So much for discipline: Rex Ryan's Bills commit 17 penalties in bad loss

Let us take you back to Rex Ryan earlier this week. This was his vow for the Buffalo Bills heading into Week 4:

"We're trying extremely hard, we want to be the least penalized team in the league," Ryan said on Wednesday. "The first 2 games were horrendous. ... No team spends more time looking at the rules than we do, I promise you."

Ryan will have more rules to look at and plenty of examples of penalty study after the Bills' 24-10 loss to the New York Giants. The Bills committed 17 penalties for 135 yards, but it's worse than even that. Fouls wiped out 85 yards worth of offensive plays for the Bills, including two touchdowns (!), and two defensive penalties by the Bills gifted the Giants four points when they elected to take a field goal off the board and later scored a touchdown.

Tyrod Taylor scrambled 31 yards for a score midway through the third quarter, which would have made it a one-score game with the Giants leadoing 16-3, but the play was negated by a holding call. Instead, the Bills had to attempt a field goal ... which predictably missed.

After the game, Ryan seemed OK with his team's performance to a certain degree.

“I’m proud of the way this team played,” Ryan said at his postgame press conference. “Can we play a lot smarter? Absolutely. But I’ll take a team that’ll fight over a team that will sit back and take it every day of the week and bring on the next team. Give me a team that’s got some fight and will compete to the very end right, wrong or indifferent, no matter how good the officiating is or whatever.”

The Bills now lead the NFL part of the way through Week 4 with 47 penalties. The Giants didn't exactly show great restraint with 11 penalties of their own on Sunday, but the Bills managed to upstage them.

With the Bills missing starting running back LeSean McCoy and receiver Sammy Watkins, their margin of error was slim against a Giants team that has been in every game this season. So compound the penalties with the Bills' two turnovers, and they were doomed.

Their biggest win of the season was the Week 3 blowout of the Miami Dolphins, but with the Dolphins floundering ... that one doesn't carry as much weight as it did before, does it?

The New England Patriots, on bye this week, might be sitting at home just laughing at the rest of the division right now. 

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm