”
Buffalo fans were more than happy to get into the festivities of a divisional rivalry. There was a Buffalo billboard insulting Brady and making jokes about DeflateGate, in addition to inflation bumps at the Bills’ team store. There was even talk about Bills fans potentially setting the record for crowd noise during Sunday’s game -- which, despite a shaking press box, never materialized.
Belichick himself had other thoughts on the situation:
“They will be as loud as we allow them to be,” Belichick said, prompting the Bills official Twitter account to respond.
It’s a great rivalry, to be sure. The fans get excited, the players get excited and the coaches are as motivated as they can possibly be during the season when the two teams play.
But the Bills, a team that is doing and saying all the right things, couldn’t beat the Patriots this Sunday. The Patriots are still the top dog in the AFC East and in the NFL. However, the Bills revealed that if they can play with the competitive urgency they showed in the fourth quarter, and the confidence they’ve demonstrated this year, they might be able to take down the Patriots someday soon.
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