It's Christmas Day, ladies and gentlemen.
I know it's a Sabres forum, but a lot of us feel similarly about our Bills as we do about our Sabres. More of us used to, but have been distanced by the workings of the league and the mediocrity of the team. That is perfectly understandable, but I hope that, if those folks are so inclined, they give the game and team another chance.
The league itself is getting a bit of a makeover - a lot of the faces that lasted 15 years at the top are starting to be replaced with young, enthusiastic, and wonderfully talented athletes. The names we have been so familiar with are beginning to take their place in the rich and unique lore of NFL football, impossibly deep and capable of inspiring the most powerful nostalgia even in a youngster like me - nostalgia I can feel for moments that predate my existence by decades.
Nothing captures my senses, presses all the right nostalgia buttons, quite like waking up on NFL opening day. Even though the heat index is over 100 today, and I'm in this place I've only spent 2 years of my life, completely alone, I'm also heading outside on a crisp fall morning, to the smell of fallen leaves and sound of the ones still alive rustling as a cool breeze whips through the trees. In the throes of middle school, my brother and I are taking reprieve from the stresses of a disappearing childhood by pretending to be Buffalo Bills ourselves, and playing out on the lawn exactly how we'd hoped the game would go. Then we go in, to the smell of something apple-based cooking and the fall/Halloween decor, and we watch our Bills, completely impervious to the years of futility, completely convinced that they'd somehow pull it out. And sometimes they did, despite all odds. You see, even if your team is bad, kickers can win games, and Ryan Lindell tended to hit those late game field goals more than he'd miss. And those moments were all we needed as kids. It was about more than the game, and we could feel that even then.
Since I've started to allow the NFL and the Bills back into my sphere of things I'm incredibly passionate about, I've only had positive experiences, including the rekindling of feelings I haven't felt since I was a fundamentally different, simpler, more optimistic human being. It's worth the stress that every snap in a 16 game season provides, the agony when things go wrong, the unfairness when they go wrong in ways they wouldn't in a perfect world. I feel connected to every single person to root for my team, going back decades. It's powerful. When the Bills clinched the playoffs two years ago, I went to a New Years Eve party afterward. There were people there I hadn't seen for years, and people whose presence would have normally been awkward or a damper in some way - for me and others - and yet, because of the Bills, it was the best night of many of our lives.
McBeane may crash and burn. But there's something fundamental about what they're doing at One Bills Drive that is, at the very least, making this the most fun and easy group of athletes to root for that I've ever seen. It's not something that can guarantee wins, but it's something that can guarantee that a lot of bad stuff won't happen. I choose to believe that they'll be able to add enough of what wins that they're going to be here a long time. Either way, they've given me something to grab onto from back home, and have given me a lot of fun times on lonely weekends far, far away through their two years.
I'm so ready for this third one. Tre, keep kicking ass and being hysterical. Lorax, continue the tradition of the smart, inspiring vet that Bills fans will recall fondly long past retirement. Micah and Jordan, keep doing what you do - we see you, and the league will notice too. Milano, keep fighting back from that devastating injury. Edmunds? You have the potential for a gold jacket in your future. Go out and get it. Ed Oliver? Thank you for loving Buffalo from the first second. Go have a blast. Same to you, Beasley. And Josh? Yeah, you - Josh Allen? Go prove a bunch of self-absorbed bloated heads on sports television wrong. The same for the self-absorbed, bloated head that was me when we drafted you. I know you can do it.
Thank you, Bills. By any modern measure, we don't deserve to have you. But we have you, and we're not ever going to let go.
GO BILLS BEAT THOSE PUNK-ASS JETS
