Ray Lewis, ESPN analyst, gave Bills pep talk before they played Patriots

Buffalo Bills coach Rex Ryan brought in one of his former players, a legend of the game, to give a pep talk to his team before it played the New England Patriots on Monday night.

That's not uncommon. But then the Bills' inspirational speaker, Ray Lewis, was on the ESPN set the next night talking about the game. That's unusual, to say the least. He picked the Bills, a seven-point underdog, to win.

Lewis played under Ryan when the latter was a defensive assistant with the Baltimore Ravens. Ryan confirmed on Wednesday that Lewis spoke to the team though he didn't get into specifics of what Lewis said, according to ESPN.com's Mike Rodak.

[Yahoo Daily Fantasy: $10 could win you $50K in our $350K contest for Week 12]

And then, yes, Lewis was one of the two ESPN folks including Chris Berman, whose schtick includes supporting the Bills, who picked Buffalo to beat the undefeated Patriots at home. Discounting a Week 17 loss to Buffalo last season, in which New England had its playoff seed set and rested starters, the Patriots haven't lost a regular-season game at home since Dec. 16, 2012. New England won 20-13 on Monday night. The Patriots are 10-0.

Lewis hasn't been a big Patriots fan through the years, so it wasn't surprising that he said this week he prefers Ryan as a coach over New England coach Bill Belichick, who has won four Super Bowls.

It's not like Lewis is a journalist, and there are always going to be biases when former athletes analyze games that include their friends, former teammates and former coaches. Michael Irvin, for example, has been rooting for the Dallas Cowboys in an over-the-top manner on NFL Network for a while (two of his offerings are "Irvin on Cowboys: The best team in the NFL" and "Michael Irvin: Cowboys are unstoppable"), and by now we all know to take opinions like those or Lewis picking the Bills less than seriously.

But the Patriots still might wonder why someone included with one of the NFL broadcast partners' game day productions was giving a speech to the other team the night before the game.

- - - - - - -

Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab