Is Buffalo Bills head coach Rex Ryan obsessed with the New England Patriots? The Super Bowl champs would certainly be on his mind since the Bills and Pats play each other on Monday night. Ryan has also surely looked at the current AFC East standings and realized that his 5-4 team has very little chance of the 9-0 Patriots.
Then there’s the matter of Ryan’s record against Bill Belichick. His teams have lost eight of their past nine games versus the Patriots. So that likely makes New England a sore subject for Ryan.
But it seems natural that the coach would think about the Patriots frequently. They’ve set the bar that Ryan wants his Bills to reach. Yet the implication that he’s somehow obsessed with that team in New England, that he stays up at night thinking about the Patriots, irritated the coach during a conference call with Boston media on Thursday.
From MassLive:
“You know what, the only reason I talk about them is that they’re the No. 1 team in our division. That’s where we want to be. And so I know you guys always say that I’m obsessed with them and all that. You guys are obsessed with them — not me. You’re the ones that talk about them every single day.”
Did Ryan just pull a “I know you are, but what am I?” on the Boston media?
The coach realizes that he’s talking to reporters working for New England outlets whose job it is to cover the Patriots. And in this era of 24-7 news and seemingly endless minutia posted online to feed the page-view and social media beast, that media is naturally going to be extremely focused — or obsessed, to use another term — on its assigned beat.
Perhaps someone on the conference call thought about pointing this out (OK, that would have been unprofessional), but Ryan was already in a testy mood and probably didn’t need further prodding.
“Do we want to beat them? Absolutely. Do I want to beat them more than any team? Yeah, because they’re the standard. They’ve won. They’re the ones that win the division, and that’s why. But do I obsess over them and all that? You guys write I’ve lost seven of eight, so why are you even talking to me? I obviously have no clue how to attack them or defend them, so you guys should talk to somebody else who’s got a better record than I do.”
No, Ryan doesn’t seem mad about his record against the Patriots. He probably doesn’t mind being asked about it frequently by people whose job it is to do just that. Not a sore subject at all. Nope. Or maybe the coach was dealing with some low blood sugar and just needed a snack.
