Over the past two weeks, there has been a love-fest with New Orleans and its beloved Saints. And, really, why not? Given all that Saints fans have gone through over the past few years in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the complete and utter devastation that it left behind, it’s nice to see the people there have something to rally around and cheer about.
But, at the same time, anyone who lives in New Orleans is also, more than likely, just as big a fan – if not bigger – for the LSU Tigers football team. And just three years ago, the Bayou Bengals won the national championship by dismantling Ohio State. Not only that, but the Tigers won the game in the Superdome in New Orleans. Really, how much better can it get than that?
The people of Buffalo, on the other hand, have had no such luck. Over the past 15 years, one woeful franchise after another has seen their fortunes take near 180-degree turns, as teams like the New England Patriots, St. Louis Rams, Arizona Cardinals and now the Saints have gone from being the league’s perennial doormats to having successive turns at the top of the sport.
Meanwhile, Buffalo has watched its football team suffer through 10 years without a playoff appearance, and, at one point, its hockey team was bankrupt and nearly left town entirely. Its a town in need of a change in luck, and soon. But will that change ever come?
One of my mother’s favorite stories to tell happened on January 3, 1993. As an eight-year-old, I was completely devoted to the Bills in the way only a kid of that age can be. Even after enduring two consecutive brutal Super Bowl losses (little did I know it would just get worse), I had unwavering optimism that this year would be different.
That day, the Bills hosted the Houston Oilers in the Wild-card playoffs, and watched Warren Moon lead Houston’s Run & Shoot offense up and down the field, giving the Oilers a 28-3 lead going into halftime. My grandfather, thinking I would obviously be devastated by this turn of events, called during the halftime break to give me a pep talk. The only thing was, I ended up giving the pep talk to him.
“Don’t worry, Grandpa,” I said. “The Bills will come back! You watch!”
Sure enough, they did. Some might chalck that up to youthful exuberance and enthusiasm and optimism, but that’s what it takes at times to be a Bills fan, to be from Buffalo, New York. It’s a wonderful city, but one that’s been hit by every kind of malady over the past 20 years. The failure of the steel industry drove thousands of jobs away. The loss of other factory jobs to overseas competition where wages are lower and benefits are nonexistent also took its toll.
And everyone knows about the weather.
Still, being from Buffalo is a prideful thing. Just like New Orleans has its own distinctive feel, the same can be said for Buffalo. The people there are bonded by the things they are forced to endure; the bitter weather, the increasing job losses, and the misery that comes with being a Bills fan.
These last 10 years have been tough ones for even fans of the Bills to take. One poor coach after another – from Gregg Williams to Mike Mularkey to Dick Jauron – has come and gone, while the front office has largely been made up of people who will do whatever the Bills 93-year-old owner, Ralph Wilson, wants them to do. The only time that wasn’t the case was when Wilson hired Tom Donahoe, formerly of the Steelers, to run the team, an experiment that totally backfired.
Now the Bills, after a decade of missing the playoffs, have turned to Chan Gailey, who hasn’t been an NFL head coach since the late 1990s, and 70-year-old Buddy Nix as the team’s general manager – a post he has never held in his lifetime in football.
When the Saints were hapless and flailing four years ago, after a brutal year in the wake of Katrina that saw them play more games on the road than at home and they finished with a 3-13 record, Saints owner Tom Benson handed his team over to a young, bright offensive mind in Sean Payton, who then took a chance on a Pro Bowl-caliber quarterback, Drew Brees, who had some issues with his throwing shoulder that scared teams away. Since then, the Saints have been one of the league’s most exciting teams, offering a frenzied, high-scoring offense coupled with, at least this season, an opportunistic defense (ironically led by the aforementioned former Bills head coach Gregg Williams) that propelled the franchise into its first-ever Super Bowl.
Could Gailey and Nix resurrect the Bills in similar fashion? It’s always possible. There’s talk that they are thinking about drafting Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen; perhaps he can become Buffalo’s present-day Jim Kelly, and be the guy to lead the team back to respectability – or maybe the Bills will go sign Michael Vick, and at least make things interesting.
So as the Saints take the field Sunday, many neutral observers around the country will be cheering for something good to happen to the “Who Dat Nation.” But me? I’ll be thinking about what it would feel like for Buffalo Bills fans to have one more chance to feel that excitement, to see their team run out of that tunnel one more time on the big stage.
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