One Fan's View: Almost vomit inducing

by Kevin Shenoy

To start, you got a small side of blow out showings in the first quarter. Then you got a small side of “God hates the Bills” when Jackson fumbled. A huge helping of predictability and lack of aggression was served during the 3rd quarter. As a finale, the team gave you another side of “we’re attempting to lose this game” with oddly paired wine of “we’re going to close this out and win”.

Tapas traditionally leaves me thinking most of the items were average to Ok, I’m full for now but I know I’m going to have to eat a real meal in like 50 minutes, and one dish really stood out, if only it was bigger. That is exactly what the Bills win was like. It was nice to win, but I’m left just as concerned as I went into this season. However, I really liked that last drive where we drove down and put the game away. If only they did that earlier.

That Jackson fumble was vomit inducing, wasn’t it? I know we talk a lot about Buffalo being cursed. How else do you explain the Jackson fumble? At that point we were winning 20-7. Jackson was gobbling up yards by the boat load. He was impossible to bring down. Then as we are driving to put the dagger in the beast’s heart, he “fumbles.” I have a hard time calling it a fumble. Fumble by definition is “to drop.” Fred Jackson most definitely threw it up in the air like a hot potato. Once it reached its apex and was heading down, then it’s a fumble. But no one ever touched the ball. It was like a poltergeist type event where he was just possessed to throw it straight into the air.

I haven’t seen a fumble that awful since the Dwight Wright fumble against the Patriots 2 years ago. The only explanation that I’ve come up for this is that Bin Laden is a Bills fan. He is just sitting in his cave listening to Whitney Houston CDs watching Bills games. Knowing the NFL they probably stream games in HD to him in Afghanistan. But I digress. I’ve never seen a fumble like that, nor do I ever want to see one like that again.

Should we ever be lucky enough to find Bin Laden, I suggest a thorough cleaning of his cave of any and all Bills gear. I bet the whole organization has a huge box of those “Bills Superbowl Champion” reject tshirts made in the 90s. They’re probably wearing them right now. Just when you thought you couldn’t hate Al-Qaeda any more. Perhaps we send some sort of Delta Force unit to get those shirts back.

After that play the Bills went with a strange selection of plays. The receivers seemed to be running longer routes and Trent was indecisive with throwing the ball. The Bills settled into running Jackson and throwing short passes. It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that the Bills seemed to snap back to life and went to TO.

For me, I was watching the game on delay because I had gotten back from Boston at 5pm. So I was watching without access to the outside world, lest they ruin it for me. So when TO caught the TD, the Bills were up 16 points. Then my dad called me.

When I saw his number on my cell, I got nervous. He isn’t the type to just call at the end of a game. So I was positive that somehow…someway…the Bills blew a 16 point lead. I ignored the call because I didn’t want to hear it and I knew I had to see it with my own eyes first.

Then the Bucs converted 4th and 10 and 4th and goal. I was getting nauseous. It’s true. They did blow this. My friend Rohit watched the Pats game with me the week earlier. And not being a Bills fan he said at the 5 minute mark, “so many things have to go wrong for you guys to lose.” And I told him, “Rohit, you just don’t understand Bills football. They’ll find a way.” Even at 16 points, I was thinking, “damn you Bin Laden. Those t-shirts aren’t even made with high quality cotton. Why do you have to wear them? I’ll offer you 82 virgins if you just stop rooting for the Bills.” True, that kind of promise can lead to afterlife virgin inflation, but it’s a risk that I’m willing to take.

But somehow, the Bills got the ball on a strange non-onside kick, non-squib kick. Jackson learned a lesson from last week by advancing the ball to the point of contact and then dropping to the ground. Hooray for learning. And then, the Bills just slapped together a nice drive with a great run to close out the game. And like that the Bills won their first game of the year. And my first thought, “Phew, we aren’t going to end this season without a win.”

DVD Extras:

• Looking backwards - Not to harp on this, but this MNF loss really struck everyone in the facebook world. Everyone that I know as friends from Buffalo had a comment as their status. My sister’s friend I believe had the best one. “This game makes me want to stop watching the Bills and watch a season of Project Runway instead.” For some reason that really just made me laugh.
  Looking forward – The Bills win was exciting, but they need to beat the Saints for me to trust that we aren’t following last year’s model .
• Fred Jackson - He moves so slowly. I don’t mean that as a knock on the guy either. But it’s like watching the Matrix with Jackson being Neo. On that 43 yard run at the end, he should have been tackled 3 different times. But he just fluidly kept moving down the field. And it seemed like tacklers were approaching him quickly, but he was just invincible to their tackles. I love the Fred Jackson patience.
• Monkey off #1 - Did anyone see that monkey fall off the shoulders of Whitner on the interception TD return? He has taken over the JP Losman spot of personal whipping boy for fans anger. The guy was getting labeled as a bust simply because he was taken as an 8 pick and didn’t play like an 8 pick. Once he had the interception, I felt his sense of relief. Hopefully this is some defining moment for him. Sometimes players need to develop slowly and over time. Other times it just takes one play to give them confidence. I’m hoping for the latter for Whitner.
• Monkey off #2 – TO’s touchdown allowed him to shake off the dropped TD from earlier. He didn’t even have a celebration, he just ran around the endzone happy to be there. I thought it was interesting that he didn’t make it a patentedly “me” moment and enjoyed it with the crowd and the team. Hopefully he starts getting into it more rather than sulking around on the sidelines by himself.
• Trent Bledsoe – I love that Trent scrambled for 20 yards and didn’t slide, but that shot he took from the DB was ridiculous. As fans we already question his durability. The sound of that hit and the way he fell, it looked like the shot that Bledsoe took as his last days of unquestioned starter for New England. I don’t need to see Trent take brutal shots and get up to prove to me he’s durable. I need to see him not get hit so that he can do his thing.
• Penalties for the Bucs – As much as we said last week that the Bills were done in by penalties at the wrong times of the game, I think we benefited greatly from the Bucs lack of discipline. Perhaps if they cut out their face mask penalties, they could have had a different outcome. Three of those penalties pushed the ball ahead and put the Bills in field goal range. Without those penalties, the Bills wouldn’t have scored points.
• Leftwich – How many of you started throwing the football around after the game simply because you said, “if leftwich is employed throwing those dead ducks, I have to at least get a look at.” I’m stunned that Losman doesn’t get a shot with this team. He at least throws a spiral and isn’t in pain every time he gets hit. Plus he doesn’t look like a gigantic Gary Coleman lookalike. Leftwich’s face inside his helmet looked like he was in a perpetual state of asking, “watchu talkin’ about Willis?”
• Has Maybin signed yet? I ask that half jokingly. I realize he’s a raw rookie with a lot to learn, but I just haven’t heard his name at all. Marcus Buggs’ name came up more than Maybin’s so far. Hopefully, in the words of Al Pacino’s “A Scent of a Woman” character, he’s just warming up.

Time Warner sucks it raw and ruined the Bills game. My FOX HD on Time Warner has not worked correctly for 8 months. Any time I record FOX HD, my program is invariably cut into multiple segments and the end usually is never there. After an amusingly angry letter that I wrote Time Warner, they finally acknowledged the problem. I was given my own dedicated customer service agent and a direct line instead of the 30 minute jerkabout of the automated calling system. Ms. Zephyr (I’m not making that up) has sent countless technicians who have changed the box 4 times. They have conducted line checks; they’ve done it all. But they each say the same thing, “this is an IT issue. It’s a big problem for a lot of different people in the NY area. It’s not the box, it’s not the cable into your building or apartment. This is an IT issue that they need to take care of.”[/list

Why does this matter? Oh, well, because I was in Boston with friends for the weekend. However, even though I recorded the game before I left, I still had to leave my friends early to ensure that I could watch the game. Can you imagine not seeing the end of a Bills game?

When I turned on the TV, sure enough, the glitch still happened. I had 5 recordings of the Bills game. Luckily I caught up with real time and didn’t have to worry about whether it cut the end off or not. While the Bills were crushing the Bucs 17-0, I got a call from Ms. Zephyr. For 8 months, she hasn’t been able to pronounce my last name. And on the scale of 1-10 of difficult Indian last names, Shenoy ranks as a zero. “Mr. Sheneh, this is Ms. Zephyr. I wanted to check on the status….” I cut her off. I was sent into such a rage because this is 8 months of Jauron like DVR functionability that I’m working with. I literally have no idea if the shows will record and do its actual job. Anyways, I actually don’t recall anything that I said. For 8 months I’ve been incredibly patient. But here we are at 17-0 and she’s here to bring up their crappiness. I went off because I wasn’t sure if I was going to catch the end of the game. And within minutes of hanging up, it was 17-7 and the worries of “are they going to blow this” was fully on my head. So to recap, Time Warner still hasn’t fixed the problem. And they jinxed the blowout that was supposed to happen. If anyone works at Time Warner NYC or has a contact at FOX, I’d love to pass this story along.

As always, 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.