NFL’S BACK: WEEK 1 PICKS.
SOMEWHERE AMID THE RUINS OF THEIR SORRY PAST, TEAM LOST ONE FAN
Acolleague who was covering the smouldering garbage fire that was the Bills in Toronto series asked me at the time what had made me a fan of Buffalo’s NFL team.
The subtext to the question was: why would anyone not from Buffalo possibly root for this terrible, snakebitten, sad-sack team?
Fair enough. The answer, though, was easy. I grew up in the Toronto suburbs right when the Bills were suddenly good. Jim Kelly arrived, then Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed, plus Bruce Smith and Cornelius Bennett and wizened old Marv Levy, the Gandalf of coaches.
We were still in the fewdozen-channel universe and our cable package received Buffalo’s U. S. network affiliates, so the Bills were on television every weekend. They were great fun to watch ( except, ahem, in the Super Bowl). An easy team to love. And so I did. I know exactly why and when I became a Bills fan.
I’m less certain of when I stopped being one.
We strike weird bargains with the sports teams we support. The fan gets emotionally invested, and on some level financially invested, and on their end of the deal the team owes nothing. If they perform well, everybody’s happy, and if they lose, fandom requires patience. You don’t bail at the first sign of adversity. Besides, suffering builds character.
Bills fans now have an extraordinary amount of character.
The Super Bowl losses were a bitter pill in the moment, but now one can only dream of such disappointment. The franchise’s failings in the years since are truly remarkable in a league that legislates parity. The Bills last made the playoffs in 1999, the longest drought in pro sports, an appearance in which they benched their successful starting quarterback and l ost on a l astsecond play of VERY questionable legality.
They have posted winning records twice in 17 seasons since, both times a sterling 9-7. They are the anti- Patriots, having strung together a bunch of bad seasons every bit as hard to fathom as New England’s run of good ones, given the NFL forces better teams to shed talent every off- season. Tom Brady is 26- 3 against the Bills, and only three quarterbacks in Buffalo history have more wins in Buffalo than Brady’s 13, despite his only playing there once per year.
All of that big-picture losing is going to have its share of painful moments, and most Bills fans will point to a 2004 loss to Pittsburgh’s second- stringers as a nadir of the non-playoff years, particularly since the Bills just needed to win that game to make the post-season.
I felt like Bills fandom went from challenging to cruel a few seasons later.
In 2007, the Bills intercepted Tony Romo five times on Monday Night Football and still lost on a last-second 53- yard field goal. The following season, they lost on Monday night to Cleveland when the Browns’ kicker hit late from 56 yards and the Bills missed from 47. Wide right, naturally. One year after that, Buffalo was, miraculously, beating New England on the road by 13 points with just three minutes left, and when Brady cut the lead to six — again, on Monday Night Football — things were still not dire. The Patriots had no timeouts. A first down after the kickoff would win the game and three plays plus a punt would all but do it.
Buffalo’s Leodis McKelvin caught the kickoff and for reasons known only to him, brought it out of the end zone. Fumble, Pats’ ball, inevitable touchdown, Bills humiliated in prime time again. The team was still a punch line because of the Super Bowl losses, and now the only time the league ever noticed the Bills was when they showed up in a night game and promptly threw up on themselves.
Fans of bad teams can hope change comes in the form of a new coach, GM or both, but it became clear the Bills weren’t getting any better while owner Ralph Wilson was around. And then he wasn’t, and new owner Terry Pegula arrived to save the team from the hands of Jon Bon Jovi or Donald Trump ( actually happened!) and, well, the chief difference between Wilson and Pegula is that Pegula is a lot younger. He brought in Rex Ryan to coach, and Ryan took a good defence and made it much worse. He fired Ryan last year, near the end of his second season, unbeknownst to Doug Whaley, then the general manager, who was himself fired, along with the scouting department, right after the NFL draft. Odd timing, that.
The team is now in the hands of head coach Sean McDermott and GM Brandon Beane, both formerly with the Carolina Panthers and both in their roles for the first time. That has, for this team, generally not gone well.
The offence remains built around Tyrod Taylor, who has passed for more than 300 yards in a game once in two seasons with Buffalo. That happened in the second- last game last year and then he was benched for the finale. Too much passing, I guess.
The Bills are t anking this season, which is fine. It beats getting six to nine wins again. But somewhere in there, amid all the ineptitude, I stopped caring much at all. I don’t wish them ill, but my Bills fandom is lapsed.
Does that make me a bad fan? Maybe. All I know is that when a friend texted to say the Bills traded talented receiver Sammy Watkins, my first reaction was: that’s nice for him.
Those bargains we make with sports teams we support? At some point, when the return is so minimal, the deal is off.