Tom Brady trolls the Buffalo Bills with a Rex Ryan audible

Early in the third quarter, Tom Brady scrambled towards the Bills sideline and hit Danny Amendola on a long pass. It looked like it was going to be a touchdown. With an offensive line that struggled to hold back Bills pass rushers, Brady occasionally threw the ball at a receiver’s feet just to get rid of it.

Lining up under centre, Brady began barking out an unusual signal: “Rex Ryan!”.

“We have a lot of unusual terms. I don’t think that can be understated”. “I think some of the things that we didn’t do well had nothing to do with missing some of the guys”.

But man, it’s pretty incredible to be throwing a pass and then one split-second later being able to shut your body off and hit the ground like a crash test dummy. In the 3rd quarter, New England did give up an 80-yard drive that ended with a 27-yard touchdown run by Buffalo running back LeSean McCoy, but that was the only touchdown of the night for the Bills. The high-priced tight end had just one catch against the Patriots and left the game with a neck injury late.

Amendola, who took over as the Patriots’ No. 1 receiver because of last week’s injury to Edelman, caught nine passes for 117 yards before leaving with a knee injury of his own.

As we all know by now, that’s more than enough time for Brady to orchestrate a game-changing touchdown drive. When he goes on an insane tirade it’s just inexplicably hilarious, and the more you laugh the madder he gets and it’s a perpetual motion machine of anger and humor.

The Patriots lead the AFC East by five games with six to play. They recognized the pressure too late, and end up blocking each other. “That’s what championship teams do”.

“What we had as far as the last play with Buffalo’s reception was that the receiver gave himself up voluntarily in the field of play”, Steratore said.

Yet after watching Monday night’s game play out, it’d be rather hard to say the New England team that took the field against the Bills is the same one that looked like a juggernaut through the first half of the year.

NOTES: Game time temperature was 29 degrees with a wind chill of 21. Stephon Gilmore picked Brady off – just the fourth interception of the year for the reigning Super Bowl MVP; another interception was negated by offsetting penalties. Heck; the Pats scoreless fourth quarter broke an NFL-record streak of scoring in 38 straight quarters.

That call paled in comparison to what happened in the third quarter, though.

Leodis McKelvin fielded a punt but coughed up the ball two yards later. I thought Brady’s best throw all night was the deep crosser to Amendola with Corey Graham coming through the a-gap all up in his business.

So, the referees clearly biffed the play at the outset with the inadvertent whistle.

White carried twice for 14 yards and a touchdown, and he made two catches for 32 yards and another score. Brady finished 20 of 39 for 277 yards and is 26-3 lifetime against Buffalo, including 2-0 this season. You know there’s something weird going on when even the despised New England Patriots are getting sympathy from fans in other cities.

Even though the play moved the Patriots to the Buffalo 44 yard line (61 yard try from there), they needed to pick up more about 5 yards in order to get in Stephen Gostkowski’s chip-shot field goal range. The Pats’ matchup matrix brushed off Wesley Woodyard for a score in the second half of New England’s comeback conquest two years ago and toyed with Miller, inexplicably told to cover Gronk one-on-one, on a 1-yard slant in last season’s romp. With Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning probably out for Sunday’s game, the Patriots’ biggest obstacle running the table could be the lengthy injury list that has forced them to reshuffle their offensive line and receiving corps.