FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Rex Ryan began and ended this week with hollow impressions of Bill Belichick.
Ryan mimicked the Patriots coach on Wednesday with a dull voice and dead eyes, droning on about the injury report. On Sunday, he emulated Belichick’s knack for swiping a victory that seemed far beyond his team’s reach, beating the Patriots 16-0, the first time New England has been shut out at Gillette Stadium.
The lone bright side for the Patriots is that they are on the verge of adding a veteran quarterback with four Super Bowl rings to replace rookie Jacoby Brissett. Tom Brady was eligible to return to the Patriots’ locker room Monday, and will take the reigns of a 3-1 team. In spite of the grumbling disappointment New England expressed after the game, that’s a good result for a four-game stretch without the team’s best player.
Just two weeks ago, Ryan’s Bills were 0-2 and his job security seemed precarious. Ryan fired his offensive coordinator, Greg Roman, at a time when it appeared the defense was struggling more than the offense. Since then, the Bills are 2-0, outscoring opponents 49-18, with wins over the Cardinals and Patriots.
But before we mount a bust for Ryan in Canton, Ohio, please allow the coach to put his own asterisk next to this one.
“It’s satisfying,” Ryan said, “but let’s face it. They had a player out. This just in, they had a player out, and we had our team. So, you know, we expected to win.”
Ryan is almost right. The Patriots actually had two players out, with Brady suspended and his backup, Jimmy Garoppolo, nursing a shoulder injury. In spite of last week’s epic victory over the Texans, the Patriots’ offense could only cheat reality for so long with a rookie running the offense.
Compounding the scaled-down attack, which limited Brissett’s responsibility with a sterile, risk-averse game plan, the Patriots stunted themselves with a flurry of uncharacteristic mistakes, beginning with the kickoff.
Rookie Cyrus Jones fielded the opening kick from Dan Carpenter three yards deep in the end zone, ran a few steps and then decided he wanted to kneel – at the 1-yard line. Jones got about halfway through his crouch before he realized the impending disaster he was about to bring on his team. He ran another eight yards before Buffalo stopped him at the 9-yard line, giving the Pats terrible field position on the first drive.
On the first play from scrimmage, however, Brissett hit Edelman for a 90-yard catch-and-run. The Patriots were off to the races, ready to seize that coveted 4-0 start, but the play came back on a holding penalty by receiver Chris Hogan. And that pattern pretty much fit the manner in which the Patriots performed in all phases of this game: Setback. Recovery. Setback.
They did not play like a Belichick team. They converted on third down only one time in 12 tries and committed nine penalties for 74 yards. Brissett, a week after emphasizing ball security by handing a football to Belichick after his first NFL score, fumbled in the red zone. Stephen Gostkowski missed a 48-yard field goal attempt. Danny Amendola muffed a punt. Yes, he got it back, but it was that kind of day.
“I didn’t think anything was good enough,” a dour Belichick said after the game. “Nothing was good enough at any position, in any phase of the game. It just wasn’t good enough.”
In his postgame interview, Ryan, with yet another Belichick impression, deadpanned that his team is “on to L.A.” It’s doubtful, though that Ryan really wants to move on from this week. It was sort of a crowning achievement for his personality. He pretended to be a reporter in a conference call, asking Julian Edelman if he’d play quarterback. The rare on-field win against the Patriots validated his antics, and he kept pushing it after the game when he said someone at Gillette Stadium leaked him the identity of New England’s starter.
“My sources inside the New England Patriot building said that Jacoby Brissett would be the quarterback,” Ryan said. “How’s that? I will stir some stuff up. Who was it? Who was (the source)? I don’t know who it was.”
It’s not clear if Ryan actually has a mole in Foxborough. What is clear that he will have to face the Patriots again in less than a month. If all goes according to plan, Tom Brady would play in that game Oct. 30. Can Ryan act like Belichick an entire month? History suggests that few can.