CURTIS HENRY
Sports Editor
Two weeks ago, the sky was falling in Buffalo. The Bills were 0-2 heading into two of the toughest games on the schedule, hanging their heads on two less-than-stellar performances in games they probably should have won. The issue is that, regardless of what’s on paper, you still have to go out and actually play the games.
It is without question that the Bills have a more talented roster than the Jets or the Ravens…on paper. It is without question that the Bills fell flat on their faces in the first two weeks, scoring a mere seven points in Baltimore and then allowing a preposterous 37 points to be scored by the Jets. It seemed as though an 0-4 start was imminent for Buffalo, but that’s why you play the games.
The Bills came out for week three with some extended rest after week two’s Thursday night game. The extra rest and early start time for the Cardinals (at 10 a.m. PST) were both obvious factors assisting the Bills. The Bills throttled the Cardinals en route to their first victory of the season.
Then it was on to Foxboro, Massachusetts.
Nobody had the Bills beating the Patriots on Sunday. Nobody. Not me. Not your mother. Not the experts.
The Bills went into Foxboro Sunday and beat the Patriots down. The final score, 16-0, was closer than the game ever really appeared based on the eye test. The Patriots offense was completely shut down by the Ryan brothers’ defense and, somehow, the Bills are 2-2.
None of this makes any sense.
Surely, the cries of “they wouldn’t have beat us if Brady had played” are being heard from Patriots everywhere. They have a point. It’s impossible to replace a top-three NFL quarterback of all-time, and expect to win with the likes of Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett.
Yet, the Patriots still expected to win that game. Why wouldn’t they? They sat at 3-0 without Brady and had been steamrolling the competition throughout September. It isn’t as though the Patriots had played nobody teams, either. Their wins came against two playoff teams from a year ago — Houston and Arizona — and the third was against a Miami team that always plays New England tough.
The fact of the matter is simply that the Patriots remain one of the best teams in the NFL, with or without Brady, and the Bills dominated them on Sunday. The strong defensive performance from Buffalo was made more impressive by the fact that three of the Bills’ top defensive playmakers — Marcell Dareus, Shaq Lawson and Reggie Ragland — all were absent on Sunday.
Dareus and Lawson, two of the three, will be returning to the roster in the coming weeks. Is it possible that this Bills team is actually a contender?
At this point, no one really knows the answer. This could be the same sad story the Bills wrote in 2014 when a shot at the playoffs was on the line, and the squad defeated a 10-3 Packers team before losing to a 2-12 Raiders team. The Bills have had bright flashes of excellence in each of the past three seasons. Could this be the start of a run in which the team actually figures it out?
No one knows. That’s why the games aren’t played on paper.