One Fan's View: “W ar winning. Swt!”

by Kevin Shenoy

The year. 2004. Your question is the following: “Which of the following most likely will not happen?”

A. The Bills lose a close game on the road and fail to go 2-0.
B. Lehman Brothers will fail.
C. John Kerry will be a major political figure for the foreseeable future.

Got your answer? Now it’s 2008 and pick answer. Strange how the context of time can change what you think to be true from what you know to be true.

Now the Lehman news hit close to home as my wife works (or worked depending on what we hear in the next couple days/weeks) at the company. On Sunday when the Bills won and I was genuinely pumped that we took a game from a playoff team in come-from-behind fashion on the road, it was quickly tempered by the fact the bankruptcy was imminent. Shelly’s co-worker called shortly after the game and told us everyone was coming into the office to pick up their stuff that Sunday night.

We went to her office shortly after to pickup her personal belongings. Incidentally we made the 11 o’clock news; Shell had speaking lines now immortalized as “It’s terrible….terrible. We’re packing up all our stuff.” I think she’s even youtubing our fame in the next week or so. I had non-speaking lines as I walked out with her planter, and 3 bags of personal stuff. That feed was later picked up national and international news. Our 15 minutes of fame never felt so sweet. Also seeing that we only used up 6 seconds, we still have 14 minutes and 24 seconds of fame left.

I watched the game with my cousins Neil and Radhika (of K. Mitchell housing fame). Neil was summoned to work (at a major financial institution) during the 3rd quarter as Lehman’s filing was imminent. Neil is my younger cousin, and I am proud that his Bills blood runs so deep that when his blackberry went off, his reaction was, “do you think I can wait until the end of the game?” Billions of dollars are up for grabs, and he wanted to watch the rest of the game. I’m proud to have him in the family. I know you’re proud of him as well. For the record, he did do the right thing and left for work.

He left after the onside kick debacle. As he was leaving for work, he was witnessing a classic Bills road loss. You know this game well. The Bills stun you with some early efficiency and a score, but then tale off in the middle. They should have been comfortably ahead, but were now fighting for their lives in the 4th. It was going to feel like another kick in the face loss that the team has mastered over the last 8 years. Neil left our table disgusted. Rightfully so. Radhika and I remained to witness the imminent, painful loss.

Yet out of nowhere, the Bills defense held the Jags to a field goal, got us the ball and then the offense drove the field to take the lead. But the pessimism runs so deep in Bills’ country. Radhika and I were like, “Too much time on the clock.” Suddenly our football sensibilities were reduced to NFL Blitz, the popular video game in the late 90’s where if you left 2 seconds on the clock and had a 7 point lead, you could very well lose the game.

Neil texted, “did we lose?” I barely could write back, “we’re winning.17-16.” Mostly because my ancient cell phone (to be replaced by an iphone this October; very exciting) has lost the ability to type the letter “e”. Secondarily, it was hard to write Neil back because I felt like I was going to have to text him 2 seconds later saying, “19-17.” But Neil, in classic Bills pessimism fashion, wrote back first, “19-17 F. Bah”.

When Lindell kicked the FG (props to Fancy I and even more props to Moorman for getting the snap down), I texted Neil, “20-16! W ar winning. Swt!” He wrote back in capital letters, “AMAZING!” And like that we may be shedding our losing image. We are finding ways to win instead of creating ways to lose. Perhaps we are turning the corner.

Lastly, it’s amazing how this game was very reminiscent of last year’s Jags game. The defense played well. They kept us in it. The offense kind of disappeared in the 2nd and 3rd Quarter, the momentum clearly shifts to the Jags favor, but the offense still has a chance with a drive to make it a game. Last year we throw the interception and this year we complete 3rd and 7 to Lee. Ahh, what a difference time makes.

DVD extras-

• What does all this mean? So I’ve been asked before the game and now that it is over, “What do you think this all means? 2-0. Are we for real?” My answer is that we’ve been down this dangerous road before. We beat a team soundly, then head to Jacksonville to get a win that suggests we are playoff bound. We all know how that turned out last time. You’d be remiss to not acknowledge our past. So I am very hesitant to say we are going anywhere, but the ride so far has been quite good. I look at the NFL season much like I look at Mario Kart. If you are leading early in the race, chances are you’re going to have more blue shells and heat seeking red shells thrown at you. Meanwhile, you’re just getting up bananas and green shells. A good Mario Kart player can get around these inconveniences and still win; a newbie will struggle and lose the race. At this point, I hope Jauron and Co know how to field all the obstacles on the remaining 2.5 laps of this season. They got the booster start to their season; they just have to know how to handle all the blue shells (or as my friend Pat calls them “Blue Justice”).
• Skip the conservative Bills talk, what is our record by Week 10 Being cautious about the early returns aside, at the beginning of the season, I really thought that the Bills could go 4-1 in the first 5 games and that the season would really start after the bye week. Now it looks like we can and should go 5-0. What makes it more compelling is that those 5 games after the bye all of sudden don’t look so bad either. San Diego is in a world of hurt after two close games and they’ll be coming to the East coast. Miami and NYJ are practically the same team. New England is an unknown quantity at this point. Who knows if they struggled against a weak Jets team or if Cassel is working the system well? I personally think the Patriots are going to struggle, but they have a cushy schedule. The only exciting note is that they play the Colts in Indy on Sunday night the week before our game. No more Pats after their bye week, thankfully. I think the Jets are closer to being in the company of the Dolphins than the Bills/Pats. And then it’s Monday night vs. a Cleveland team that looks worse than the 2005 Bills. 10-0 would be amazing, and it’s not entirely out of our grasp. Can you believe that? Even a conservative look at things should put as an 8-2 come mid November. In the words of Right Guard, “anything less would be uncivilized.”
• One of the difficult concepts that I am struggling with is Turk. Is he really that much of a difference or was Fairchild just that bad? Who knows? It’s like arguing if the wings sauce got so much better or if the beer is colder. Who cares? Enjoy it.
• How many games do you win when you allow two 4th down conversions and an onside kick recovery (by Peirson Pierlou nonetheless)? I am guessing none. You win none.
• Great game from Youboty. He had a key 3rd down stop that made the Jags settle for a FG after the onside kick. This gives me hope that he’ll channel his inner Merton Hanks and do the neck dance when he gets an INT this season. It’s too much of a waste if he doesn’t do it.
• My life as a non-defensive Bills fan. Two weeks into the season and I have no idea what to do with myself. Living in NYC since 2000, my time here has had me defending the Bills, the city of B-lo, the fans on a daily basis during the season. With slow Bills starts and plenty of delusional Jets, Giants, Pats, and Steeler fans, it was constant harassment. Think of me as Peggy Olsen from “Mad Men”, and all the other teams’ fans as the jackass Sterling Cooper team. Anyways, this season so far, Giant fans have an eyebrow quietly raised, Jets’ fans are practically conceding the season after the Pats loss, Steelers fans tend to stay classy, and Pats fans are fairly quiet as they tend to the injured. I feel like Inigo Montoya from Princess Bride. “I’ve been in this business of defending Buffalo for so long that I don’t even know what to do with myself now that we can hold our own.” Perhaps I’ll look into becoming the Dread Pirate Roberts. In some odd way, I’ve become the hockey goon who wants to fight someone, but everyone is Claude Lemieux and turtle-ing. I love it.
• Stat that gives you hope we turned the corner. We have the 3rd most “Points For” in the AFC. Wow. Can we possibly keep that up?
• Edwards missed those two preseason games and we worried he’d be rusty. What happens if he has been rusty these two weeks and the offense has been slow to gel? They looked capable but hardly illustrious through two weeks. I predict that the kinks have been worked out now and we are going to have some fireworks in week 3. At least that is what should happen if Turk and company are as good as advertised so far.
• Reasons to hate me. Am I the only person who thought Hardy’s right foot hit the line on the TD? Regardless if it did or not, isn’t it refreshing to have the breaks go our way for a change? They even got the throw forward call correct. 8 years later and the refs atone for their sins. Better late than never.
• The Shenoy Syndrome. I think it’s been well noted over the years in this column that when I am a fan of something or have a vested interest in something, that something always falls flat on its face. Initially, I thought it was due to my Buffalo roots and was limited to Buffalo Sports teams. But when I left Buffalo, I still was bringing down those somethings and they were non-Buffalo entities. I moved to NYC in 2000 and the Yankees have not won a single World Series since I’ve been paying attention (they won the subway series in 2000, but I wasn’t really following baseball in those first 3 months that I was there). Even worse, the Red Sox became the power house dismaying hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. I worked at Citi bank and that bank is in the midst of falling from a high of $50 to somewhere in the teens. My second job was at Dresdner. Just a few weeks ago it was taken over and the status of the investment bank is unknown, but it doesn’t look good. Now through marriage, I may have passed on the Shenoy syndrome to Shelly. Lehman is in the process of going under. Lehman was a storied company happily trucking along. Then we got married and within months of our nuptials fell flat on its face. I bought Jetblue at it’s height of $12 a share and it not only crumbles to below $5 a share but it has one of the most disastrous PR situations. Obviously I could sulk in my ability to bring down any company/team, but I’m looking to turn a profit. So my offer is this. If anyone wants to hire me at extraordinary sums of money to work at a company while you simulateous short that company, I’d be interested. God knows working in finance isn’t going to be paying the bills for long.
• Write in Campaign: I’d like to start a write-in campaign to the major networks that cover football. Please send a note along these lines, “watching a bunch of jocks trying to speak over each other is neither informative nor is particularly entertaining.” Every network has a similar formula for their highlights. Two former players flank the news host. The host introduces a matchup, they show 3 clips at supersonic speed, it pans to the former players who rip on each other until their banter ends in uproarious laughter, no one at home knows what was said or why it was funny, they all pause and look at the host, he then mentions either a Dallas/NE/NYJ/NYG/Philly game, and we are treated to 5 highlights instead of three. Rinse and repeat. I would rather not have the commentary from the peanut gallery and get more highlights.
• Economic meltdown effecting the NFL? I wonder as Wall Street consolidates and the inherent leverage within the US economy dwindles down how many companies really are going to have the money for the Personal Seat Licenses that the new New York Giants/Jets and Dallas Stadiums want. No one thought a Bear Stearns or Lehman would go under. Surely a big bank like Washington Mutual wouldn’t fold or the biggest insurer in AIG. Yet here they all are. When people talked about how the salary cap structure and yearly increases were unsustainable, people laughed. “The NFL is America’s pastime. People will find away. Let’s ask them to pony up $80,000 a year for the right to a seat.” I believe the debt that the NFL carries and its reliance on luxury suites to pad the salary cap will begin to unravel in the next few years. The NFL better hope TV continues to get major ad dollars, or they are going to have the same difficulties as every other company in America keeping their revenue up. The fall of Wall Street will effect the NFL. Just my two cents.

Kevin Shenoy can be reached at binaural02@hotmail.com