shelby
10-26-2008, 08:02 AM
This was never just another game to Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, Bruce Smith, Darryl Talley, and all the rest of the Super Bowl Bills from the late 1980s and early 1990s.As a matter of fact, it was never just a game to the guys on the other side of what used to be one of the NFL's most fervent rivalries as ex-Dolphin stars like Dan Marino, Mark Duper, Richmond Webb, John Offerdahl and Bryan Cox carried as much contempt for the Bills as the Bills did for the Dolphins.
But that's all it will be today – just another game — when the Bills put their 5-1 record and first-place standing in the AFC East on the line against 2-4 Miami at Dolphin Stadium.
"I don't think of this game any differently," said quarterback Trent Edwards, now in just his second year with the Bills and completely oblivious to the tensions that used to arise whenever the Bills and Dolphins played each other back in the day when division supremacy was almost always on the line.
"I take it just as seriously as I have the last six games. I know a lot of the fans make this to be a rivalry game, but I don't think I have been surrounded by this rivalry long enough to really appreciate it, so I might be a little naïve to this setting and environment.''
Unfortunately, Edwards is not alone. As the Buffalo and Miami franchises have suffered through hard times in the new millennium – the Bills haven't made the playoffs since 1999, the Dolphins since 2001 — the longtime AFC East protagonists don't quite share the same distaste they once did for each other.
The rivalry has been diminished, mainly because the games have rarely meant much of anything in terms of the NFL playoff picture.
"Since I have been here it has been more of a rivalry when you (reporters) talk about it as a rivalry," said cornerback Terrence McGee, who has been with the Bills for five years. "When you get out on the field there's no trash talking from them and no trash talking from the other side, so it's more of a pregame thing."
Which is to say it's more of a fan thing. These days players and coaches come and go and rarely are they around in one place long enough to ever understand what a rivalry in the NFL is all about. But the fans are emotionally invested for life and Bills backers have hated the Dolphins for four decades, and vice versa.
more.... (http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20081026/SPORTS03/810260433/1007/SPORTS)
But that's all it will be today – just another game — when the Bills put their 5-1 record and first-place standing in the AFC East on the line against 2-4 Miami at Dolphin Stadium.
"I don't think of this game any differently," said quarterback Trent Edwards, now in just his second year with the Bills and completely oblivious to the tensions that used to arise whenever the Bills and Dolphins played each other back in the day when division supremacy was almost always on the line.
"I take it just as seriously as I have the last six games. I know a lot of the fans make this to be a rivalry game, but I don't think I have been surrounded by this rivalry long enough to really appreciate it, so I might be a little naïve to this setting and environment.''
Unfortunately, Edwards is not alone. As the Buffalo and Miami franchises have suffered through hard times in the new millennium – the Bills haven't made the playoffs since 1999, the Dolphins since 2001 — the longtime AFC East protagonists don't quite share the same distaste they once did for each other.
The rivalry has been diminished, mainly because the games have rarely meant much of anything in terms of the NFL playoff picture.
"Since I have been here it has been more of a rivalry when you (reporters) talk about it as a rivalry," said cornerback Terrence McGee, who has been with the Bills for five years. "When you get out on the field there's no trash talking from them and no trash talking from the other side, so it's more of a pregame thing."
Which is to say it's more of a fan thing. These days players and coaches come and go and rarely are they around in one place long enough to ever understand what a rivalry in the NFL is all about. But the fans are emotionally invested for life and Bills backers have hated the Dolphins for four decades, and vice versa.
more.... (http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20081026/SPORTS03/810260433/1007/SPORTS)