As a blogger, often times when you decide to write on a subject matter, you can see the narrative forming even before the story actually takes place. Marcell Dareus gets in trouble and now if he says he’s not happy with his contract, we go back to his trouble with the law and say what nerve. Someone hires a coach without much experience and when he falters its because he’s inexperience. Yet, when he succeeds, its because he’s cutting edge and not from the same retread coaching cloth.
What really gets my goat though is if you try flip flopping your narrative by talking out of both sides of your ass. Case in point, the Boston Red Sox under Terry Francona. When the Sox won the World Series in 2004 and 2007, the narrative was all about how the club house was having loads of fun with doing shots before the game and sporting ZZ Top beards. Then, the Sox collapsed in 2011 down the stretch and guess what the narrative became? OH, THEY ARE HAVING TOO MUCH FUN AND NOT TAKING IT SERIOUS! I can only assume the same people wrote those narratives.
At least with the Sox it took 4 years for them to spin the narrative that way. Of course, that’s not the case in Buffalo. It only took a week for Rex to go from a William Wallace like motivator to Stannis Baratheon at the end of season 5 of GoT. Take Jerry Sullivan’s last 3 pieces. Last Thursday, he dropped a piece pretty much crapping all over Belichick’s quotes from a conference call and then acting like the words coming out of Rex’s mouth would motivate a paraplegic to walk without crutches. Sully took a swipe at Hoodie being boring and acknowledged how great Ryan is to fans and reporters. If you go to Sully’s piece after the Colts got their asses handed to them, this is what we got for the bully narrative:
Ryan had promised to build a bully, one that would be tough and ready to play and intimidated by no one. That’s how they looked Sunday, like a well-prepared bully pushing the kids from the other neighborhood around the playground.
Of course, once the Bills lost to the Pats, the bully stuff that was being paraded around after week 1 went out the window and we get this instead:
Rex Ryan has been talking tough from the moment he set foot in Buffalo last January. He was going to build a bully and back down from no one, least of all the hated Patriots. Put it up on your bulletin board, see what he cares. Bill Belichick and the Pats don’t do much yapping. They have the natural swagger that comes from winning four Super Bowls and dominating the AFC East for a generation. Belichick doesn’t win many news conferences. But he owned Ryan in the only forum that really matters, the final scoreboard. Well, maybe being dull doesn’t help you win. But if Sunday was any indication, being too emotionally volatile can contribute to a loss. Yes, football is an emotional game. But there’s a fine line between playing with an edge and playing dumb. And the Bills crossed that line against the Pats.
So, there you have it. Within 7 days it was good that Rex was the bully with his bravado demeanor, but then the narrative became having too much belligerent, hubris emotions. The funny thing is Rex didn’t even say much about Brady/Pats during the week. He didn’t talk junk. If anything, fans and the organization (See: team store) were the ones going to town on trolling the Pats. And you know why they were trolling the Pats? It was because of deflategate. If that crap didn’t happen, the shit talking would have been way less. Oh, and for anyone who is trying to spin the penalty narrative…the buttoned up Pats had 11 penalties for 119 yards while the out of control Bills had 14 penalties for 140 yards. But surely, this is an anomaly as Rex teams in the past have always been undisciplined.
“This is what Rex teams do, take penalties” 2014 – Bills 5th most, Jets 20th. 2013 – Bills 9th most, Jets12th 2012 – Bills 15th, Jets 29th
— Jeremy White (@JeremyWGR) September 21, 2015
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Oh.
You gotta believe no one besides Jerome White decided to look this up when it came to writing about how Rex was building a culture of insubordination after Sunday’s game. This isn’t a shocker as twisting the story to support your narrative is always going to be a trademark by some. This is what we are going to get after the Bills win or lose. They won because Rex has them feeling like a million bucks and they lost because Rex and the boys are full of themselves and lack discipline. Let me tell you how all of this BS.
This is just about drama that resonates with a press corp. that knows this sort of US Weekly non-sense will get fans talking. You win games mostly with having the best players, not because you are William Wallace or a mute at coach. Was I worried about poking the Pats bear? Sure, but honestly…it probably had little to do with them beating the Bills. The Bills lost to the Pats because Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are the best ever. Period. All the other shit is just an easy narrative for folks like Sully to write about. Did the Bills under Jauron beat the Pats when he was Mr. Nice guy? No. Did Doug Marrone’s “Lets have the players hate my guts so they can ban together against other teams” beat the Pats? Double-No and blow me if you count last year’s meaningless finale.
As always, the war of words pales in comparison to what actually matters the most…the war on the field.
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