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.