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I know I’m waaaay late this week, but I’ll make it up to you I promise.
I can’t really think of anything to say that either my BBR colleagues, or the writers for the Buffalo News haven’t already said. This team is bad and they’re not getting any better. The sad thing is, not only are the Bills bad, they’re boring.
Jerry Sullivan said it best when he said, “This has come at a bad time, the Sabres [are] still unbeaten and putting on the best sports show this town has seen in years. The Bills are giving everyone a chance to turn away and pay their undivided attention to the sensation in the arena at the foot of Washington Street.”
Now I’m a huge Sabres fan as well as a huge Bills fan and I’ll be the first to advocate that when one team does well it shouldn’t mean bad news for the other, but this city needs something to rally behind and the Sabres are doing just that.
I know they are two different sports, two completely different franchises, but it’s the same city, so it’s not hard to justify abandoning our NFL team for our NHL team. Last weekend both Buffalo teams were in Detroit, Sabres came up with the win and the Bills didn’t. This past weekend both teams faced Boston (or New England respectively), Sabres got the job done (made Boston look like little kids), the Bills didn’t (other way around).
That said; rather than pit the two against each other, make them work together. I know the Bills are bad, incompetent, untalented, uninspiring, unintelligent, etc. but that’s our team, so knowing they’re not going to win, let’s get behind them as fans and try to do our part to (in the short term) bring them back up to at least “almost winning,” as opposed to their current state of, “not even showing up.”
The six fans that stayed cheering to the end of the game this past week made me proud (I watched on TV until the end, not quite as dedicated, but my uncle didn’t get me the tickets to the Pats game like he promised). That’s the kind of people we are in Western NY. As I said last week we’re losers, but we’re passionate losers (I don’t mean that as a knock). As fans we need to show up even if our team doesn’t, and we need to cheer, and we need to buy jerseys (go Brian Moorman!).
The importance of this is not just to turn this season around, forget this season if you will. If we let the team tank financially we’ll lose them. Part of what keeps the dream alive in Buffalo is the faint hope that we’ll be back to glory someday, and we can’t have a winning team if we don’t have a team at all. And you can bet once Buffalo loses a team, it’s population is not going to grow enough in the future to get one back.
I’m serious about this, as Bills fans we need to support them now more than ever. I know most of you are at your wits end, frustrated beyond belief and as nice as it sounds to still try to get excited, just can’t take the pain anymore. Well I’m with you and I’ve come up with a plan to play through the pain.
Hockey.
Like I said, make the two teams work together. This is becoming a glorious year to be a Buffalo Sabres fan. Granted, the season is long and a lot could happen between now and the end, but for right now there is no better team in the NHL than Buffalo. Lean on that, use the Sabres as your crutch as you cheer on the Bills. As much as you’ll feel like a loser when you watch football you can take solace in the fact that you’re not a total loser because you have another professional team in Buffalo that is amazing.
Next week we face Green Bay, and I’ll be at the game. I plan to bring you all a very special review from it (it’ll be funny I promise), but to the rest of you, get in front of your TV, cue up the Shout song, make some Buffalo wings and keep this team where it belongs: Buffalo.
-The John