What's Not To Like?

Buffalo is cool. Literally.

Buffalo Bills fans, pretending to be Kiss

Four days in front of Sunday, you’d like to work up a lusty hate for Buffalo and its football team, but you simply cannot. Certain, obvious teams generate the abject loathing that fuels rivalries. Others suggest nothing more than indifference. The Bills?

They’re not the evil Steelers, they’re not the hapless Browns or the dirty birds from Baltimore. They’re not, I dunno, Houston or the Jets, against whom passion is a wasted emotion. It’d be like getting fired up over ballpeen hammers.

I’ll hate lug nuts until the day I die!

The Bills are a lot like we are. Their fans are loyal and insane. The team has the diehard market cornered. They’re good people, solid folks who take care of each other. They love their wings, we love our chili.

A couple years ago, Andy Dalton threw a late TD pass to beat the Ravens in the final game of the season. That B-more L sent the Bills to the playoffs for the first time in 17 years. What happened next? NYTimes, from Jan. 3, 2018:

Dalton’s improbable last-minute touchdown pass against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday cleared the path for Buffalo’s first playoff appearance since the 1999 season, and grateful Bills fans responded by channeling their excitement into charity. Dalton said that by Wednesday evening, 10,000 people had donated almost $250,000 to his foundation since the game, enough to cover most of the charity’s goals for all of 2018.

Many of the Bills fans donated $17 as a tribute to breaking their 17-year postseason drought. Before the Bills fans’ support, the foundation aimed to give six families each month grants averaging $2,000, for an annual budget of about $144,000. The money helps with medical bills and needed supplies.

But after exceeding the entire year’s fund-raising goals in just two days, the foundation will be able to increase the number of grants it gives or to fund other programs.

Bengals fans returned the love three weeks ago. The community rallied behind Damar Hamlin in a way that made us all feel good about the human condition.

We could try to dislike Buffalo. It’d be like disliking birthday parties.

Without Buffalo — and to a lesser extent, Cincinnati — the NFL loses part of its soul. The Cowboys sell more T-shirts, the Packers own the tradition. LA gives fans a nicer place to sit. But if you want to know where the league really lives, it’s in the wing bars and finished basements of Buffalo, where the team isn’t just a pearl on the civic necklace. It is the civic necklace.

It doesn’t diminish Buffalo to say the Bills are Buffalo. They make Phil Castellini’s derision sound prophetic. Where else you gonna go? If you’re a Bills fan, it’s more like, where else would you wanna go?

Nowhere but burrowed deep into the basement, with a keg behind the bar, Christmas lights filling the walls. A fire in the fireplace. The Bills at 1 on Sunday afternoon. As true as it gets.

Of course, it’s 18 outside, with a fastball of a wind coming off Lake Erie. All that does is enhance the coziness. It makes watching football guilt free. It’s not as if you can go mountain biking or roller-blading. It’s Buffalo in January. What else you gonna do?

The two cities share a common grief. No NF of L burgs have suffered for their passions the way Cincinnati and Buffalo have. The poet Tennyson wrote, “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’’ He must have grown up in Cheektowaga.

The Bills lost four consecutive Super Bowls. There’s a lesson in that, but it’s just too painful to find it. The Men are 0-for-3 and endured a Lost Decade that actually lasted 12 years. To be a Bills or Bengals fan, you gotta be tougher than a Lackawanna January. If losing builds character, we’re a coupla virtuous burgs.

I’ve been to Buffalo several times, whenever the Bengals played up there. Orchard Park, where the stadium is, is a Little Pink Houses kinda place. Not much there but stadium parking lots. At least not that I’ve seen. If you ever go to Buffalo, I’d recommend an airbnb in one of the close-in ‘burbs. I stayed twice in a huge Victorian in Elmwood Village, a delightfully walk-able area loaded with shops and restaurants.

Regardless, if you’re a Bengal Fan, losing to Buffalo could never feel as bad as losing to Pittsburgh.

Now, then. . .

WHICH GETS US TO SUNDAY. . . We tend to overanalyze big games. That complicates the issue and assumes analysis has a lot to do with picking winners. It really doesn’t. Ain’t that right, LA Chargers?

Bengals-Bills seems a pretty simple pick:

Who wins up front?

Open, shut.

If I’m a Bengals fan, I’d rather have lost Ja’Marr Chase than Jonah Williams. That’s how telling that injury could be Sunday. Williams hasn’t been great, but he’d started every game and was Good Enough, given the guy he was blocking for.

Jackson Carman?

If the Bills heat up Saint Joe, they’ll win. That said, no one is better than Burrow at evading the rush and getting the ball out quickly. But a big, steady rush limits Burrow’s options, and he doesn’t have a good running game to balance the scales.

The Bills defensive backs will benefit from the pressure. Their biggest jobs will be to keep the game in front of them, and tackle well. Make the Bengals scoring drives consume 7-8 minutes, not 3-4.

On the other hand, Josh Allen cannot turn the ball over. The Men’s D has become an opportunistic force, scoring a TD in each of the last 2 games. Allen is guilty of trying too hard. The pressure involved in this game will be immense. How will he handle it?

The question, then, is this: Do you believe more in the Bengals pass blocking? Or in Allen’s ability to play a clean game?

The Men needed a miracle to beat a beat-up 2nd-team QB at home last week. The Bills were taxed trying to beat a 3rd-team QB. No advantage there.

If the game were at PayJoe, I’d give it to the Bengals. Allen will benefit from the home support and, quite possibly, have some provin’ to do after last week. The Bills are 4-0 at home in the playoffs under Sean McDermott. Make it 5-0.

Bills 24

Bengals 23

GYM FOLLIES. . . Frequent Perusers will note my occasional gripes with inconsiderate people at the workout place. This was a good one yesterday: Guy sitting on bench, studying his cell phone. Six — count ‘em! — sets of dumbbells surrounding him like a moat.

Friend: Believe it or not, there are other people at the gym. Some actually use dumbbells, same as you. Lose the phone, rack five of the six sets of metal and get to work. K?

Then I go into the locker room after I’m done and there are four high school kids. . . lying on every square inch of bench space. Three were asleep, including the kid in front of my locker. I wanted to dump a cup of water on Mr. Clueless’ face. I just said excuse me instead.

What is wrong with people?

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Some love for homeboy Nils Lofgren, the most famous musician Walter Johnson HS in Bethesda, MD ever produced. Made extra special because the tune’s title was something my dad said to me, all the time.

If I say it, it’s so.