I can't decide whether yesterday's game was worse for Bills fans than week one at Baltimore was when the Bills were crushed 47-3. I am certain that it doesn't matter at all as either game provided clear evidence that the Bills are one of the worst two or three teams in the NFL in 2018. They are in contention for the first overall draft pick in 2019 along with the Cardinals, the Raiders and the 49ers. It seems hard to believe but going into week seven, some NFL pundits actually placed the Colts below the Bills in their power rankings. I expect that will change.
The game at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis yesterday was scoreless through the first quarter but the Colts and their blue chip quarterback Andrew Luck came alive in the second quarter with 24 points. The Bills defence, which had played surprisingly well over the past four weeks, delivered a decidedly uninspired performance. On the other side of the ball, journeyman quarterback Derek Anderson, who was on vacation with his family two weeks ago when he got the call from Bills GM Brandon Beane, looked almost serviceable in the early going but faded as the game went on. He earns the Vontae Davis Halftime Retirement Award this week. For not staying retired. I suspect that this morning, he wishes that his vacation had taken him well out of cell range. Nathan Peterman probably watched the game from the sidelines with a feeling of relief that at least he would not be the scapegoat this week.
I caught some of the post-game commiseration on WGR yesterday. The mood fluctuated between somber and outraged as callers seemed particularly nonsensical and Mike Schop and the Bulldog gave them little leeway. They wondered if Bills coach Sean McDermott, now a season and a half into his head-coaching tenure, had, for the first time, "lost his team" yesterday. Did the defence simply lose motivation knowing that two weeks ago their starting quarterback was on vacation from his aluminum siding sales job? McDermott had been able to get his defence dialed-in for the last month but not yesterday. Will they end up at 2-14 and claim that first overall pick, they asked.
They then turned their attention to week eight. A Monday night home game. The first one in ten years. Wow! With the Patriots coming to Orchard Park in prime time, how should Bills fans be feeling about this game, they asked. What would the opening line be? The answer to that question is 13 points. As for how the fan base should be feeling, well, that's a tough one.
NBC took over the broadcast rights to Sunday Night Football from ESPN (which had the rights to the Sunday prime time games since they began in 1987) in 2006. ESPN took Monday Night Football from its related company ABC the same year. Ratings for SNF soon surged and is now consistently the most watched NFL game each week. Between 1970 and 2006, MNF was the league's prime time jewel. Since I became a dedicated Bills fan in the late 1970s, some of the most memorable Bills games took place on MNF. Among them are: (1) a game on November 14, 1988 when the Bills went into Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami and throttled the Dolphins 31-6 on their way to winning the AFC East before going all the way to the AFC Championship Game that season and starting their run of dominance which lasted until Jim Kelly retired after the 1996 season, (2) the October 8, 2007 home game against the heavily favoured Dallas Cowboys which the Bills should have won but lost 25-24 on a long field goal as time ran out, and (3) another 25-24 loss on opening week of the 2009 season at New England when Leodis McKelvin fumbled the game away on a kick-off return. Fans spray-painted messages on the front lawn of McKelvin's house later that night. Maybe this week's game will remind us of the 2007 game with a cranked-up crowd supporting the underdog. And maybe the kicker will miss as time runs out.
Today, in Ontario, we vote. I'm not sure who is running for dog-catcher in my ward but I will make it my business to find out before I walk up to Glenview Presbyterian Church this evening. I have been thinking that it may be time to make some changes to municipal government structure in Ontario - in two areas in particular: the "weak mayor" system and the prohibition of political parties. Maybe these changes should apply only to Toronto (or to Toronto and perhaps four or five other large Ontario cities). Whoever wins the Toronto mayoralty tonight will have earned more direct votes than any other politician in Canada - in the hundreds of thousands at least - and in return, they will hold one vote of 26 on the new council. That's it. To move their agenda forward, they will have to earn the support of a majority of their council colleagues. This is something that Rob Ford never quite understood or accepted and, honestly, I think he may have had a valid point. As for political parties, I have collected the campaign brochures of those running for council and school trustee in my ward. Everyone seems to be in favour of better transit, reduced traffic gridlock, affordable housing, more efficient municipal services and smaller class sizes. I have also met and spoken with some of the candidates and I think I know how I'm going to vote. But for most people in this major urban centre where they are very unlikely to know any of the candidates personally, how would they possibly decide? If candidates in municipal elections were permitted to affiliate themselves with political parties, those affiliations alone would help guide voters in some way. I just wish I could vote for an NDP dog-catcher.
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