Bills 44, Buccaneers 32

Anyone who has worked in or been associated with any organization of any size knows that one of the most common and enduring issues which besets them is the curse of meetings. The wasted time, the unnecessary blathering on of those whose opinions really don’t matter, the inability of participants to decide anything beyond the date and time of the next meeting – yes time spent in meetings is easily the most unproductive portion of the average person’s work effort, week in and week out. Keon Coleman, at the ripe old age of 22, has apparently learned this lesson already and has decided to demonstrate, in a very public and open manner, his disdain for meetings. Reached for comment late yesterday in Orchard Park after his team’s big win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Coleman reminded everyone that in meetings he actually did attend last spring with his agent and with NFL scouts, he made it abundantly clear that meetings were not something he was interested in. He had nothing to add, he said, before he got up and left, to any meetings, except of course this particular one in which he described his unwillingness to attend meetings. He offered to read the minutes of meetings afterward if he had time, which he suggested that he probably would not. So, this business of Coleman repeatedly being late to meetings or blowing them off entirely should be no surprise to Bills head coach Sean McDermott or to offensive coordinator Joe Brady. It is therefore unconscionable for the team to have made him a healthy scratch yesterday for reasons which were explained as “not performance related”. They knew his position on meetings.

He has faced disciplinary team sanctions before for this issue but they were limited to being benched for the first offensive series. Yesterday’s “healthy scratch” was a first for him and hopefully the last time this needs to be addressed. It is truly astounding to think that this guy can not get himself to team meetings on time or, in some cases at all. As the 33^rd overall pick in last year’s NFL draft, Coleman signed a four-year $10 million+ rookie contract with a signing bonus of $4.2 million and over $9 million guaranteed. The opportunities for Coleman – personal, professional and financial – are truly massive compared to the average American and with effort, focus and hard work, he should easily be able to secure a coveted second NFL contract which would create long term financial security for himself and his family. His on-field results have been mixed through his first season-and-a-half but the potential to emerge as a solid NFL receiver is clear. I can not imagine how frustrated his agent must be with all of this. Does he need a new alarm clock? Was he just trying to get a jump on the Black Friday pre-sales? Maybe he’s renting an apartment in Fort Erie and was delayed at the border. I have no idea what personal demons Coleman may be battling – and if he suffers from any form of mental illness or has substance abuse issues (neither of which has been reported) help is available for these. He can obviously afford the help if he needs it. Joshua Palmer, Mecole Hardman and Tyrell Shavers dressed and contributed yesterday in Coleman’s absence with Shavers probably being the odd man out if and when Coleman decides to show up on time for team meetings. Too bad because Shavers had a strong game with a nice touchdown catch.   

The game yesterday featured the partial return of the reckless 2018 Josh Allen. Fortunately, the much-improved version of Josh Allen of the last few years carried the day in the end as he accounted for six touchdowns on the day – three running and three passing. His two-handed chest pass attempt near his own goal-line early in the game, which was easily intercepted, was the worst example of the young Josh Allen, with his second interception on a ball he tried to force to Dawson Knox who was double-covered being the less egregious example. Otherwise, he has a fantastic game and looked like the MVP from a year ago.

The main problem for the Bills this season – and last season as well – is their inability to stop the run. As a fan watching, it is so frustrating – almost demoralizing – to watch the defence get gashed repeatedly on the ground series after series. The front seven just aren’t big enough or fast enough to shut down the run and force their opponent to throw. Without Josh Allen and his high-powered offence to save the day, the Bills wouldn’t be where they are which is in a playoff position and only a game-and-a-half behind the Patriots for the division lead. Ed Oliver, how’s your bicep feeling these days?

I managed to catch most of the second half of the Grey Cup last night and was happy for the good folks of Regina who partied well into the night celebrating their team’s big win – only their fifth ever which seems incredible in a nine-team league. Montreal made it close but fell just short as quarterback Davis Alexander heroically battled a pulled hamstring to almost complete the comeback. The stands in Winnipeg looked full too.   

Up next for the Bills is a short week and a trip to Houston to face the Texans on Thursday night. The Bills are early 3.5-point favourites and the status of Texans first-string quarterback CJ Stroud is uncertain. The Texans narrowly beat the now 1-9 Titans yesterday on a late field goal.  If I were Keon Coleman, I would be in the team meeting room right now preparing slide decks, flip charts, brewing coffee and arranging pastry platters and fruit trays.    

Dolphins 30, Bills 13

One thing from yesterday which turned out better than I planned was the cabbage rolls. A labour-intensive endeavour they are with their 27 steps – with steps 22 through 27 being completed after the Bills game kicked off in south Florida. My inattention, especially at the beginning of the game, may have cost the Bills the win they needed yesterday but the pundits say that there were other factors at play……and who am I to question them anyway?

Chief among the long list of reasons why the Bills lost badly to the Dolphins yesterday (apart from my not starting my cabbage roll odyssey earlier than I did) is the now quite obvious fact that the Bills have one of the weakest wide-receiver rooms in the NFL. For a consensus Superbowl-contending team as the season began, the lack of talent on the outside has become quite shocking. It has managed to turn Josh Allen into a reincarnation of Trent Edwards, also known as Captain Check-down, throwing most of his passes along the line of scrimmage rather than down the field. With one of the best throwing arms we’ve seen suit up in an NFL uniform, to see him reduced to repeated attempted hitch passes to Khalil Shakir feels sad on some level and frustrating on most others. Keon Coleman made one good contested catch for a touchdown after the dye was cast but otherwise, the Bills offence is sorely lacking in the kind of explosiveness its quarterback, the defending MVP of the league (no risk of a repeat this season), requires and deserves.

It was widely reported that at last week’s trade deadline, Bills General Manager Brandon Beane offered the Dolphins a package of draft picks, including the Bills first-rounder next year, in exchange for talented receiver Jaylen Waddle, who Miami picked sixth overall in the 2021 draft. We know that teams are generally loathe to trade within their division but the Dolphins didn’t trade Waddle to another team at the deadline; in fact, he hauled in five passes yesterday for 84 yards and a touchdown, averaging 17 yards per catch. Whoever is in the interim GM’s chair in Miami probably made the right move by hanging on to Waddle. Time will tell. Were he in a Bills uniform yesterday, would that have made enough of a difference to the game’s outcome? Not with the performance of Buffalo’s defence, that’s for sure. Beane was unable to complete a single transaction at the trade deadline, despite apparently being close on a couple. Market conditions were tough for contending teams looking to bolster their rosters: look no further than the Colts parting with two first-round picks to get Sauce Gardner from the Jets. That’s a steep price to pay and one that Beane was understandably unwilling to consider if it was even on the table for him. As had to be pointed out repeatedly on Buffalo sports talk radio, his job includes looking out for the team’s medium and longer-term prospects as well as adding to the roster for this season’s stretch run.

As I saw Dalton Kincaid hobbling off the field after suffering a hamstring injury, I realized that the Bills chances of a sixth straight AFC East division title (and a January home playoff game) were quite possibly slipping away. So I switched to the Patriots game in Tampa for a few minutes, hoping that the Bucs could hand them their third loss and keep the Bills only a half-game behind. Then Drake Maye hit former Buffalo fan-favourite Mack Hollins for a 54-yard completion on a third and 14 to the Bucs 8 in the fourth quarter and the Patriots did not look back from there. They are clearly in the driver’s seat for the division and have as good a shot at the first overall seed as either the Colts or the Broncos do. For Patriots fans, your time in the wilderness has been short – too short I’d say.

With the trade deadline now passed and with nine games down and eight to go, where do the Bills go from here? No roster moves are really possible, other than practice squad rotations or the unlikely chance of finding a hidden treasure among the ranks of retired receivers (John Brown, anyone?) so it seems clear that we’re stuck with what we have. Can Joe Brady somehow insert some element of a downfield threat to the offence with the personnel on hand? If he could, it seems safe to assume that he would have already. The best chance they have is probably to lean on the offensive line and harness James Cook to rack up 150 yards every game and play a ball-control kind of offence. Teams have won plenty of Superbowls with this approach but it usually includes a solid defence which the Bills don’t have at the moment either.

Up next is a rare 1pm home game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who make only their fourth trip ever to Orchard Park after joining the NFL in 1976. After losing at home to the Patriots yesterday, they now have a 6-3 record just like the Bills. The long-range forecast is calling for a temperature of 11 degrees with rain. Could be just what the Bills running game needs.    

The cabbage rolls were delicious and very much worth all the effort – in part because I made enough for at least three meals for the two of us and perhaps more. The most difficult of all of the tasks involved is peeling whole cabbage leaves off the head without tearing them. Blanching the entire cabbage head is the key to success with this part. I used ground beef, pork and lamb with brown and white rice for the filling. It’s a culinary challenge for sure and one I probably won’t attempt again on a Bills game-day.        

Bills 28, Chiefs 21

By 11.30pm on Saturday night, I had decided that I was pretty much sick of baseball. Sick of the stress and tension, sick of the blown opportunities, sick of the called strikes which were balls and the called balls which were strikes, sick of the sleep disruption from too many late nights in a short period and sick of the players, coaches and managers’ constant spitting of saliva or sunflower seed shells in and around the dugout steps. By the time Alejandro Kirk hit into the season-ending double play, it seemed like they could have just flipped a coin to see who would win the World Series.  It felt random and it felt genuinely unlucky - for Blue Jays fans anyway. After Bo Bichette’s three-run homer in the third inning, I thought we were on our way to a decisive win like the Kansas City Royals 11-0 game seven win in the 1985 World Series – the year that a wild-blown three-run Jim Sundberg triple off the top of the right-field wall of Excruciating Stadium, hit off Blue Jays ace Dave Stieb, clinched the ALCS for the Royals and thereby created the first playoff baseball nightmare for Toronto fans. Some forty years later, Saturday’s loss is worse, not just because of recency bias, but because it came in extra innings of game seven of the World Series. Considerable time was invested in this playoff run and it ended in bitter disappointment. I guess we’ll get ‘em next year. Pitchers and catchers report to spring training about 100 days from now.

Yesterday’s marquee matchup between the Chiefs and the Bills at Highmark Stadium probably drew a US television audience of about 30 million for CBS, based on the 2024 numbers for the same teams a couple of weeks later in the season. In preparation for the Blue Jays big game seven on Saturday, I looked at some historical viewing data for the World Series and there is no doubt that FOX would have been thrilled to have drawn 30 million for their game seven broadcast. Through five games, the World Series was averaging about 12.5 million viewers per game in the US. Even if that increased to 20 million for game seven, that’s still only two thirds of what yesterday’s regular season NFL game in Buffalo drew. World Series viewership peaked in 1978 at about 40 million US viewers per game but in the mid-80s, it began to decline and by 2023, had dropped to under ten million viewers per game. Baseball has become a “regional” sport in the US, with strong local support for teams in most markets in terms of gate, merchandise and local media but it seems like many Americans will only watch the World Series if their own rooting team is in it. The NFL commands the airwaves in this respect by drawing huge national audiences for games between teams (in yesterday’s case) in relatively small markets like Buffalo and Kansas City.

When Bills General Manager Brandon Beane realized that Utah Utes safety Cole Biship had dropped to the Bills in the second round of the 2024 draft, his facial expression was equal parts thrilled and surprised. Bishop’s rookie season was mixed as he battled injuries while learning the Bills defensive scheme and how to play safety in the NFL. Yesterday’s performance against the Chiefs was Bishop’s best game as a pro as he was prominent in multiple pass break-ups while delivering some big hits, including against Travis Kelce in the endzone at the end of the first half. As the Bills defensive backfield has battled through injuries this season, we are now seeing why Beane was so high on Bishop 18 months ago.

Now add Maxwell Hairston to the mix. The first-round pick in April’s draft saw the field for only the second time yesterday after missing almost all of training camp and the first six games of the season with an injury. He grabbed his first NFL interception and showed his speed and his ability to cover fast receivers down the field – something that wily veteran cornerback Tre White can no longer do nearly as well as he did a few years ago. The emergence of Bishop at safety and now Hairston at cornerback may save the Bills defence after all in 2025.

Yesterday unfortunately brought another devastating injury to the Bills defence with Michael Hoecht suffering a non-contact Achilles injury which will sideline him for the rest of the season. Hoecht was suspended by the league for the first six games of the season (for PED violation) but played very well last week and yesterday until he went out. Matt Milano and Terrel Bernard both returned to the lineup but Ed Oliver remains sidelined until the playoffs with a torn bicep. Evey team has injuries.  Although they sometimes seem trivial, the draft picks teams make in the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds and the undrafted free agents they sign each spring are critical to building depth as injuries often mean that these players will see the field, often in critical late-season situations. Michael Hoecht, we hardly knew you!

Yesterday’s game against the Chiefs produced another regular season win against their conference rival which was very important in terms of playoff seedings. The Chiefs are in tough now at 5-4, chasing both the Broncos and the Chargers in the AFC West. The Bills remain a half-game back of the Patriots who hold the tie-breaker by virtue of their win in Orchard Park a month ago. The week 15 game in Foxborough is looming large on the schedule and will likely determine the winner of the AFC East.

Up next for the Bills is a trip to south Florida to take on the reeling Dolphins who fired their General Manager last week and feel like a slow-motion train wreck at 2-7. The Patriots also play in Florida, taking on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who will travel to Orchard Park the following week. The baseball playoffs certainly took their emotional toll over the past three weeks but I’m happy to have it behind us now with the full focus now clearly on the NFL.        

Bills 40, Panthers 9

The timing may seem unusual but this week’s post begins with an injury report. Unfortunately, it is my own injury report:

There are nine steps from the small deck outside my wood-burning sauna down to the walkway leading to the water and the cold plunge which is such an essential part of the sauna experience. Over the course of the 1,500+ saunas I’ve had since we built it in 1994, I have descended these steps, usually (but not always) buck-naked and sometimes carrying a full bucket of warm water in each hand, more than 4,500 times (usually three times per sauna) without slipping or falling. That changed this past Wednesday at around 6pm. Generally, when the temperature is below plus ten, for my sauna ritual, I wear Keen sandals which have good treads and a solid platform but with the temperature that evening at plus nine, due solely to laziness (the sandals are stored for the summer in another cabin 25 metres away), I decided to proceed in bare feet. After my first session in the sauna, I began my descent down the steps in the usual way – rather quickly in order to preserve warmth before immersing in the cold water but with my right hand not-so-firmly on the hand rail - but when my right heel contacted the wet surface of the second step, it felt like a proverbial banana peel and down I went. All the way to bottom. And hard. I landed on the bottom three stair treads mostly on my left side, partly on my face and somehow also on my right shin. These parts of what’s left of my body have turned from a dull blue colour with a tinge of red, through various shades of purple, yellow and now they are starting to look (to continue the banana analogy) the way a banana does when it is relegated to the freezer to one day become banana bread. The worst contusion is on my left thigh which swelled grotesquely at first and has partly receded in the days since but is still extremely sore to the touch and induces sharp pain when I’m limping around the cottage. I think I have a hematoma in that spot and I’ll be seeking a medical opinion on it later today. Amazingly, I broke no bones. My energy level remains subdued as my body focuses on the long healing process which lies ahead. The experience and the mild post-traumatic replaying of the event in my mind over the last few days has been a poignant wake-up call for me about the perils of aging. And it was also a powerful reminder of the pummelling which my late mother, who fell repeatedly in her later years, took so stoically.

Since I’ve been so physically restricted over the last five days, there has been more than plenty of time to watch sports on television. Late October is by far the best time of year for those of us who follow professional (and college) sports with literally every major North American sport in full swing. From the Maple Leafs and Raptors, whose regular seasons are recently underway, to CFL, US college, Canadian University and NFL football all going full-tilt and then there’s the World Series which is a major focus this year for most Canadian viewers and some (although a steadily shrinking number) of American viewers, this time of year is almost too much to keep up with. The baseball over the past ten days has been spectacular for Blue Jays fans and the World Series games have taken centre-stage for good reason. Major League Baseball knows enough not to schedule World Series games on Sundays as this is the almost exclusive domain of the NFL – particularly on Sunday night where Sunday Night Football is the highest rated television program in the United States from September through January. After the Bills bye week last week, and despite over-dosing on televised sports in recent days, by yesterday, I was, to quote Hank Williams, Jr, definitely ready for some football. Some Buffalo Bills football. And the Bills did not disappoint.

A 40-9 drubbing of the Carolina Panthers may be just what the team needed to get back on track after two concerning losses. The Bills defensive performance, the takeaways, the special teams play – they were all encouragingly positive but if Sean McDermott had only one game-ball to give out in his post-game locker room speech, it would obviously have gone to running back James Cook. Cook had a game for the ages, scoring twice and rushing for 216 yards which is the highest in the league this season and the most for a Bills running back since OJ Simpson almost 50 years ago. And he accomplished all of this without playing a snap in the fourth quarter. The offensive line of course deserves plenty of the credit for James big day as well as it came against a Panthers run defence which had allowed only 131 rushing yards over its previous three games which were all victories. It all came at a perfect time because the Bills passing game continues to seem stalled with a clearly noticeable lack of separation being achieved by the receiving corps. Many of Josh Allen’s completed passes were short screen passes to Khalil Shakir who broke one for a score and made a nice move to evade the final defender on his way to the endzone. The need for a deep threat – a receiver who can “take the top off the defence”, as the saying goes, was never more evident than it was yesterday.

Up next for the Bills is a home date with the Kansas City Chiefs who play at home tonight against the Commanders. The Chiefs appear to be firing on all cylinders and are an early 1.5-point favourite on the road in Orchard Park next week. I would never suggest or predict a Bills loss in any game of any kind against any opponent but maybe this is the year that the Bills and Chiefs switch their recent head-to-head histories of regular season Bills wins and Chiefs playoff wins. But, obviously, if the Bills still want to secure that elusive first playoff seed in the AFC, winning next week will go a long way toward achieving that goal.

Falcons 24, Bills 14

There was a guy who lived in my building a few years ago who had grown up in Toronto but was a fully committed fan of the Atlanta Falcons. He had an uncle whose employer relocated him there in the 1970s and for Christmas one year, he sent my friend a Steve Bartkowski game jersey. This was at a time when genuine game jerseys were not nearly as popular as they are now and, adjusted for inflation, were considerably more expensive too. That was all it took for a ten-year old Toronto boy to create and maintain a rooting loyalty for an NFL team based a thousand miles away. I’m glad he moved out a while ago because I would have had to spend the next two weeks avoiding him and his gloating over last night’s game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

The Falcons now hold a two-game advantage over the Bills (8 wins against 6 losses) in the all-time series between these teams who face each other every four years. The Bills had won the last two meetings, including the teams’ last meeting in Atlanta in Sean McDermott’s first season as Bills head coach. The Bills also fell to the Falcons in overtime on December 1^st, 2013 in a game I attended at the Rogers Centre. It would be the final game in the ill-fated Bills “Toronto Series” and the only game where there would be no “papered house” – as in, no free tickets. The plan for this game was to see if the Toronto market could legitimately support NFL football unaided. The game drew 39,000 and the plug was finally and mercifully pulled on the experiment which Ralph Wilson and Ted Rogers cooked up in 2008.

I was hoping that the Blue Jays would have built a comfortable lead by 7.15pm last night to allow my full attention to be turned to the Bills. Turns out that they were comfortably trailing the Seattle Mariners and ended up getting smoked 10-3 to fall two games behind in their best-of-seven ALCS. Losing the first two games at home presents them with a monumental challenge as the series moves to the Pacific northwest for the next three games. There remains only a flicker of hope in this situation for Blue Jays fans: I am reminded of the 1977 Toronto Maple Leafs who faced the Philadelphia Flyers in the NHL quarter-finals after battling them for seven games (before losing) the previous year. The Leafs somehow managed to win the first two games of the series at the Spectrum before going on to lose the next four consecutively. Dave “Tiger” Williams famously said after game two that the Flyers were “done like dinner” and I was hoping that a member of the Mariners would say something similar last night but I have seen no reports of any such comment. Williams himself could not be reached for comment.

Standing in line outside Metlife Stadium on September 14^th before the Bills beat the Jets, we had a conversation with a guy who was one of the few New York Giants fans to express his disappointment that his team had moved on from quarterback Daniel Jones. He predicted that Jones would have great success in Indianapolis away from the intense media scrutiny of the New York market. After week six, the road to the Superbowl on the AFC side of the draw now goes through Indianapolis, thanks in large part to the solid play of Daniel Jones. The Steelers, having an early bye week, sit at 4-1 with a handful of teams at 4-2, including the Bills, Patriots (who now occupy top spot in the AFC East, holding the tie-breaker over Buffalo), Jaguars, Chargers and Broncos. Probably most surprising is that the Baltimore Ravens fell to 1-5 and look to be in a heap of trouble after being considered pre-season Superbowl contenders. The Jets, now 0-6, will likely be relegated to the CFL.

When the NFL schedule was released in May, Bills fans were not happy to see that their bye week would come quite early – in week seven. Usually, a later bye week is considered desirable as injuries pile up and fatigue sets in as the season grinds on into November and December. With injuries continuing to plague the Bills both on defence and now on offence too, a recovery week seems well-timed now, Last night Joshua Palmer went down with an ankle injury in the second quarter with Dalton Kincaid being ruled a no-go during warm-ups with an oblique injury. Most significantly, star linebacker Terrell Bernard left with an ankle injury late in the first half and did not return. Bring on the bye week!

Looking back to last season, we see a similar trajectory playing out in 2025. The 2024 Bills came out of the gate with three straight wins before stumbling badly in Baltimore and then again the following week in Houston to fall to 3-2. They did not lose again until a December 8^th shoot-out against the Rams. I see a similar pattern this year except that the Bills, now having lost their last two, have two weeks to regroup, rest and recover from injuries.

Up next, on October 26^th, is another NFC road game – this time in Charlotte against the Carolina Panthers who improved to 3-3 with a win over the Cowboys on Sunday. The Panthers have their own bye week coming up – sort of – with a trip to Metlife Stadium to play the doormat Jets. Much hand-wringing will ensue in Buffalo over the next two weeks but I expect the Bills to pull things together and get back in the win column against the Panthers before returning home to play the Kansas City Chiefs on November 2^nd.  

Patriots 23, Bills 20

Every football season since 1972, members of the only team to win every regular season and playoff game, including the Superbowl - the Miami Dolphins of that same year – have made a tradition of uncorking champagne when the last undefeated NFL team suffers its first loss. The furthest into any season that they had to wait for their uncorking was February 3, 2008 when the New England Patriots lost the Superbowl XLII 17-14 to the New York Giants after going 16-0 in the regular season and 2-0 in their two playoff games leading to the final game. Going into yesterday’s week five action, both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Buffalo Bills had won their first four games and were both playing at home as solid favourites. Surviving members of the 1972 Dolphins, most of them in now in their 80s, probably did not bother putting their champagne on ice yesterday but they should have as both the Eagles and the Bills fell, leaving Larry Czonka, Bob Grieise, Garo Yepremian and Paul Warfield’s 1972 team intact as still the only NFL team to register a perfect season.

For the Denver Broncos (who overcame a 14-point deficit in Philadelphia) and the New England Patriots, yesterday brought “signature” wins for their young quarterbacks and new head coaches – Sean Payton in his second year with the Broncos and Mike Vrabel in his first year with the Patriots. Despite their recent successes and upward trajectory, I suggest that neither of these teams is likely to represent the AFC in San Francisco in February but either could easily be Superbowl contenders next season and beyond.

As for the Bills, the turnover metric began to revert to the mean last night and, once again, their defence was suspect with key injuries continuing to plague them. But full credit must go to Patriots quarterback Drake Maye (whose name sounds like he’s from some 19^th century aristocracy) and to receiver Stefon Diggs who played his best game since leaving Buffalo after the 2023 season. Diggs was the X-factor last night, hauling in 10 catches for 146 yards and inspiring his teammates all evening on the sidelines. As was mentioned several times on the NBC broadcast, Maye looked like Josh Allen did six years ago – and I would add without the wild propensity for turnovers which Allen displayed then. The Patriots fully deserved their signature win, fair and square. Were they to play a best-of-seven series, I would take the Bills in five or perhaps six games.   

Please indulge me with the following commentary on the weather we’ve been having: I wouldn’t be saying this in mid-July but I’m actually getting quite tired of searing-hot sunny days. It’s like we live in Arizona now with each day a scorched carbon copy of the previous one. The Anthropocene is clearly upon us, despite apparently not yet meeting the strict geological criteria which would formally mark the beginning of a new epoch – a shift from the Holocene which began about 12,000 years ago. Hap Wilson, the well-known naturalist, outdoorsman and Temagami canoe route guru, posted a photo last week of a dry river bed somewhere in Lady Evelyn-Smoothwater Provincial Park, stating that water levels in the Temagami area have reached their lowest in at least 70 years. The quantity of rain required to restore ground and surface water levels in eastern North America to anywhere remotely close to their historical averages before freeze-up is several orders of magnitude more than what we’ll likely get over the next ten weeks. Our best hope at restoration of normal lake levels is another heavy dose of lake-effect snow like we experienced last year when central Ontario received more than a metre of snow over the first few days of December.

Buffalo, Orchard Park and the South-towns were clobbered with lake-effect snow in late autumn last year too but the timing of the snow dumps did not necessitate moving any Bills home games to Detroit which happened in 2014 and again in 2022. The new stadium will have high exterior walls and a rim around the top which will greatly reduce the amount of snow which will actually accumulate inside the facility but the challenge with clearing roadways and parking lots in the surrounding area – for emergency vehicles as well as for football fans – will remain, even of hundreds of shovelers are not needed to clear the seating rows and aisles inside. The most recent seasonal forecast for western New York calls for another heavy lake-effect snow season coming up, fueled by much-warmer-than-usual water temperatures in Lake Erie. The Bills have home games scheduled for December 7^th and 28^th along with a week 18 game on either January 3^rd or 4^th. Chances seem good that at least one of these games could be moved or postponed on account of snow. Seems hard to imagine that scenario right now as we are in store for yet another blistering, sunny October day with humidex readings still registering in southern Ontario and western New York. Good thing last night’s game against the Patriots kicked off well after dark. Last week’s 1pm game against the Saints was absolutely sweltering inside the stadium. I’m definitely ready for some cool wet weather – if it ever comes.

On account of a family event in downtown Toronto yesterday afternoon, I took in almost the entire Blue Jays game-two win over the Yankees on the car radio. By far the most uninterrupted radio baseball for me since the days of Tom Cheek and Jerry Howarth and it was fantastic – partly because of the game’s importance and way it played out but also because of the play-by-play by Ben Shulman whose call seemed almost as good as his dad Dan’s probably was on television. Not sure who the colour-man is but the radio broadcast was excellent overall.   

Up next for the Bills is yet another prime-time game next Monday night in Atlanta (where my niece now lives and refers to it as Hot-lanta) against a Falcons team coming off its early bye week. Look for the Bills to get back in the win column before their own bye week.  

Bills 31, Saints 19

The largest point spread of the 2025 NFL season through four weeks opened early in the week at 16.5, floated down to 14.5 on Thursday and settled in at 15.5 early yesterday morning as I was packing my sauerkraut, Dijon mustard, vegetable tray, beer and Italian sausages into my cooler. The Buffalo Bills were playing the league doormat New Orleans Saints and some of the pundits on the radio early yesterday were saying take the points and the Saints. If I was to have wagered against the spread on this game, I probably would have too. And it would have been the winning call as the Saints lost by 12 and covered the spread. I had a feeling that it would be a closer game than was expected. A spread of more than two converted touchdowns is almost unheard of in the parity-driven NFL and proved to be too high yesterday at a sun-baked Highmark Stadium. And the brutalist slab of concrete bult in 1973 now features (from my seats 23 rows behind the visitor bench) a clear view of the top of the new, much taller Highmark Stadium just across Abbot Road which will open ten months from now. I’m looking forward to it for football and for traffic reasons.  

For Toronto sports fans, the Blue Jays 162^nd game of the season was top of mind, even for those of us attending the game in Orchard Park. Would they blow the division lead they had held for most of the summer? Would the Yankees finally stumble after seven straight wins? Would they both win or both lose? I like the MLB’s scheduling plan starting every game on the season’s final day at 3pm or shortly after as every team with something to play for would have to field their best line-ups. We dialed up the game on the car radio with the Jays leading 5-4 and listened as they pounded out eight more runs and sealed the deal on their first division title in ten years, earning the top seed in the American League playoff draw and a valuable first-round bye. Quite an accomplishment.           

My first experience entering the United States after the President’s re-election came a couple of weeks ago (At Toronto Pearson) and was quite smooth as was yesterday’s encounter at the Queenston-Lewiston crossing. It almost felt as if a memo had been circulated by the Department of Homeland Security to the border agents suggesting that they might be a bit more welcoming of low-risk Canadians as they pass through border checkpoints. Travel by Canadians to the US is down 30% since the winter and businesses in American border communities have suffered accordingly. With all the tough talk from the White House in the administration’s first few months, local and state Chambers of Commerce have carefully and quietly expressed their concerns and, after all, business is business. Rather than asking questions requiring detailed answers, the pleasant mid-thirties border agent woman asked – pleasantly - if we were going to the Bills game and if we would be returning to Canada later the same day. “Yes” to both of those I answered as she ran our passports through the scanner and we were on our way. Easily the friendliest, fastest and most relaxed border agent experience I’ve had at least since 9/11. After early reports last winter of phones being scanned and occasionally even an uncomfortable question or two about the President being asked of Canadian travellers, despite the admittedly small sample size of two, for what it’s worth, both of my recent experiences have been good.

As for the Bills who, along with the Eagles, now sit atop the NFL at 4-0, have plenty to work on in preparation for the Patriots next Sunday night as they close-out their three-game homestand. Starting with tackling. The Saints running game racked up almost 200 yards by breaking easily through to the second and third levels of Buffalo’s defence far too many times. The ageless Alvin Kamara, now in his ninth season with the Saints, gained 70 yards on 15 carries while Kendre Miller ran for 65 and quarterback Spencer Rattler added 49 yards, making some impressive open-field moves along the way. Getting DT Ed Oliver back will help to shore up the line play but even with him, the Bills defensive front is soft and seems to operate, like it did last year, in “bend but don’t break” mode which often just looks too easy for opposing offenses to move the ball at will. Josh Allen through an interception – the Bills first turnover since before Christmas - but James Cook continues to justify his new contract by running for over 100 yards once again and reaching the endzone for the eighth straight game.   

Another key division game is up next for the Bills as the New England Patriots, fresh off a routing of the Carolina Panthers and now sitting at 2-2, come to Orchard Park Sunday night. My game tickets remain available but here’s something which explains the scarcity of parking at Highmark Stadium in 2025: My Lot 7 parking pass, for which I paid $40, sold for $175 (all USD) online the other day. I mean Lot 7 is certainly well-located if you’re sitting on the visitor side of Highmark and is right in the thick one of the best tailgating experiences in the NFL but I just can’t see paying $175 for the privilege. You have to park somewhere I guess as there is no public transit option that I’ve ever seen. For over 50 years now, eight Sundays every fall and winter, 70,000 people drive to Orchard Park, consume alcohol (some more than others of course) then, a few hours later, drive home.