As the New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills fight down the stretch to secure the AFC East, former NFL MVP and current CBS analyst Matt Ryan made an interesting comparison between the two franchises.
While previewing the Bills’ Week 16 matchup against the Cleveland Browns, Ryan expressed how he sees similarities in the Bills and the Bill Belichick-led Patriots of old.
“This team reminds me a lot of how the New England Patriots were built in their heyday,” Ryan said during a CBS broadcast.
Ryan himself played against the Belichick Patriots multiple times, famously battling against New England in Super Bowl LI, which ended with the Patriots winning in a historic fashion.
It seems that the former Falcons quarterback has forgotten just how great New England was during the previous decade.
Sure, these two teams do have some basic similarities, but when broadening the picture, it’s clear that the Patriots of old are in their own tier of greatness and the Bills still have a ways to go by measure of talent.
The Offensive “Similarities”
Ryan made a point to compare how the passing game defined the Patriots of the 2010s and is what makes the Bills of today so special, pointing out what positions the teams’ passes normally go to.
“The passing game goes through what? Tight ends,” Ryan said. “They got a slot receiver in Khalil Shakir that can win versus man-to-man coverage in critical third-down situations, and you have a quarterback that finds ways at the end of the game to figure out how to do it.”
Ryan makes a (somewhat) decent point, but the reach that the former MVP is making seems to be beyond reason.
Buffalo has had to rely on production from tight ends this year due to a young receiver core, but it’s not what they’ve been known for in past years.
While Shakir is a fine football player, the slot receivers that Belichick was able to develop, such as Wes Welker, Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola, were clutch from September well into January.
Edelman, in particular, is widely regarded as one of the best postseason performers of all time. The former Super Bowl MVP has a case for the Hall of Fame solely off January and February football alone.
Comparing Josh Allen to Tom Brady is actually not as unreasonable as it seems. Allen has dominated the fourth quarter this season to will his team to victories. He is currently the heir apparent to Brady as king of the AFC East.
But Allen still has a lot to prove after December football is over; it’s just too soon to have those kinds of conversations comparing the two.
The Patriots Had a No-Name Defense?
Ryan goes on in his analysis to claim that both the current Bills and Patriots of old rolled out “no-name” defenses, or defensive lineups where no one was a true star, but they did their job regardless.
It’s a bit of a stretch, as Buffalo certainly has stars on the defensive side of the ball, such as Joey Bosa and Ed Oliver in the trenches, but to say New England was playing with no names in their lineup is just wrong.
The Patriots had a Pro Bowl-like lineup spanning the 2010s decade on defense. They used heavy hitters like Dont’a Hightower and Trey Flowers, as well as ball-hawk defensive backs like Devin McCourty and 2019 Defensive Player of the Year Stephon Gilmore.
And while Bills head coach Sean McDermott is a proven figure in the NFL, it is far too early to put him in the same ecosystem as Belichick in terms of defensive prowess.
Ryan finished his assessment by stating the truth: everyone in the league looked at the Patriots and asked themselves how to emulate that success.
“I think that Buffalo organization looked at New England for a long time and said, ‘That’s a pretty good model for success,'” Ryan said.
But until the city of Buffalo can put a ring on it, it’s not fair to compare the Bills to a dynasty that won three Super Bowl championships in the 2010s alone.
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