Chiefs 30, Bills 22

CFL Commissioner Jeffrey Orridge unveiled the new Canadian Football League logo at his "State of the League" address on Friday, two days before the league's signature event, the 103rd Grey Cup. The league has now had four different logos since the 1950s and Mr. Orridge hopes that this latest one will help build a new generation of Canadian football fans. The league always seems to put on a good show for the Grey Cup, as it certainly did yesterday, despite the viability of the league appearing at times to be hanging from a thread. It isn't now and I hope that it can continue on for a long time because I like it.

Being a resident of Toronto and an NFL season ticket holder, people assume that I am not a fan of the CFL. Far from it. I can remember very clearly when the Argonauts won the Grey Cup in 1983 in Vancouver, led by back-up quarterback Joe Barnes, running back Cedric Minter and receiver Terry Greer. It was the team's first Cup win since 1952 (hard to believe in a nine or eight team league) and it felt like a big deal at the time. The 1983 Argos season featured big crowds at Exhibition Stadium who rushed the field after each home win. 55,000+ filled the stadium for the Eastern Final against Hamilton, a game won by the Argos on a highly questionable pass interference call against the Ti-Cats. I watched the game in a packed sports bar in London, Ontario.

In November of 1994, I attended an Edmonton Eskimos game at Commonwealth Stadium with my uncle Dave who was a long-time Eskimo season ticket holder. The opponent was the Las Vegas Posse. The game was scheduled to be a home game for the Posse but was moved to Edmonton due, presumably, to a lack of interest and ticket sales in Las Vegas. I think the Eskimos won the game and, later that month, the Grey Cup was won by the BC Lions over the Baltimore Stallions. Baltimore would win the Cup the following year, marking the only time that a non-Canadian team won the CFL championship. The league has obviously been willing to try new strategies to remain viable.

Stephen Brunt was pontificating on the FAN last week about the CFL's problems in Canada's largest city. Argos attendance at the Rogers Centre has been weak for many years and the team receives little coverage in the Toronto media, compared to that given to the Leafs, Blue Jays and Raptors. Brunt observed that on local sports radio call-in shows, the subject of the Argos and the CFL does come up from time to time but he also recalled that it has been literally years since any caller wanted to ask or comment about the team's quarterback, defensive game-planning or needs in the draft. Rather, calls are about the viability of the team, the shortcomings of the stadium or ownership issues. The team has now played its last game at the dome and will make an expanded BMO Field its home beginning in 2016. Capacity for football will be about 30,000. Brunt suggested that, despite the expected lift from the novelty of a new home, that number may be a bit big for the current Toronto CFL appetite. The recent success of the Montreal Allouettes can be attributed to a "scarcity" of tickets in a 20,000 seat stadium which has led to consistent sell-outs. I am happy not to see another football game in the dome which feels cavernously empty even with 35,000 inside. Will I buy a ticket to an Argos game at BMO Field next season? Perhaps I will. Jeffrey Orridge needs me to and he also needs to sell the game to a much younger generation than I represent. I wish him success with that.

As for the Bills, it feels like the season is slowly but surely slipping away. Rex Ryan apparently said that his staff in the booth did not have a good view of Chris Hogan's catch in the 4th quarter which was ruled incomplete. It was clearly a catch and would have been reversed on a challenge, keeping the Bills drive alive. They would have needed a touchdown and a two point conversion to tie. Now, at 5-6, the playoffs are still a possibility with the Houston Texans coming to Orchard Park on Sunday. Amazingly enough, my tickets are still available.

  

Patriots 20, Bills 13

Last night's game was generally quite infuriating to watch. Not only because the Bills offense sputtered with quarterback Tyrod Taylor having a poor night throwing the ball but because the game, which wasn't officially over until its last minute, went WAY past my usual bedtime. This was due obviously to an 8.30pm kick-off but also because of delays from numerous injuries on both sides and several officials' on-field conferences where strange calls were discussed and confirmed. Overall, it was just another loss to New England. Not including last season's week 17 win against the Patriots third stringers, the Bills have beaten the Patriots only once since the opening game of 2003 - a week 3 win in Buffalo in September of 2011.

The week 17 win in Foxboro last season was the one which secured a winning season for Buffalo at 9-7, their first one since 2004 when their record was also 9-7. Of note is that each of the two coaches who guided the team to those 9-7 winning seasons, namely Mike Mularkey (now serving a sentence as the Titans interim head coach) and Doug Marrone, both resigned their positions as head coach of the Bills. Mularkey resigned following the 2005 season after Ralph Wilson brought back Marv Levy to serve as the team's general manager. Mularkey foresaw his own firing, presumably, and Levy then hired Dick Jauron who claimed (and proved) that it is indeed hard to win in the NFL. Marrone's resignation was more mysterious as he bailed out last New Year's Eve after rumours circulated that the team was considering bringing back Bill Polian as general manager (which did not happen). Marrone won the jackpot anyway, landing a job as the offensive line coach for the Jaguars. If coaching football is your chosen career path and you find yourself holding one of the 32 jobs which represent the pinnacle of your profession, would you not hold that job for as long possible regardless of who your team may or may not bring in to be your boss? The Bills could easily finish this season at 9-7, after which Rex Ryan will likely resign. Just to follow the pattern.

If Rex doesn't resign after this season (if the Bills finish 8-8, for example), then he will have two more chances next year to beat the Patriots (and state several more times as those games approach that he has no desire to kiss Belichick's rings) with Brady and Belichick but maybe not many more than that as these two will have to retire at some point. Their schedule is quite favourable the rest of the way and they have a great chance to post another 16-0 season, like they did in 2007. At this point, I'm hoping they are able to do that, not only because the Bills are finished with them this season but because they're just so impressive.

The AFC playoff picture is cloudy now but next week's game will clear things up a little as the 5-5 Bills travel to Kansas City to face the 5-5 Chiefs, who are playing as well as any team in the league now. Then the schedule gets considerably easier with a home game against Houston, followed by 3 straight against NFC East teams before closing out the schedule at home to the Jets. The playoffs are still well within reach for this team. If they can make it and break the 16 year drought, Rex Ryan will need to think long and hard about whether or not to resign.
  

Bills 22, Jets 17

Meet Garrison Sanborn. He's not a musician or an American civil war general; he is a professional athlete who holds a highly specialized job - perhaps the most specialized position in sports: an NFL long snapper. He and his 31 other long snapping colleagues around the league are paid to propel footballs from the ground, backwards from between their legs, a distance of about 7 yards and about one yard off the ground for field goals and extra point attempts or about 11 yards at waist height to punters. The role of long-snapper is usually a little noticed one, unless, of course, they make a bad snap. The consequences of a bad snap can be disastrous. Good snaps, like good refereeing, are almost never discussed.

Sanborn, from Tampa, Fla, is the 4th highest paid long snapper in the NFL, earning a base salary of $910,000 in 2015. Signed as free agent in 2009 by the Bills, his contract was extended by 3 years in September, 2014 keeping him under contract to the Bills through the 2017 season. He is considered to be one of the most consistent and reliable long snappers in the league but, on Thursday night in the Meadowlands of New Jersey, late in a close game against the Jets, a bad Sanborn snap caused Bills Punter Colton Schmidt to fumble the ball for a second - long enough to prevent him from getting his punt off and giving the Jets the ball deep in Buffalo territory and down by only 5 points. The Bills defence came up big and they hung on to win the game, despite the bad snap. Sanborn hopes for no further notariety this season.

Rex Ryan kept saying, as the game approached, that his return to New Jersey was not the story of this game but his demeanor during his post-game press conference said differently. He was clearly thrilled to have been leaving the Meadowlands with a win and he spoke directly and by name to many in the New York sports press corps with whom he had developed close relationships over his 6 years as head coach there.

The Bills next game represents the ultimate test on their schedule and seems like an impossible assignment: a prime time match-up at Gillette Stadium against the undefeated Patriots next Monday night. The Bills actually won on their last visit there - a season-ending sleeper after the Patriots had home field wrapped up before going on to win the Superbowl. To win, the Bills will need not only their best game in all 3 phases but some turnovers and probably some other forms of luck.

The most entertaining game of week 10 featured those same Patriots against the Giants in the same Meadowlands where the Bills won on Thursday. The Giants literally let the game slip away with both a touchdown pass and an interception "dropped", or at least not held onto long enough late in the game. A very late 54 yard field goal after those drops preserved the Patriots perfect season. The schedule lines up nicely for them the rest of the way and it is entirely possible that yesterday's one point win over the Giants will end up being the closest call they have all season.

As I have said many times over the years, the only way that the Bills will ever have a home playoff game is by winning their division. There simply isn't any other way, I have declared over and over. But that's actually not true as I realized yesterday while hauling huge chucks of hemlock on a fridge cart along our cottage road. If the Bills were to secure the first wildcard spot - the 5th seed in the AFC playoffs, after the 4 division winners - and if both the second wildcard team, the 6th and final seed, and the Bills, were to win two road playoff games each, then the AFC Championship Game would be played in Buffalo. The chances of that scenario unfolding seem about as likely as a Bills win next Monday night. But it is possible. And I like to live in the world of the possible.

Bills 33, Dolphins 17

"Have you crossed together before?" asked the US Border Patrol officer in Lewiston, NY yesterday just after 9am, in keeping with the well-established practice of making sure to ask a question that I have never been asked before. I was with a friend with whom I had never traveled anywhere. The only problem with him that I know of is that he's a long-time Miami Dolphins fan. So much so that he insisted on wearing his Ricky Williams Dolphins game jersey into the stadium (and it earned him a few comments too). He's also a doctor and one with a connection to the auto insurance/IME industry to which I have recently and quite unexpectedly been introduced in my own right. So, we talked a bit about that business and he sort of told me where the industry's bodies are buried and some other juicy stuff too. Turns out that people in the industry, like in all other industries, act in their own self-interest. But the system works more or less satisfactorily and is clearly the product of heavy political pressure to hold and/or lower auto insurance premiums in Ontario.

"No we haven't", I said to the border officer, making a mental note of yet another new question to add to the list. We then declared our alcohol and all other forms of contraband on board and a moment later we were on our way along I 290 toward the bridge to Grand Island on a spectacular November morning.

Being the closest home game to Veteran's Day, the national anthem was sung with an American flag almost as big as the playing field stretched out and then folded up with remarkable speed and precision by military personnel. And a hercules flew over low and steeply banked just as the anthem ended. Americans love this stuff, But they don't wear poppies like we do in Canada. I had a poppy on my Bills lanyard yesterday and it may have been the only in the stadium.

Poppies or not, the Bills didn't disappoint their fans yesterday as they snapped a three game home losing streak, powered by strong performances from some key players on offense like Sammy Watkins, LeSean McCoy and Tyrod Taylor. All looked healthy although McCoy was slow to get up on a fourth quarter play but Karlos Williams, himself back from a concussion a few weeks ago, finished the game, and the Dolphins, off.  With me in the stands, the Bills home record is 2-0. Without me, its 0-3.

So the Bills, having swept the Dolphins this year, find themselves with three days to prepare for another critical division tilt against the Jets which also features Rex Ryan's first trip to the Meadowlands since being fired after coaching there for the past six seasons. The league, in its constant effort to create and market new product lines, has assigned official Christmas colours to each team for Thursday's game. The Bills will be dressed entirely in red and the Jets entirely in green. At 4-4, a Bills win would bring them even with the Jets who are now 5-3. The Patriots will win the division of course and could easily run the table like they did in 2007. The race for the two AFC wildcard spots looks to still be wide open at the mid-point of the season.

Otherwise big changes are happening. There's a new Prime Minister and cabinet in place and I have a new place to go on weekdays now. I take the Sheppard subway as far east as it runs and then get on a bus and go further east to the Consumer's Road Area (CRA) where I get off the bus and enter a non-descript CRA office building. It isn't a signature location for the city in terms of the quality of the local architecture or the lunch options or much else really but, ever so slowly, for reasons I can't explain, it is growing on me. I'll be sure to include a full description of my experience in the CRA in the long-form census comments section.