Tweet
I didn't see this posted so apologies if it has been already.
NY Times article on the Bills.
NY Times article on the Bills.
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The two plastic lawn chairs in the backyard across the narrow street are turned toward Ralph Wilson Stadium, offering the homeowners an up-close view of their next-door neighbors, the Buffalo Bills.
Skip to next paragraph
Rick Stewart/Getty Images
Ryan Denny, right, caught a touchdown pass off a fake field goal in the season opener against Seattle. The Bills are 3-0.
Analysis and discussion of the N.F.L. on the New York Times pro football blog.
Go to The Fifth Down Blog »
It is the middle of the work week, so the chairs are empty, the Bills are in film meetings, and the smell of grilled meat from last Sunday’s tailgate parties has finally dissipated in Orchard Park. But the Bills’ location — their pretense-free 35-year-old stadium is dug deep into the earth, so the upper deck does not loom too high over the residential neighborhood a few hundred feet away — has always been part of the team’s charm, a cozy tableau from a bygone era when football teams could be founded for $25,000.
This season, the neighbors are especially happy because the Bills are 3-0. A top-flight defense, scintillating special teams and a young, engaging quarterback hark back to the glory days of the franchise. It has been 10 seasons since the Bills made the playoffs. But in the snap of Tom Brady’s knee, they have suddenly become the team to beat in the American Football Conference East and among the best in the entire conference. Their game Sunday against the winless St. Louis Rams — and the fifth-easiest schedule in the N.F.L. — has Bills fans thinking bigger than they have since Marv Levy roamed the sideline as the coach.
“I remember last year when we were 0-3 and how frustrated and hungry and excited to play everybody in the locker room was to go out and get that first win,” defensive tackle Kyle Williams said. “It doesn’t feel any different during the week, maybe on Sunday afternoon. When you look at it, we’re 3-0, we’re not fighting from the bottom of the barrel, we don’t have to feel like we have a huge hill to climb.”
But there is always at least a little hill for Buffalo to climb — they lost four consecutive Super Bowls in the early 1990s, after all. The Bills’ future is in question because the team owner, Wilson, 89, has made clear that he will not bequeath the team to a family member upon his death. For a new owner, relocation of the franchise, which is in one of the N.F.L.’s smallest markets, would be a consideration, whether to Canada, Los Angeles or some other more lucrative locale.
Prompting the latest concerns was the Bills’ agreement to play an eight-game series of preseason and regular-season games over five years in Toronto, about 90 minutes away. The Bills have drawn fans from across the border for years, and they and the N.F.L. maintain that the Toronto series is an effort to make the Bills a regional team — the way Green Bay, which for years played some games in Milwaukee, has colonized the upper Midwest — to draw corporate dollars from Toronto. It follows the Bills’ decision to hold training camp in Rochester.
Still, Wilson’s acceptance of $78 million from the Canadian communications billionaire Ted Rogers, who covets an N.F.L. franchise, to host the games struck some fans as a blow to a city that Forbes recently called one of the fastest dying in the United States. And it has raised fears that this is the first step toward the Bills eventually leaving for good.
“The success of the team is really the only thing to put it on the back burner,” said the former Bills special-teams star Steve Tasker, who is now an analyst for CBS Sports. “There’s no question it would be a big hole in the fabric of the community. Other businesses can come and go from town, but if the Buffalo Bills left, that would be very big.”
The Bills sold more than 56,000 season tickets this year, the most since 1992, and Commissioner Roger Goodell, who grew up in western New York, has indicated he would prefer the team remain in Buffalo. Fans have become somewhat hardened to periodic talk of relocation since the 1970s, said Scott Sarama, who grew up in western New York and founded the Web site twobillsdrive.com (the Bills’ address is One Bills Drive) in 1996.
He and almost everyone else count on the idea that, with Wilson committed to not selling or moving the team while he is alive, and the difficulties of relocation within the N.F.L., Buffalo will probably not have to face the worst for years, if ever.
When the Bills played a preseason game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Toronto, The Toronto Star reported that before kickoff, tickets were being sold for one-tenth of face value. The atmosphere was unusual: because of an open container law, tailgating — a revered tradition even in the most bitter Buffalo winter — was not allowed at the Rogers Centre.
A better read on the N.F.L.’s popularity in Toronto will come in December when the Bills play a regular-season game against the Miami Dolphins at the Rogers Centre. Then, Sarama said, “It will be, ‘This is what it’s really going to be like, to watch our team play in another city.’ ”
Until then, the future of the franchise is the discomfiting, if distant, subtext for the new season.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” Bob Schwartz, a local businessman, said. “You would think it increases the viability of the franchise, but it also makes it more attractive to some deep-pocketed individual. It’s extra sweet when we can start talking about things like the playoffs and the Super Bowl. And even that is bittersweet.”
Schwartz, 47, has been a Bills season-ticket holder for 21 years. He considers the threat of a relocation so real that he recently started a Web site called billsinbuffalo4ever.com to rally fans, businesses and politicians to figure out a way to keep the Bills here. Schwartz dislikes the games in Toronto, calling it taking the mountain to Mohammed instead of drawing Toronto’s corporate dollars to Buffalo.
People like Schwartz, then, are unlikely to embrace one proposed solution by the Erie County executive, Chris Collins, who is essentially the Bills’ landlord at Ralph Wilson Stadium. It counts on a new owner not wanting to pay an additional $1 billion to build a new stadium — although that would presumably not apply to Rogers, who already owns the stadium in Toronto, where Canadian Football League games are already played.
“I don’t know any Buffalo Bills fan who wouldn’t consider it a major win, if we were the Buffalo Bills headquarters and we played six or seven games in Orchard Park and one or two in Toronto,” Collins said. “If that were the end game, we’d be standing cheering.”
In the meantime, the Bills are giving fans plenty to cheer about. This is the team’s first winning September since 2000, and the two consecutive nail-biter victories seem to mirror the survive-and-advance nature of the franchise these days.
“I can see how fans can look at the future — you see it and sense it,” receiver Lee Evans said. “It’s hard to speculate what’s going to happen. But I think this season gives people who have been here and the loyal fans we have some excitement. It’s been a long time since we’ve been in this position.”
Evans knows a little something about devoted fans worried for their team’s survival. He grew up in Cleveland.
Skip to next paragraph
Rick Stewart/Getty Images
Ryan Denny, right, caught a touchdown pass off a fake field goal in the season opener against Seattle. The Bills are 3-0.
Analysis and discussion of the N.F.L. on the New York Times pro football blog.
Go to The Fifth Down Blog »
It is the middle of the work week, so the chairs are empty, the Bills are in film meetings, and the smell of grilled meat from last Sunday’s tailgate parties has finally dissipated in Orchard Park. But the Bills’ location — their pretense-free 35-year-old stadium is dug deep into the earth, so the upper deck does not loom too high over the residential neighborhood a few hundred feet away — has always been part of the team’s charm, a cozy tableau from a bygone era when football teams could be founded for $25,000.
This season, the neighbors are especially happy because the Bills are 3-0. A top-flight defense, scintillating special teams and a young, engaging quarterback hark back to the glory days of the franchise. It has been 10 seasons since the Bills made the playoffs. But in the snap of Tom Brady’s knee, they have suddenly become the team to beat in the American Football Conference East and among the best in the entire conference. Their game Sunday against the winless St. Louis Rams — and the fifth-easiest schedule in the N.F.L. — has Bills fans thinking bigger than they have since Marv Levy roamed the sideline as the coach.
“I remember last year when we were 0-3 and how frustrated and hungry and excited to play everybody in the locker room was to go out and get that first win,” defensive tackle Kyle Williams said. “It doesn’t feel any different during the week, maybe on Sunday afternoon. When you look at it, we’re 3-0, we’re not fighting from the bottom of the barrel, we don’t have to feel like we have a huge hill to climb.”
But there is always at least a little hill for Buffalo to climb — they lost four consecutive Super Bowls in the early 1990s, after all. The Bills’ future is in question because the team owner, Wilson, 89, has made clear that he will not bequeath the team to a family member upon his death. For a new owner, relocation of the franchise, which is in one of the N.F.L.’s smallest markets, would be a consideration, whether to Canada, Los Angeles or some other more lucrative locale.
Prompting the latest concerns was the Bills’ agreement to play an eight-game series of preseason and regular-season games over five years in Toronto, about 90 minutes away. The Bills have drawn fans from across the border for years, and they and the N.F.L. maintain that the Toronto series is an effort to make the Bills a regional team — the way Green Bay, which for years played some games in Milwaukee, has colonized the upper Midwest — to draw corporate dollars from Toronto. It follows the Bills’ decision to hold training camp in Rochester.
Still, Wilson’s acceptance of $78 million from the Canadian communications billionaire Ted Rogers, who covets an N.F.L. franchise, to host the games struck some fans as a blow to a city that Forbes recently called one of the fastest dying in the United States. And it has raised fears that this is the first step toward the Bills eventually leaving for good.
“The success of the team is really the only thing to put it on the back burner,” said the former Bills special-teams star Steve Tasker, who is now an analyst for CBS Sports. “There’s no question it would be a big hole in the fabric of the community. Other businesses can come and go from town, but if the Buffalo Bills left, that would be very big.”
The Bills sold more than 56,000 season tickets this year, the most since 1992, and Commissioner Roger Goodell, who grew up in western New York, has indicated he would prefer the team remain in Buffalo. Fans have become somewhat hardened to periodic talk of relocation since the 1970s, said Scott Sarama, who grew up in western New York and founded the Web site twobillsdrive.com (the Bills’ address is One Bills Drive) in 1996.
He and almost everyone else count on the idea that, with Wilson committed to not selling or moving the team while he is alive, and the difficulties of relocation within the N.F.L., Buffalo will probably not have to face the worst for years, if ever.
When the Bills played a preseason game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Toronto, The Toronto Star reported that before kickoff, tickets were being sold for one-tenth of face value. The atmosphere was unusual: because of an open container law, tailgating — a revered tradition even in the most bitter Buffalo winter — was not allowed at the Rogers Centre.
A better read on the N.F.L.’s popularity in Toronto will come in December when the Bills play a regular-season game against the Miami Dolphins at the Rogers Centre. Then, Sarama said, “It will be, ‘This is what it’s really going to be like, to watch our team play in another city.’ ”
Until then, the future of the franchise is the discomfiting, if distant, subtext for the new season.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” Bob Schwartz, a local businessman, said. “You would think it increases the viability of the franchise, but it also makes it more attractive to some deep-pocketed individual. It’s extra sweet when we can start talking about things like the playoffs and the Super Bowl. And even that is bittersweet.”
Schwartz, 47, has been a Bills season-ticket holder for 21 years. He considers the threat of a relocation so real that he recently started a Web site called billsinbuffalo4ever.com to rally fans, businesses and politicians to figure out a way to keep the Bills here. Schwartz dislikes the games in Toronto, calling it taking the mountain to Mohammed instead of drawing Toronto’s corporate dollars to Buffalo.
People like Schwartz, then, are unlikely to embrace one proposed solution by the Erie County executive, Chris Collins, who is essentially the Bills’ landlord at Ralph Wilson Stadium. It counts on a new owner not wanting to pay an additional $1 billion to build a new stadium — although that would presumably not apply to Rogers, who already owns the stadium in Toronto, where Canadian Football League games are already played.
“I don’t know any Buffalo Bills fan who wouldn’t consider it a major win, if we were the Buffalo Bills headquarters and we played six or seven games in Orchard Park and one or two in Toronto,” Collins said. “If that were the end game, we’d be standing cheering.”
In the meantime, the Bills are giving fans plenty to cheer about. This is the team’s first winning September since 2000, and the two consecutive nail-biter victories seem to mirror the survive-and-advance nature of the franchise these days.
“I can see how fans can look at the future — you see it and sense it,” receiver Lee Evans said. “It’s hard to speculate what’s going to happen. But I think this season gives people who have been here and the loyal fans we have some excitement. It’s been a long time since we’ve been in this position.”
Evans knows a little something about devoted fans worried for their team’s survival. He grew up in Cleveland.
Comment