Bills 33, Raiders 30

What happens in Irvine CA stays in Irvine, CA. On a short week, the Buffalo Bills practices at Crawford Field, on the campus of the University of California Irvine, were closed to the media. With two games in the Pacific time zone within six days, the Bills remained on the west coast and practiced at UC Irvine’s training facility. Home to the Los Angels Rams training camp, Crawford Field has been the training site for countless Big Ten teams (and others) preparing for the Rose Bowl every January and the Broncos, Lions and Chargers have all used the facility over the years. Nearby Crawford Hall (home of the UC Irvine Anteaters basketball and volleyball teams) offers spacious locker rooms and modern training facilities, making the location an easy choice for the Bills and their traveling entourage of more than 200 players, coaches and staff.  And it’s a short one-hour flight to Las Vegas, NV which the team took on Saturday afternoon.

I have been to Las Vegas once, in April 2010. At the end of a ten-day hiking and camping trip through Nevada and California, we spent 24 hours there: stayed in a nice new (at the time) hotel, ate dinner at a fancy restaurant, caught a Cirque de Soleil show (Eau), walked the strip, saw the water fountain show at Bellagio and, in the process spent more money on that last day than we did on the rest of the trip. It was interesting to see for sure but I feel no desire to ever go there again. Except perhaps for a Bills game against the Raiders or, better yet, the Superbowl in a couple of years (following the 2028 season). My sources on the ground in Las Vegas reported that Bills Mafia (I really don’t like that term and it makes me feel uncomfortable being associated with any kind of “mafia” but I’ve given up on it) had taken over the Las Vegas strip last week and seemed like a majority of fans yesterday at Allegiant Stadium. They were also celebrating enthusiastically in their customary hard-drinking fashion after the game last night. Supporters of the Buffalo Bills have become one of the best traveling fanbases in the NFL (Steelers fans have long been the gold-standard in this regard) and with Las Vegas being one of the most popular domestic destinations in the country, it’s hardly surprising that Bills Mafia made their presence known on the strip last week and at the game yesterday. For the Raiders and their fans, playing in a destination city creates high demand for tickets but probably takes away some of the usual home-field advantage most NFL teams enjoy.

When the Raiders got their last touchdown last night after the two-minute warning and with no time-outs left, their hopes were pinned to an on-side kick which Khalil Shakir easily cradled to end the game. The irony of that touchdown scored in Las Vegas having huge implications for the betting lines was not lost on anyone. With the over/under set at 53.5, it locked in the over for those who selected it and it also meant that the Raiders covered the spread which ranged anywhere from four to five-and-a-half. My Proline ticket was dead on arrival already but the Raiders late touchdown caused a swing of probably tens of millions of dollars for sports books and their customers.

Scanning through the game statistics last night, I was surprised to see that James Cook fell short of a 100-yard day on the ground. He finished with 95 yards and did not break off a long one as he usually does (his longest run was 13 yards). Cook also caught three passes for another 58 yards, including a 26-yarder. When he retires, he should run clinics for running backs on how to protect the ball because his technique, effort and consistency in that regard was flawless and impressive. The Bills had an entirely clean game with no fumbles and no turnovers. Cook’s 153 “all-purpose” yards were key to yesterday’s win as were Keon Coleman’s four catches for 59 yards, including a touchdown on a classic Josh Allen ad-libbed pitch pass in the third quarter. With DJ Moore out once again, Coleman looked like a number-one receiver yesterday. What a difference a year makes: from being late to team meetings and designated a healthy scratch by Sean McDermott to team leader, clutch receiver and a very valuable NFL player.

As for the Bills defence, it remains a work in progress and that is being kind. As JJ Watt pointed out on the CBS broadcast, the Bills clearly have a Championship calibre offence but they give up far too many chunk plays on defence. Can they keep winning these shoot-out games as the season grinds its way into November and December? We’ll see. The most frustrating pattern from yesterday’s game was that the defence generally looked competent on first and second downs but time after time on third down, Kirk Cousins was able to shred the Bills secondary and extend drives. I don’t claim to have any real expertise here but the talent level of the players seems to be less of an issue that the so-called “scheme” and coverage assignments. We expected that the transition from the Sean McDermott “bend but don’t break” method to Jim Leonhard’s 3-4 system would be rough at times but this is getting ridiculous. And speaking of ridiculous, I will be interested to see how Joe Brady deals with the CJ Gardner-Johnson situation after he was ejected from the game for spitting in the general direction of Raiders tight end Brock Bowers. The Bills are Gardner-Johnson’s eight team in nine years which tells us all we really need to know about him. I’d say that if Brady thought that his team’s personnel would be solid enough without him, he’d be gone but my prediction is that he will be given yet another chance.

Now at 5-1, the Bills bye week is upon them. Later bye weeks are the usual preference but this time around, a pause might help (1) to clarify and reinforce assignments in the defensive backfield and (2) to rehab DJ Moore and Ed Oliver back into the starting lineup.

On November 1^st, the Baltimore Ravens come to Orchard Park. With the clocks going back earlier that day, we will all have had extra hour of sleep which I am looking forward to mainly because I so dislike prolonged morning darkness like there is right now. If Ontario and New York State ever move to permanent Daylight Saving Time, I will continue to change my own clocks twice annually. So if I’m meeting you for lunch, check the time carefully.    

 

 

 

    

    

Bills 37, Rams 34 (OT)

The first four notes of Johnny Pearson’s 1970 instrumental piece Heavy Action are among the most iconic and identifiable musical notes for sports fans in North America and in the United Kingdom. It has been closely associated with ABC’s (and later ESPN’s) Monday Night Football (MNF) since 1975 when it was first used in its broadcast introduction and as a looping background soundtrack for Howard Cossell’s halftime review of highlights from the previous day’s NFL games. Pearson, the long-time leader of the Top of the Pops Orchestra, originally wrote the piece for the UK sports show Superstars. It has been re-arranged multiple times but in 2018, ESPN resumed using Pearson’s original arrangement for MNF and has continued using it up to and including last night. A few years ago, I downloaded the original version and I still dial it up occasionally during the long football off-season.

The history of MNF is fascinating. In early 1970, Pete Rozelle, NFL Commissioner from 1960 to 1989, first proposed his idea of a weekly Monday prime time NFL game to NBC and CBS. Skeptical that Americans would want to watch football on Monday nights, both declined. He then approached ABC Sports head Roone Arledge who reluctantly agreed to give it a try. ABC was mired in third place in US network ratings, well behind NBC and CBS. From it’s first broadcast on September 21, 1970 from Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium, it was a huge hit. Arledge hired the controversial New York sports personality Howard Cossell to do play-by-play and to boost ratings. Cossell was a strong and early supporter of black athletes and developed a close relationship with Muhammed Ali. He was probably the first broadcaster who attracted viewers who tuned in to “hate watch” him. Bars across the US had parties on Monday nights where patrons were invited to throw bricks through old television sets whenever Cossell irritated them enough. His abrasive and pompous broadcast style became legendary and helped make Monday Night Football must-see-TV from the outset.  Howard Cossell famously let the world know of John Lennon’s assassination on a live game broadcast on December 8, 1980. Lennon himself appeared in Cossell’s broadcast booth for a short interview during a 1974 game.  Another curious personality added to the Monday Night Football broadcast booth was comedian Dennis Miller who lasted two seasons alongside Al Michaels and Dan Fouts who years later said that he never quite knew what to make of the Dennis Miller experiment and felt uncomfortable with it for the entire two seasons.

MNF has been a 56-year television ratings success story but in 2005 when the NFL decided to make Sunday Night Football its marquee prime time offering, Disney moved MNF from ABC to ESPN. Ratings remained strong on Mondays but by 2011, NBC’s Sunday Night Football climbed to the top of weekly American television ratings where it has remained ever since. When broadcast crews were shuffled following the 2021 season, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman left FOX and moved into the MNF booth where they continue to deliver solid game commentary and strong ratings. MNF games began at 9pm until 1997 when the kick-off was moved to 8.15pm. I would welcome a 7.30pm start time but I guess that’s too early for west coast viewers. I am sometimes asked why they don’t start the prime-time games earlier (because many of the games go 11.30pm or later like last night’s did, far past my cohort’s usual bedtime). The answer is that if they thought they could attract more viewers by staring the games at a different time, they would start the games at a different time.

Dateline: November 20, 1988. In a game I attended, Bills defensive lineman Fred Smerlas got a big paw up to block a Pat Leahy field goal attempt with 25 seconds remaining in regulation to send the game to overtime where the Bills would go on to beat the New York Jets 9-6 and claim their first AFC East title since 1980. It was probably the most important blocked kick in Bills history but, allowing for some recency bias, Greg Rosseau’s block in overtime last night at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles now stands in second place to the Smerlas block. Picked 30^th overall in the 2021 NFL draft, Rosseau is now in his sixth season with the Bills and it looks to be by far his best with six quarterback sacks through the first three games. His block allowed Josh Allen to engineer the winning drive and one of the most epic October Bills wins in recent years. And all of this on Monday Night Football! I definitely had more trouble falling asleep afterward than I did staying up through the game’s tense final moments. A great win it was for the Bills who were due for a break or two to fall their way in a tight national game.

After a sort of sleepy first half, the Bills took a 13-7 lead to the locker room and led 19-14 after three quarters before the teams exploded for 35 points in the fourth quarter to finish tied at 37 after 60 minutes. After James Cook’s second fumble, things looked bleak for the Bills before Rosseau saved the day. Despite missing an extra point earlier, with two minutes remaining in the extra period, Tyler Bass hit a 45-yard field goal which looked like it would have been good from 65. A rather large monkey was removed from Josh Allen’s back in the process as his record in overtime games improved to 1-7. The Bills also converted on a two-point attempt which removed a much smaller but quite irritating monkey as well.

A few quick thoughts this morning: (1) I wish Josh Allen would learn to slide. That extra yard or two usually isn’t worth the injury risk he takes in getting them. (2) A few Bills players (with the exception of Spencer Brown who did not return) appeared to suffer significant injuries – Benford, Bernard, Gardiner-Johnson – but each returned to the game. (3) James Cook needs to hold the ball more securely on every carry. He should watch film of Stefon Diggs who was the master of ball protection upon first contact. It’s harder for running backs but opposing defences will be coached-up to punch the ball out of his hands on every carry because it seems like it’s easy to do – too easy.   

The Bills will stay on the west coast this week as they face the Las Vegas Raiders in sin city next Sunday at 4.25pm in the featured late-window game on CBS.  

      

 

Patriots 29, Bills 26

I had a dream about Dianna Russini last night. No not that kind of dream. In an effort to resurrect her sports journalism career, she was interviewing various NFL podcasters and bloggers about their experiences, how they build their viewership and readership, how they got into the business etc (remember, it was a dream) and as we sat in her makeshift studio on a terrace at a swanky Sedona, AZ resort, her husband, Shake Shack executive Kevin Goldschmidt, kept poking his head around the corner to see what we were actually doing. Then, Mike Vrabel’s wife Jennifer showed up with Patriots owner Robert Kraft and that’s about all I can really remember. Vrabel did not appear in the dream as I guess he had business to attend to in Orchard Park, NY.

In the aftermath of the exposure of their extra-marital affair this past April, Vrabel and Russini have been on very different trajectories. Russini resigned from her position as NFL “insider” at the Athletic (a New York Times media property) as her employer conducted its own investigation into the matter. That investigation would eventually find that Russini violated the terms of her employment. No kidding. From 2015 to 2023, Russini was an NFL reporter for ESPN which included time as a beat reporter assigned to the Tennessee Titans where Vrabel was head coach from 2018 to 2023. It is clear that as a sports journalist, Russini’s involvement with the coach of an NFL team she was covering represented a breach of trust. And it has obviously cost her deeply as her wiki page identifies her as a “former” sports journalist and it appears that she is currently unemployed. Vrabel, on the other hand, was “disciplined” by Robert Kraft who may not be the best judge of character in this regard, having been caught soliciting sexual services at a Florida massage parlour in 2019 and is alleged to have had a long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The NFL cleared Vrabel of any wrongdoing in its slipshod investigation and Vrabel’s “punishment” from Kraft amounted to a few counselling sessions and a public statement about his having had some “difficult conversations” with his family and with the team. So, she’s unemployed and he gets a slap on the wrist and we all move on watching NFL games as we always did. It’s a man’s world, isn’t it? And not just in football.

In a related story, last week, San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York was suspended by the NFL for six games and fined a whopping $500,000 as punishment for his arrest in an Ohio mobile home park on prostitution-related charges. What does it mean when an owner is “suspended”? I guess he has to watch the games on television like the rest of us – and probably not in a mobile home park. Perhaps Dianna Russini should interview him next.

One of the legions of NFL pundits said on Saturday that yesterday’s game at Highmark Stadium was far more important to the 1-2 New England Patriots than it was for the 3-0 Buffalo Bills. For the Patriots, a loss would have meant slipping three games behind the Bills in the AFC East and, taking into account the tie-breaker formula, four games behind. With a loss, the pundit argued, the Bills would still hold a one game lead in the division. It was close to a must-win game for the Patriots and they came through, as one would have expected from a team which went to the Superbowl last season. Through three games, Patriots quarterback Drake Maye demonstrated a level of regression which was alarming to Patriots fans and the pressure was clearly on him yesterday. He delivered in spectacular fashion while his opponent on the other sideline, Bills quarterback Josh Allen, posted his second consecutive sub-par game. As the Bills were driving to tie the game with a field goal or take the lead with a touchdown, Allen’s ill-advised deep ball into double coverage, after miraculously eluding a sack, sealed the win for the Patriots.

The game featured three spectacular catches which deserve mention. One was by Bills receiver Keon Coleman, who arguably had his best day as pro, on the left sideline where he showed incredible athleticism, body control and concentration in securing the ball (he later made a nice catch for a touchdown). Two Patriots receivers made one-handed touchdown catches which should each make the highlight reels when the 2026 season is done. Romeo Doubs, wearing his Great Gazoo helmet cover (a few players around the league now wear an extra layer of padding on the outside of their helmets – like former Bills player Taylor Rapp), made his brilliant catch on a fade to the right side of the endzone. Then, everyone’s favourite undrafted free agent out of Eastern Washington University and sporting one of the best names ever to suit up in the NFL, Efton Chism III, taking time out from his responsibilities as Commodore of the Boston Yacht Club, made what would be the game-winning one-handed grab in the fourth quarter. I’m willing to say right now that Efton Chism III will never make a more impressive catch for the rest of his career.

Up next for the Bills is a Monday Night Football match-up with the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium on Canadian Thanksgiving Day/Night. Yesterday’s loss will generate a bit of soul-searching and angst among the Bills fan base and I will be interested to see how first-year coach Joe Brady handles the questions this week. With their first taste of adversity this season, look for the Bills to better than they have shown over the last couple of weeks against the Rams in what could be a Superbowl preview. The Bills then travel to Las Vegas in week six which also fell to 3-1 with a loss to the Chiefs yesterday.   

 

 

 

Bills 24, Chargers 16

David Mamet’s 1975 play American Buffalo (and the 1996 film with Dustin Hoffman and Dennis Franz) takes place in a junk shop where the owner has sold a Buffalo Nickel to a customer for $90 then regrets the low sale price and plans to steal it back. Buffalo Nickels are five-cent coins struck by the US Mint between 1913 and 1938 and are considered to be somewhat rare and valuable. These coins form the historical basis for the “alternate” Buffalo Bills uniforms, called the “Nickel City” uniforms, unveiled early in the Bills 2026 training camp. Reaction to the uniforms at the time was swift and negative. Josh Allen asked fans to relax and assured us that the uniforms were fine and that we would all grow to appreciate them. They were worn in yesterday’s game at Highmark Stadium for the first time in the regular season and the reaction – both nationally and within the Bills fan base – remained overwhelmingly negative. I decided to wait and see but I now officially join the mainstream body of opinion in saying that they’re simply awful. The strange colour palette looks like the bastard child of the uniforms of the Detroit Lions and the New York Giants. The numbers and player names are hard to see and Mike Schop said on WGR that they looked like they weren’t fitted properly. The Bills now have a minor public relations problem on their hands as the uniforms are scheduled to be worn again on December 19^th when the Bills host the Chicago Bears. I doubt that the plan will change but I will be interested to see how they spin things as that date approaches. We all know why the NFL mandated alternate uniforms – to sell more merch. And it has worked: we saw plenty of Nickel City game jerseys at the home opener. I guess if all you had was a Diggs jersey from five years ago, it might be an interesting option. Give me the Royal Blue and White in any jersey and pant combination and leave it at that.

Maybe the crappy alternate uniforms will be considered lucky as the Bills pulled out a win against the Chargers yesterday in a game they probably should have lost. Five turnovers usually means you lose but the Bills defence – much maligned through the first two games, and rightly so - was the difference in the end. James Cook had another strong game after fumbling on the very first play from scrimmage. A key interception by veteran safety CJ Gardner-Johnson set up a Cook touchdown which saw the Bills take an unlikely lead which they would not give up. This was a FOX game with their number-one crew of Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady. Brady seems now to have settled into his colour commentary role and I would give him a solid 7.5 out of 10 for yesterday’s broadcast.   

Dateline: September, 1973. Shortly after my eleventh birthday, I started at a new school (new for me) in St. Catharines, Ontario for grade six. It was Ridley College - a “private” school for boys (there was a handful of girls in grade 13 that year – the first year of what would be a successful co-ed experiment), conceived and operated in the image of English “public” schools: teachers were masters, the principal was a headmaster, grades were forms, we had classes on Saturday mornings, cadet training, a comprehensive sports program, chapel every morning and an archaic hierarchy of “old boys” and “new boys” where new boys performed tasks for old boys on request (shining shoes, carrying books etc). The old boy system was thankfully abolished long ago as the school modernized itself, maintaining some of the symbolic historical traditions while ditching the ones which seem preposterous in retrospect today. High educational standards were part of the formula throughout and continue to this day. About two thirds of the students were boarders. A cohort of about eight of us would move all the way from grade six (the sixth “form” as it was called) through to grade 13, graduating in 1981. Most, if not all, of our small cohort were “day students” who had grown up in St. Catharines, attending various public schools through grade five. A couple of nights ago, we marked the 45^th anniversary of our graduation from Ridley. By my count, five of us from that original grade six cohort made it. As I pointed out to Bill C., it was the 45^th anniversary of our graduation from Ridley but the 53^rd anniversary of our starting in the sixth form. Despite not seeing some of these cats for several decades, it’s amazing how personalities just don’t really change that much from age 11 to age 64. We hope to have everyone out – the full sixth form cohort and all of those who came to Ridley later and graduated with us – in five years time as we mark our 50^th. Thanks to Kelly N. and Jon B. for arranging and getting us all out on Saturday night in St. Catharines.

In five years time, I hope and expect that two or three (one at the very least) Superbowl Champion banners will hang in the new Highmark Stadium. Josh Allen, now in his ninth year in Buffalo and at the peak of his abilities – the perfect combination of physical and experiential proficeincy - will be on the back nine of his career but hopefully still playing effectively….maybe sort of like Aaron Rodgers but without the anti-vax crap.

Three AFC teams now sport undefeated 3-0 records: the Bills, the Chiefs and…..wait for it…….the Raiders. It’s easy to predict that the Raiders will soon revert to mediocrity but the Chiefs and Bills will not. Although it’s two months out, the Chiefs at Bills Thanksgiving night game on November 26^th looms large on the schedule.

Next up for the Bills is a visit from the New England Patriots on Sunday. The Pats are coming off a pretty brutal loss at Jacksonville and will be looking to right themselves in the first divisional game for both teams.  

Bills 41, Lions 31

Whenever my driving takes me on any form of triangular shape, I am reminded of the reclusive inventor Wendel Beckwith who lived alone on Best Island on Whitewater Lake in what remains of Wabakimi Provincial Park (after a devastating fire swept through it two months ago). Among other eclectic interests, he was fascinated by various triangular theories including his contention that Best Island was located at the exact the centre of the universe and existed in perfect triangulation with Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids. Beckwith died in 1980 and we visited what’s left of his cabins on Best Island in 2009.

Over the last four days, my own triangulation driving took me from east Muskoka to Orchard Park, NY, back to Muskoka and then to a small lake just south of Maniwaki, Quebec (150km north of Ottawa) where I visited with old friends, had a few laughs and did not do any night water-skiing like we had done 30 years ago. The triangulation among Orchard Park, Muskoka and Maniwaki is, in my view, just as significant as Beckwith’s was. As far as I know, my friend doesn’t theorize about Pi like Beckwith did but I can say with certainty that the drive from Orchard Park to Maniwaki via Muskoka is about 3.14 times longer than what you’d usually want to do on an average weekend.   

The triangulation began on Thursday with a rather slow and busy drive to the Queenston-Lewiston bridge. I thought for a second that the US Border Officer might just jump in the back of the car and go to the game with us. He commented about how he sure wished he was going to the Bills game which I suspected, incorrectly, might be leading to final bizarre question of some kind. It’s happened before. More thick Buffalo rush-hour traffic and the usual bottleneck around the stadium made it a four-hour drive. On a Sunday morning, it’s two-and-a-half. The reconfigured parking lots have noticeably smaller spaces leaving little room between vehicles. This became relevant when the folks next to us set up a single-burner butane stove less than a foot from their truck to heat water for corn. Somehow, as we stood within a metre or so of the sketchy-looking set-up, the entire thing burst into flames and burned intensely with six-foot high flames for about a minute before the butane was spent and someone nearby doused it with water. A scary minute it was but the party resumed immediately afterward. We left the game with eight minutes left and got out of the lot very quickly. I think the egress is better but we won’t know for sure until there’s a close game where everyone stays to the end.

Turns out that with two billion dollars a new NFL football stadium can be built – just not one with very good seats. Let me explain: the plastic seats in section 136 at mid-field on the visitor side look like the cheapest ones they could find and they are not particularly well-fastened either. They are of course perfectly fine for watching a football game. I guess I was expecting something a little better. The view from these “cheap-seats” is fantastic as I knew it would be – at the 48-yard line 22 rows from the field. The slope of the lower bowl is identical to that of the now mostly demolished Rich Stadium so it’s the same view as I had before except five yards closer to the 50 yard line and one row lower. I guess the padded and more spacious seats are in the club sections. There is definitely more leg room between the rows and more space for people to pass (as was promised) but most of us will still have to stand up, especially when bundled up for winter games. The stadium offers great sightlines and general aesthetics with a much more spacious and well-lit concourse with the field visible from all of it. Curiously, there seems to be absolutely no signage whatsoever for washrooms. No signs like “Mens”, or “Washroom”, or the universal washroom symbol. Nothing. Our investigation led us to a door with men streaming in and out marked “Exit Only” which we realized was indeed a men’s room. Only a small line-up inside (possibly because no one could find it) which was not bad for 15 minutes before kick-off. A non-existent security check at the gate (9/11 was 25 years ago so “let’s lighten up on it” seemed to be the sentiment) then a pinch-point at the ticket scanning stations but not nearly as bad as Rich was. Overall, an excellent and fully functional – but I will stop short of saying luxurious – new stadium which is orders of magnitude better than Rich was. Just get some washroom signage. After forking over $850 million, the taxpayers of New York State and Erie County surely deserve to be able to find where to relieve themselves.

Josh Allen, who Richard Sherman suggested was suffering from a bad bout of flu on Thursday, opened the new stadium in style, appropriately scoring the first touchdown, then passing for three more and running for another to reach five in total. The game was never in question really. Colin Cowherd suggested on Friday that the Lions never had a chance – missing their two starting safeties against Josh Allen who was opening the house that was built mainly for and because of him. Cowherd speculated that Lions coach Dan Campbell probably said to his team “if we can just survive the first quarter…..” Well, the Bills steamrolled through that first quarter and most of the second before the home crowd held its breath as receiver DJ Moore injured his shoulder in the endzone. Initial speculation was that it could be a broken collar-bone but it wasn’t and Moore is listed as day-to-day with an AC joint sprain, although his status for the Chargers game is unknown. Dalton Kincaid and Keon Coleman both had big games with seven and six catches respectively. James Cook had 21 carries for 135 yards and a touchdown. Like Moore, Ed Oliver, who was a game-time scratch with a hip injury, is listed as day-to-day.

Up next for the Bills is a visit from the Chargers who have arguably been the most disappointing team in the NFL through two weeks of play. Any half-decent team - which pre-season punditry suggested the Chargers certainly were – with an 0-2 record is a dangerous opponent indeed and their fear of going 0-3 may be stronger than the Bills desire to push to a 3-0 start. Maybe the Chargers aren’t that good in 2026 after all. As they say, that’s why they play the games.

The Bills should be considered, after two weeks of play, to be the early favourite to represent the AFC in Los Angeles on Valentine's Day. That could – and probably will – change as the season grinds on.

 

 

Bills 36, Texans 31

The day I drove to the location of the Bills Highmark Stadium Experience, in a nondescript strip mall in Williamsville, NY – almost exactly two years now ago to the day – I had still not made a final decision on the long-term commitment to costly seat licences and to ten pairs of much more expensive football tickets each and every year until I reached the age of 92. But I sort of knew deep down that I would probably decide to do it, as long as the seats were good and the other details seemed reasonable. I had been ruminating about the long-term prospects for the NFL in general and for the Bills in particular. I was worried that the Buffalo market might not have the capacity to absorb NFL tickets priced at $347 USD each (which mine are for this season) in, say, fifteen years time when Josh Allen is long-retired, the team is struggling competitively and perhaps the juggernaut of popularity enjoyed by the NFL over the last 25 years is waning. Those December games with both teams sporting 2-11 records are hard to sell at any price. I know this from bitter experience during the 17-year playoff drought which ended with the hiring of Sean McDermott. Even in good times like now, they can be hard to get rid of. $350 (plus inflation) to sit in an outdoor stadium late in the 2041 season to watch two teams out of playoff contention could be a big ask. Maybe too big. Very low on the list of considerations I was mulling over on that September morning was any concern for unforeseen political developments on either side of the border.

But here we are only three days from the first regular season game at the new Highmark Stadium. I’m pretty excited about it with a couple of reservations to mention. I won’t comment here about the current political situation except to say that I am really wondering if the Bare Naked Ladies rendition of O Canada on Thursday night will attract boos. I hope not but I suspect there will be at least a smattering. The other worry I have is about my own late-night stamina and endurance as I prepare for an 8.15pm kick-off and a 3am (or later) arrival home. I really REALLY hope that the egress from the parking lots will have improved (as promised as part of the seat licence sales pitch) but my assigned lot this year is exactly the same one I been parking in for several years now so I’m not especially optimistic about it. I’ll start practicing staying up late tonight I guess. For someone who is often in bed by 9.30pm, It’s kind of like dealing with anticipatory jet lag.

The Bills opened the 2026 season with a win in what has been a hostile building for them throughout the Josh Allen era. As with every close football game, a few key plays, had they either not been made or gone a way other than they did, determined the outcome. The Houston Texans and their fans will look to Kamari Lassiter’s dropped interception attempt late in the fourth quarter in the endzone. Josh Allen threw up what CBS analyst Ross Tucker called a “YOLO” pass in the general direction of Josh Palmer which Lassiter had in his hands as he fell backward in the endzone. As is so often said with these kinds of plays, Lassiter makes the interception on the play nine times out of ten. But he bobbled the ball and, as fate would have it, on the next play, Allen hit Palmer with a perfect pass on a deep post route for what would stand as the game-winning touchdown. If Lassiter holds on to the ball on the previous play, the Texans win. This is what league parity looks like.

Two players on the Bills side stood out for me in the game. Josh Allen – “doing Josh Allen things” - as CBS play-by-play man Ian Eagle (whose first name is, for some reason, pronounced “eye-on”) said after his first touchdown – or maybe it after his second or third or fourth touchdown. Allen was magnificent: over 300 yards passing, two rushing touchdowns, two passing touchdowns and no turnovers. On the other side of the ball, Deone Walker, the six foot seven 331-pound nose tackle drafted last year by the Bills in the fourth round from the Kentucky Wildcats established himself yesterday as one of the premium interior defensive lineman in the league with a dominating performance. He posted six tackles (two for losses) and was a force on defensive coordinator Jim Leonard’s new “three-four” look as nose tackle. From now on, opposing teams will need to game-plan for Walker and I expect that he will be double-teamed (and sometimes triple-teamed) in a way that Bills fans probably haven’t seen since the days of Bruce Smith. Speaking of Smith, who was drafted first overall in the 1985 NFL draft (as opposed to Walker who was picked 109^th overall), he will be the first Legend of the Game in the new stadium on Thursday.  Steve Tasker says that Smith is the greatest player ever to don a Bills uniform. For Deone Walker, that’s a high bar but something to shoot for.

After their thrilling week one win, the Bills now play three straight games at Highmark Stadium. Knowing that I would not be missing the opener on Thursday, a few weeks ago, I listed my tickets for the week three game against the Los Angeles Chargers (a Sunday 1pm game) for sale for $740 each – a sort of “YOLO” listing which I had frankly forgotten about. At some point during the tense fourth quarter yesterday, an email came in to my phone which I checked at the next commercial break. The Chargers tickets had sold for $1,480 USD. Not only does this bode well for the near future, it will easily cover my three remaining seat licence payments. I clearly made the right decision by investing long-term in the Buffalo Bills, in the National Football League and in the United States of America, right?

 

  

        

Broncos 33, Bills 30

Someone called into WGR a few years ago lamenting Buffalo’s four consecutive Superbowl losses. “I wish they hadn’t made it to any of them because they lost all of them”, he stated, believing that it’s better to not play at all than it is to lose. I remember thinking that as each NFL team enters a new season, the best possible result at the end is a Superbowl victory. From its owner to its coaches, managers, players and fanbase, that objective is unarguable. But what is the second-best possible accomplishment? The answer is clear in my view: it is to lose the Superbowl. Doesn’t matter how many times – consecutively or not. The opportunity to savour the lead-up, the hype, the endless analysis over the two weeks between the Conference Championship Games and the big game is one which should not be passed up. Believing otherwise is like believing that it’s better to have never loved at all than to have loved and lost.

For the Bills often-tortured fanbase, their team seems to have the unique ability to find ever-more excruciating ways to lose with each passing playoff run. The list is long: Wide Right, the Music City Miracle, 13 Seconds etc and Saturday’s overtime loss in Denver will probably take on its own moniker (maybe it already has) as sports talk-radio fodder and to formally add it to the Wall of Shame. Would we have preferred finishing out of the playoffs instead of making it, winning in Jacksonville last week then getting very close to the conference title game but falling just short? Not me. When the Broncos took a 23-10 lead in the third quarter, it felt like the game could end up 30-13 but the Bills came back, took the lead, gave it up, tied it late then came agonizingly close to winning it in overtime but didn’t. Would I have preferred 30-13? Of course not.

Sean McDermott has now completed nine seasons as Bills head coach. His teams have made the playoffs in all but one of them, winning eight playoff games along the way and making the conference title game twice. With the exception of the 27-10 home loss to the Bengals after the 2022 season, their playoff exits have been heart-breaking for sure but anyone who says that they would have preferred not to compete than to lose in gut-wrenching fashion, I suggest doesn’t know how to be a sports fan. After the game ended, I poured myself a scotch, settled in to the Seattle game and thought about how thankful we as Bills fans should be with the team’s long run of success. And I thought about Josh Allen’s turnovers. And the officiating. I considered firing up my sauna and dunking through the ice hole in the photo but I left that to the next day.  

Speaking of officiating, let’s review some of the key controversial calls from the game. Gene Steratore, the former NFL referee and rules/officiating expert on CBS (who is often accused of always siding with his referee brethren), posted his reflections on Twitter after the game. On the Brandin Cooks reception/interception in overtime, Steratore said this: “My perspective on it is that Cooks lost the ball as soon as his body hit the ground. In my opinion, if there was no defender near him and he lost the ball when he hit the ground, the ruling would’ve been incomplete.” I agree with his analysis with only this caveat: Had no defender been with him, it is possible that Cooks could have kept the ball from touching the ground while rolling on his back, then regained control as he completed the roll. I do think that Steratore is right on this and he implied that if Cooks had maintained control of the ball through contact with the ground, the defender would not have been able to wrestle it from his hands. I don’t think I have seen a similar play in all my years of watching football. It was obviously a critical play in the game and McDermott’s main complaint afterward was that there was no stoppage for a booth review. Steratore agreed that there should have been but also suggested that a review would have not have resulted in the call being overturned.

There were three instances of defensive pass interference, two of which Steratore commented on in his post: the first took place in the endzone with Broncos cornerback Riley Moss interfering (in my opinion although Steratore did not comment on this one) with Brandin Cooks in the endzone by holding Cooks arm. No flag was thrown. The second instance where Taron Johnson was called for DPI was very similar to the first one and Steratore thought that it should not have been called. But it was called. The third was the back-breaker call on Tre’Davious White at the five yard-line which essentially ended the game. It was called DPI as Steratore said it should have been. I agree that it was clearly pass interference. In my view, the Moss and Johnson instances should both have been called the same way and both probably would have been called DPI in the first quarter of a week five game. The DPI on Cooks took place in the endzone and would have given the Bills a first-and-goal at the one yard-line.

Josh Allen turned the ball over four times with two fumbles and two picks. I blame him completely for the careless fumble at the end of the first half which led to a Broncos field goal. His blindside sack/fumble wasn’t entirely his fault, the first interception was on a deep ball and the “interception” on the Cooks play was basically a completion. The play which Allen surely wants back is the missed pass to a wide-open Dawson Knox with ten seconds left in regulation. A lower thrown ball would have resulted in an easy touchdown and a 34-30 Bills win.

For Bills Mafia, there is much to look forward to in 2026. In addition to still having Josh Allen under centre, the team will hopefully retool its receiver room and have better luck on the injury front. But there is a new stadium to look forward to as well. I don’t know how quickly the old stadium can be demolished – since the entire lower bowl is below ground level, maybe they can just topple the upper decks down into the lower bowl, smooth it out and make it a much-needed parking lot. Whatever they do, I’m looking forward to hearing all about it this off-season, almost as much as I’m looking forward to paying off my seat licences in the fall. My tickets will cost about 50% more then they did in 2025 but I’ll be right at the 50 yard-line, 25 rows up from the visitor bench.