Bills fans didn’t make off with the goal posts at Ralph Wilson Stadium on Sunday but after the stunning come-from-behind, 34-31 win over the Patriots, beleaguered Bills backers everywhere are feeling strangely optimistic about a team few believed in prior to the start of the season.
One fan texted the team’s flagship radio station that he “cried in his mother’s arms” after the win. Hundreds of Bills backers sang the team’s fight song–”Shout”–outside the Laughing Man bar in Washington, D.C., after the game to the bewilderment of passersby on the street. A high school friend who loves the Bills wrote on Facebook: “I feel like its 1987 and the Bills are at the dawn of the Kelly/Reed/Smith/Thomas/Talley era…and this team is on the verge of something great.”
My cousin colored her Facebook profile with a photo of a t-shirt emblazoned with Tom Brady’s face with a word that is not printable in a family newspaper’s website beneath it. A fan from Boone, N.C., posting on the Buffalo News’ site, compared the win to the 1980 U.S. Hockey team’s triumph over the Soviets at Lake Placid.
Perhaps the Bills didn’t help end the Cold War, but they did finally manage to slay Buffalo’s equivalent of an evil empire: Tom Brady and the Patriots. Brady seemed to represent everything that Bills’ fans hate–the kind of good-looking, wealthy, successful elite who looks down his nose at places like Buffalo. In truth, he’s never uttered a bad word about the city or its fans, but somehow we’re sure he looks down on us. But on Sunday, Bills’ fans could finally rejoice, as Brady was humbled to the tune of four interceptions and was reduced to standing idly on the sideline as Buffalo ran out the clock before banging home the winning kick with just three seconds left in the game.
Are Bills fans like me getting carried away? Of course we are. But let’s take stock of the situation. A team that started the season ranked #31 in ESPN’s power rankings, and #30 on Fox Sports’ list, is 3-0 and in sole possession of first place in the A.F.C East. No N.F.L. team has come back from deficits of 18 points or more to win two weeks in a row in at least 60 years. With 113 points scored, they lead the N.F.L. with an average of nearly 38 points per game.
Heady stuff for a fan base that has been more preoccupied with Ralph Wilson’s mortality and the nightmare of the team potentially leaving town than any realistic playoff dreams for the last decade. Realists have brought some us back down to earth with a reminder that in 2008 the team started out 4-0, but finished the season 7-9. A cautionary note to be sure, but a look at the teams the Bills beat to start that season reveals that that hopeful 4-0 start was essentially a mirage. Those Bills beat Seattle, Jacksonville, Oakland and St. Louis–four teams that went a combined 16-48 that year with none winning more than five games. The Bills’ first victim–the Chiefs–are obviously not a good team, but the Raiders and the Patriots look very much like playoff contenders.
It’s also worth noting that undefeated starts have also propelled the Bills deep into the playoffs in the past. The ’91 and ’92 teams, which made it to the Super Bowl, started 5-0 and 4-0. And in ’88, a Bills squad that had missed the playoffs six times in a row started 4-0 and finished 12-4, before losing to Icky Woods and the Bengals in the A.F.C. Championship game.
According to ESPN, 76 per cent of teams that start the season 3-0 make the playoffs and the Bills’ remaining schedule appears to be favorable. If they go 3-2 in their remaining division games, which should be realistic given the fact that the Dolphins appear to be weak, the Bills would probably need just a 4-4 split against their eight remaining non-division opponents to make the postseason. The Bills are favored to win at Cincinnati next week, and home games against Tennessee, Washington and Denver look like winnable games for Buffalo, at least at this rather giddy moment.
But of course, Bills fans know better than most that there’s still plenty of time for everything to fall apart. Western New York and the Buffalo diaspora are in love with this team and at the moment, no one wants to dwell on any of the Bills’ glaring weaknesses. After an 11-year playoff drought, who can blame us for seeing rainbows where others notice storm clouds off in the distance?
Sunday was a great day for the Rust Belt, with big wins for the Lions, Browns and the Bills. Perhaps 2011 will be the year when these cities finally become associated with something more positive than gloomy economic forecasts and lame jokes from people who live in more glamorous locales.
When Ryan Fitzpatrick’s second pass of the day deflected off of Bills’ wide receiver Donald Jones and right into the hands of Patriots’ cornerback Kyle Arrington early in the first quarter, it looked like it was going to be yet another day where the ball simply didn’t bounce the Bills’ way.
But soon thereafter, the team’s luck changed, and by the end of the game, even a call that went against them–the Fred Jackson touchdown that was overturned after video review with 1:43–worked in their favor. The football gods may or may or may not be ready to smile on the Bills as the season unfolds, but for the first time in years there is justifiable hope in Buffalo.
No comments:
Post a Comment