The Bills gave up just 14 points. If you remove Harris’s 64-yard touchdown run, they would have surrendered a little more than 3.5 yards per carry, which would be better than the league’s best run defense in football this year (the Saints give up an average of 3.6 yards per carry). And yet, it creates a head game. It creates a generalization about some kind of Achilles heel. It creates a litany of possibilities for the team’s next matchup just two weeks from now. It sends a dejected division rival down to Tampa Bay, where the Buccaneers have already downloaded the film, along with Derrick Henry’s 143-yard performance from Oct. 18 against the Bills and Jonathan Taylor’s 185-yard, five-touchdown game just three weeks ago. It is a wound Buffalo has to carry around. What can Tom Brady accomplish against a completely gassed opponent on truncated rest? In what shape will the Bills return to Foxborough?
And there was Belichick after the game, in perfect deadpan, calling the weather “somewhat challenging.” At his best, he is so subtly evil in this way (even if the little jabs only exist in our imagination) and we have not been able to see him at the height of his powers in the post-Brady era. In the years prior to Buffalo’s revival and the teardown of the Patriot dynasty, Belichick could play three-dimensional chess with all teams in the division simultaneously. Watching a franchise try and compete with the Patriots, trying to draft players specifically to stop their best players, trying to hire coaches who could compete intellectually, was like observing an ant hill after it gets stepped on. Chaos. Dejection. Repeat.
Sean McDermott’s presence in the AFC East has halted the vicious cycle. While Buffalo won’t crumble entirely after a loss like this, they have a steep ascent ahead of them made more difficult with the baggage they’ll carry from Monday.
Meanwhile, Belichick reminded everyone that, even without the quarterback, or any quarterback, really, he is still a singular force the likes of which can upend a division like a gale force wind.
