One Fan's View: Fandom Questioned

by Kevin Shenoy

Congratulations to the Bills. They did it. They actually finally did it. I’m not sure I even want to watch any more games. Not for just this year either. I’m talking about all Bills games, forever. But we finally got here. We haven’t beaten the Pats since 2003. For a little perspective, in 2003 we all thought we’d die of SARS. Now we know we are just going to die from BILLS.

The same boring, death by a thousand cuts Bills are playing week in week out since 2003. I’ve been stupid enough to think the small inconsequential changes they’ve made would actually build to something bigger. But they aren’t. This 2008 team has all the same glaring holes that the 2003 team had. And in those 5 years, countless changes from coaches to QB’s to DL personnel to RB’s has happened. Yet the product is as weak as ever.

It took a while, thirty years to be exact, for me to lose faith. I look at older fans, and they at least had the 1964-65 seasons to vindicate some of their fandom. I’ve witnessed nothing but heartbreak. In fact, the seasons with the most heartbreak (the four Super Bowl losses) are actually known as the glory years. How messed up is that?

The History of a Bills fan
In these last 8 years, we have seemingly seen every possible combination of bad football teams go through Orchard Park. This is the first one where they have teased us at the beginning with a chance of legitimacy. Sure, in 2003 we were given the 2-0 Bills, but that was taken away from us early with an ill advised half back option by a crack dealing RB.

I just didn’t think God would put us at 5-1 and then take it away from us. Was it the rooting of the Brady injury that made Him so spiteful? If you recall, they were caught cheating. I thought cheating was worse that contentment of circumstances. If that isn’t the case, then a lot of religious literature needs some updates.

I’ve sat through the 2-14 seasons, the 4 superbowl losses, the last 8 years of no playoff football, and it just isn’t going to get better. There is zero commitment from this team, this league, this owner, this coach to make me believe that this team is ever going to make it to the playoffs and be a legitimate team. George Costanza once famously said, “I can’t envision ever having sex in my life again.” Similarly, I can’t see how the Bills will ever be competitive against good teams in my life again.

It seems like pathetic stretches like the ones we are going through right now, just rolls off the players and coaches backs. They “will look at that on film on Tuesday and go from there.” That’s great for them. Meanwhile, I’m crying like a child wondering, “when am I going to get a turn!!!” Guys, there is no mansion that I go home to. I don’t have a posse that parties at da club. I don’t have a swimming pool with a grotto in my backyard. I don’t have a set of gold teeth. I don’t have some other ridiculous indulgence to make me think, “it’s just a game.” The NFL is my ridiculous indulgence. It costs me thousands of dollars a year. And it seems like it’s coming to an end.

My Personal 5 years
I bought season tickets in 2003. I thought, “hey they are getting better. They can do this soon. I’d love to be able to go to a playoff game and be a part of a championship run from day 1.” Now a playoff game feels like it’s the “Great Pumpkin” And I’m sitting here like Linus with my Bills blanket and my thumb in my mouth.

In 2003, we opened the season with a 31-0 butt kicking of the Patriots. I remember even thinking, “ok, we are apparently way ahead of schedule. We timed this ticket thing pretty well.” It all seemed right. It hasn’t gone well since.

This Bills-Patriots game took me to a place that I have never been. Sure, we’ve sat through a staggering number of boring games where our defense can’t get off the field and our offense can’t be expected to move the ball forward a single yard.

Last week started me down the slippery slope with the statement, “maybe we shouldn’t get tickets next year.” Now I am more certain about giving up on this team. I honestly feel like I am a welfare check for the Bills staying in Buffalo. Isn’t this the criticism about welfare in this country? People want the money, but they don’t want to work for the money. Whether it’s true or not in the political sense is one story. But for the Bills, that line of thinking is spot on.

How can we fans be expected to support this, when the team itself doesn’t even look interested in playing in Foxboro? The Patriots are without QB, RB, a secondary, and a respectable OL. It isn’t going to get easier than this. Yet we still get run out of the stadium. This team apparently has no pride to fight off yesteryear’s team debacles and step up for a huge win.

Why is it that College players get so caught up in rivalries and the history of the game, but at the NFL level, it’s just business. Seems to me that makes an incredible case on why we shouldn’t be paying players all that much. They seem to get into it more when it’s all for free. Maybe if we gave all the players the same wages and said, you get a lump sum based on the historic value of your play at the end of your career, they’d try a whole lot harder.

If the Bills won this game, they were right back in the race for the playoffs. Now the Bills are the black guy in a horror movie. We know we’re the first one to get kicked out of the playoff race of the teams left with a pulse.

Dick Jauron - great coach; wrong level
You really can’t say enough negative things about Dick Jauron, the NFL coach, over the course of the last 3 weeks. Last year, I was willing to see JP play to make my final decision. If JP was talented, he’d have struggled, but there would have been games where he was the positive difference maker. It never materialized, and I wrote JP off.

This year is Dick’s turn. I knew that he needed his time getting accustomed to his players and get what he felt like he needed to succeed. Everyone said three years was the deciding point. Well here we are, and of all the games he has won, not once has it been because he out-coached a team. The bad teams we played, we played close. Other teams would make gaffes that would let us win. Never has he come out with a lights out complete game that baffles the other team. This coach has lost us games. The Dallas game comes to mind as a classic example. The Jets game last week was a good point. In the end, I think he’s shown me enough that he can’t get it done. Even during the good times, he hasn’t gone above and beyond to show that he is in the top 10 of coaches.

I will say this though; if I had a child playing sports, I’d love Dick Jauron to be his coach. Dick Jauron loves that everyone is trying; he hopes everyone is having fun; he thinks next week is going to be better for no other reason other than it being a different week.

If your foot is hurt, rest it. If you’re cold, put a jacket on. If your dad is in the crowd, make sure you wave to him when you are lining up at the line of scrimmage. At the end of the game, we’re all smiles, we’re happy. We tried. We lost by a thousand points, but guess what? There are CapriSun drinks in the cooler. Let’s let our worries go, enjoy the sugary goodness of the post game snack and get back to life. That’s the guy who should be running my yet-to-be-born son’s team. This is a little league head coach.

However, an NFL team that has a fanbase that deserves better. Signing Dick Jauron 3 weeks ago was equivalent to buying all the Mortgage backed securities weeks before the crash. The NFL and Ralph doesn’t bailout teams though. They make you pay for their mistakes.

What does the future hold?
I don’t want Jauron as the coach, but I also don’t want to go through rebuilding again. Four weeks ago, it seemed that we just needed to tweak our OL to get a run game going. It seemed that we just needed to wait for Hardy to learn to have some depth at WR. It seemed like Robert Royal would carry us through until a better tight end surfaced. Our DL looked like it was decent at stopping the run and that the LBs were good as blitzers and run stuffers. It looked like we were stacked in the secondary. This team overall seemingly had depth.

Now you could honestly tell me we need to draft a stud at every one of those positions in the first round, and I’d believe you. This team is the American economy. Everything that could go wrong is going wrong. Any idea that you have to fix it, and it creates another set of problems. “Let’s raise taxes”, but businesses would get hurt. “Let’s help the middle class,” but we don’t have the cash to do that.

Similarly “let’s blitz LB’s to rush the QB”, yet the underneath dumpoff pass is open. “Let’s rush just the 4 DL”, yet the WRs eventually get separation and make catches down the field. On offense, you run outside because you can’t run inside and it gets stuffed. You throw long, it gets picked off. You pass short, it gets stuffed short of the sticks. What is the answer? I don’t know and that’s fine since I’m not a coach. But it’s sad that even our coaches have no answers.

Where do I go from here
I’m not even threatening to pick another team. If I ditch the Bills, I ditch it all. I won’t root for anyone else. Somewhere in my heart I believe in the power of Hollywood. Every story is 3 acts. The first act is always the set up and the rising conflict. You are given the set up that the Bills could be good this year, but you see that there may be problems ahead. You see that they are falling apart at the seams in the Dolphins and the Jets games. Then it hits its apex where all the bad cards have been dealt. They lose to the Patriots for the millionth time. End of Act 2. Act 3 starts withe Rocky training montage and the Bills battle back from it all. Since they’ve been through so much up to the apex of their problems, their payoff is going to be even sweeter. Super Bowl here we come and victory is ours, and we all pretend we never doubted them here in week10.

It really is the only hope we have, as far fetched as it is. I know that’s how movies in Hollywood are made. But I know scripts written in Buffalo usually follow a tragedy formula and always end very poorly for the fans.

Addendum: Politics and the Bills
Well, since some of you asked in the fanzone and in email, yes my guy won the Presidency. As a Bills fan, a Sabres fan, and a guy who tends to vote for Democrats, I have to say Tuesday was a bit of a shocker. I felt like the kids from Blue Lagoon when they fell in love. “What is this warm feeling? Why is my heart beating faster?” My Giants’ friends had to tell me that that was what winning felt like. So this is it. Cool.

Imagine the year 1965. This is right after the Bills won their last championship (AFL). A guy walks up to a Bills fan right after the game and says, “we’re going to put a man on the moon, a phone with no cords in your house, a cell phone in your pocket, a black man in the White House, 2 red sox championships in Boston, and destroy the global economy before the Bills win again.” Would that fan have believed it?

I wonder how many more things will change before the Bills win. As it stands now, if some guy came up to me in an all black suit with a colorful V stitched on from crotch to shoulders and said in sharply punctuated sentences, “The Bills will not win again until space travel is available to the everyman, the Back to the Future Delorean will be functional, science will allow milk to stay fresh for a full month, and history knows Chad Pennington as a strong armed quarterback with the will to win,” I think I’d have no choice but to buy it. This guy from the future also probably knows that the Bills won’t be playing for Buffalo.


DVD Extras

* Non partisan Bills talk I have my fingers crossed that the good luck that John McCain had at the beginning of the GOP Primaries happens to the Bills. You remember that McCain’s campaign was left for dead at the beginning of the election process, but then he turned it on and took over to win the GOP nomination. The Bills could follow this model. Disregard the bad news and move onward. Of course, this works out well for Buffalo because it means we’ll go all the way to the end, but finish without victory. That, of course, is prototypical Buffalo.

* Non Partisan Bills Talk #2 All the Bills fans who had Obama signs on their front lawn, please take them down to One Bills Drive and scribble, “12-4” right under the “yes we can” part. And McCain Bills fans, take your signs down to One Bills Drive and cross out “Country” and write in “Win” on the “Country First” signs. Ralph Nader and Bob Barr Bills fans, don’t do anything. I don’t even know that you guys had signs.

* Could the refs suck more? First with the weak 15 yard penalty on Simpson, then not allowing us to challenge the pass to Welker, then skimping on the punt return interference, then calling Stroud on a phantom holding call, then never calling the offensive holding on several rush attempts, then letting Wilfork tee off on Edwards. When does it stop? Every time the Bills play the Patriots, I feel like I am watching a WWE contest. The Patriots are doing something so blantantly illegal, yet the refs are caught looking another way telling the tag team partner he can’t get into the ring. Meanwhile, our guy is getting choked into unconsciousness. They call the onside kick for Buffalo, don’t review it, but then give it to New England. I get that in the review it looked like it touched a Bills player, but they didn’t even review it. But somehow, they knew to give it to the Patriots. Pathetic. It only seems to consistently happen against the Patriots. I know the players and coaches get fined for saying it, but I don’t. The REFS BLOW in this league, and this year it has been particularly bad. Seems to me that we might have a little gambling problem going on in this league.

* 11-18 on 3rd Down Bills allowed 11 1st downs on 18 3rd down attempts. Wow.

* Mckelvin vs Edwards Edwards threw for 120 yards. McKelvin returned for 138 yards. Wow again.

* Denney didn’t play so poorly this time He was actually on the field for positive plays. Wow cubed.

* My theory on run game Run the reverse. Even just the formation without the reverse in there. It’ll hold the ends on the edges for a second. At this point, you got to do whatever you can possibly do.

* If this game was played last year Last year’s team that lost 56-10 looked light years ahead of this year’s team. If we faced the same Brady led team as last year, every one of us knows it would have been worse. WORSE! How is that possible?

* Mark curse reversed Mark has a history of buying jersey’s and destroying that players career. Think of him as Ned from “Pushing daisies”. If he touches it, he kills it. However, he has no resuscitation skills. Or does he? We are thinking maybe if he buys a jersey of a bad player, he may make that player good again. Mark has an incredible amount of despise for Hardy. If he gets the jersey and we see Hardy’s play improve, Mark might have to buy all the stuff that Jauron wears.

* Pats fans worse that the Refs Again the Patriots fans worst ever. I went to the sports bar and a Patriots fan shows up. “You a Bills fan?” I’m sitting in a Bills jersey. “No, I actually am an Indian guy who knows nothing about football and some jerk put this jersey on me and shoved me into a dark bar on a nice Sunday afternoon.” I said, “yes.” He then says, “We’re all pats fans.” This is followed up with the big sniff, pant pull up/belly rub that you typically get from a contractor after they explain how they are going to fix the pipes in your bathroom. He then gestures to an empty table behind him as though 12 other Patriot fans were going to show up. “Ok,” I said and that was it. He just stood there with this cockiness that I’m sure he learned at Chote school of preppiness. He follows up with, “are you guys going to use this TV?” “Yeah, we are when my pal shows up.” “Ok.” He sits down. Then two seconds later, he turns it to his direction making it impossible for us to see, “just let me know when your pal gets here and I’ll turn it back.” Is there a decent Pats fan out there who actually followed the Grogan Patriots with the same zeal that I’ve followed the Collins Bills, the Losman Bills, the Bledsoe Bills? My hate is so deep for all of Boston and their fans. These 20 something kids are popping out of the woodworks in their retro pats t-shirts. How the 18-1 season didn’t humble them back to their crappy roots, I don’t know.

* Miami Fan/friend found I stand corrected on my “Do I have any Dolphin fan friends out there.” Paris’ cousin Mike is a big Dolphins fan and he’s a good guy. I only know him tangently, but 1 out of millions of Dolphins fans still gives Dolphin fans an incredibly low rate of friendship.

* Atlanta Falcons part two Last week I mentioned that Matt Ryan and the Falcons had the same record as us. Let’s not forget that rookie head coach and rookie QB of the Baltimore Ravens have gotten ahead of us in the standings. More kudos to the Bills.

* Derrick Dockery and the OL You know what sucks other than heart disease, Derrick? Your blocking. A number of times he just got abused. And the rest of the linemen went through the same thing. How does this happen to the biggest line in football? They are being tossed aside by smaller DL. Unbelievable.

* Lehman on the Bills? Neil told me about this, but the Bills signed a guy named Lehman as a linebacker. I guess we’re looking for Enron as a possible fill in at CB, WorldCom for tight end, and the former war hero, General Motors, as the new owner.

* Neil can tell your fortunes In a fit of rage, Neil sent me an article that he wrote that Thursday before the game. He predicted all the quotes that the team would use after they lost the game. He talked about how turnovers would kill us and that general coaching woes would be abundant. I read his article again after the game and it was spot on. Pathetic that the Bills are so predictable that you can write their eulogy well in advance of their death.

* Wall St Journal tries to make amends On Friday, the WSJ (which apparently T9’s as “Sad” on most blackberrys and makes me laugh) noted that most NFL teams are upping their security teams and some have players tailed. They showed the Bills’ Chris Clark on the front page. Langston Walker says that someone intentionally spilled a drink on him, and he worried about how the league would perceive it if the situation escalated. Personally, I’d like to meet the guy who throws a drink on Langston Walker. Say what you will about his blocking, but his hulking frame and my general kind disposition towards others would probably keep me from throwing a drink on him. Whoever did this either has a death wish and is so arrogant that he thinks, “Whatever, I’ll take 300+lbs of man on.” Or he is just as huge. And if that’s the case, can he block?

* Economic storm I’m beginning to think that if you live in Detroit, purchased your home 4 years ago, have a job at one of the major 3 automakers, insured your car and home by AIG, and love the Detroit Lions, you are in the worst possible shape of all Americans.


Kevin Shenoy can be contacted at binaural02@hotmail.com. While I may not be able to respond to each email, I certainly appreciate the feedback.