Sunday’s contest between the Buffalo Bills and division rival New England Patriots was highlighted by a stirring pre-game ceremony that saw the new owners of the Bills, Terry and Kim Pegula introduced to the fans. The excitement surrounding the new era of Bills’ football certainly fired up both the fans and players, but unfortunately the opponent was the Patriots, who have routinely come into Ralph Wilson Stadium over the past decade or so and rained on Western New York parades. After their rushing attack ran roughshod over the Bills’ defense to secure two wins last year, you figured Bill Belichick’s crew would come out pounding the ball again in this year’s meeting. Instead, they rarely ran the ball, and Tom Brady picked apart the Buffalo secondary all day long and had one of his usual signature days against the Bills, throwing for over 300 yards and 4 touchdowns as New England won, 37-22. They never trailed in the game, as Brady ran his overall record against the Bills to 23-2. They didn’t turn the ball over, and created 3 turnovers. They overwhelmed Buffalo’s offensive line, sacking Kyle Orton 5 times and basically stuffing the run game. Brady burned Jim Schwartz’s defense, which is designed to limit big plays, for 43 and 56 yard touchdown passes. Buffalo’s vaunted pass rush sacked Brady twice, but for the most part he stood comfortably in the pocket and delivered pinpoint throws to various receivers to either keep drives alive or score quick-strike touchdowns. And yes, there were the customary questionable calls by the officials against the Bills, which gave Belichick and Brady help they didn’t need. Belichick, love him or hate him, is one of the NFL’s best at devising strategy to neutralize his opponents’ strengths, and capitalize on their weaknesses, and now has run his record against Buffalo’s Doug Marrone to 3-0. The Bills’ coaches were pretty much schooled at every turn in this game, and even seemed intimidated by the New England “mystique” (hype?). One example – the Pats were stacking the line of scrimmage all day determined to stop the Bills’ running game, leaving Darrelle Revis single-covering star rookie receiver Sammy Watkins on the outside, but Orton never even looked Watkins’ way until late in the second half. Revis is a terrific player, but completely staying away from him for almost the entire game, when he’s covering your star receiver, is ridiculous.
So the Bills proved once again they’re nowhere near the class of team that New England is, but even with the crushing defeat, all is not lost. Miami and the New York Jets, the other AFC East rivals, both lost, leaving the Bills in second place at 3-3. They don’t have to worry about trying to at least compete with the Pats until the season’s final week, so they need to concentrate on improving enough to beat the teams they have on their upcoming schedule, very beatable teams in Minnesota and the Jets. The focus should be on getting Orton more comfortable with his offensive teammates, getting the offensive line stabilized and improved, figuring out what’s wrong with C.J. Spiller and tightening things up on defense, which will involve getting the players on that unit playing together again, as they did in the season’s first quarter.