‘Diehard fan’ from Niagara Falls fits Bill
Don’t be too surprised if Christopher Bianco, a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan and Saint Michael Catholic High School graduate, over time develops a soft spot for Ray Davis, a running back who played college football at Temple, Ariz., and, in his final season, at Kentucky.
On Saturday, Buffalo selected Davis in the fourth round of the National Football League draft with the 128th overall selection, and it was none other than Bianco, and not Bills general manager Brandon Beane, head coach Sean McDermott, nor team owner Terry Pegula, who stepped to the podium on the draft stage in downtown Detroit to announce the selection.
The 22-year-old son of Tony and Rose Bianco of Niagara Falls got to make a call broadcast by the NFL Network after being chosen as the Bills’ international fan of the year.
Bianco, whose family has had season tickets since 2015, won the fourday expenses-paid trip to represent the team at the draft after entering a contest.
He remembered receiving an email in September that asked, “Are you the fan of the year?”
“I said, yeah, I might as well sign up for it. I pretty much had to fill out a small paragraph, just explaining why I deserved it,” recalled Bianco, who next month will be graduating from Niagara University in Lewiston, N.Y., with a sport management degree.
In his entry, Bianco described himself as a “diehard fan” who has been following the Bills “all my life.”
“I’ve been watching football ever since I knew what football was,” he said. “I was pretty much saying no one’s a bigger Bills fan than me, especially in Canada.”
He found out in February that he won, but only after touring the team’s practice facility with his father.
“They took me on a tour of the facility and then they told me I was the international fan of the year.”
He arrived in Detroit on Wednesday morning and was scheduled to fly back to Buffalo on Sunday morning.
“We spent three days in the inner circle of the draft. We’re at the Courtyard downtown, I get to see the draft stage from here.”
Besides announcing the pick, highlights of the trip included meeting NFL commissioner Roger Goodell at a question-and-answer session and attending a Detroit Tigers home game at Comerica Park.
A super fan who won a contest by filling out one paragraph needed only two words to sum up his experience in the Motor City: “Really cool!”
“There was a lot of stuff going on. Detroit’s an awesome place, I didn’t really know how cool the place was until I got here,” he said. “The draft itself was unreal, especially being right up at the stage pretty much.
“It was crazy. Anywhere you went downtown, you saw some sign or poster. Buses and the People Mover were all plastered in draft stuff.”
Any fear that he is going to switch his alliance to the Detroit Lions?
“Nah. I do like the Lions — they’re kind of a similar team to the Bills, a similar type of city — but I’m definitely Bills.”
Bianco was also asked to channel his inner Brandon Beane. Did he agree with the Bills general manager that selecting the five-foot-10, 216-pound Davis was the right choice?
“Yeah. We needed a backup running back,” he said. “To be fair, I don’t follow a lot of college football, but I remember that was a name that popped up once in a while that we could take later on.
“I watched some of his highlights today after we picked him and, you know what, he looks all right.”
Bianco also felt good about the picks he didn’t announce. He gave the Bills draft brain trust an overall grade of “pretty good.”
“We got one of the receivers I was hoping to get, we got some depth pieces, got a nice safety,” he said. “I trust them, they’ve built a good team over the past few years.
“They should be good.”