We were already on the 219 headed north toward downtown Buffalo and the Peace Bridge when John Murphy, radio play-by-play announcer for the Bills, read off some statistics from the disastrous first three quarters of yesterday's debacle in Orchard Park. The one which stood out for me was the first downs earned by each team: The Saints had 30 and the Bills had 4, including none at all in the third quarter. I have heard football pundits who have run out of topics to address speculate about how the best college football team might fare against even the worst NFL team and yesterday's box score comes close to what they predicted. One even said that it would be extremely difficult for a college team's offence to get any first downs against an NFL defence. Well, yesterday the Bills ended up with 10 of them after Nathan Peterson mopped up at quarterback in garbage time. The box score through three quarters accurately reflected the ugliness for Bills fans.
The game started well enough for the home crowd with LeSean McCoy ripping off a 35 yard run on the second play from scrimmage and then Tyrod Taylor got the Bills deep in Saints territory with a 13 yard keeper before the drive stalled and the Bills settled for a field goal and an early lead. Apart from the Bills defence recovering a Saints fumble later in the first quarter, the rest of the game film should be erased in its entirety. The Saints offence was a well-oiled machine, gaining almost 300 yards on the ground with Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara both going over 100 yards each. When he wasn't handing the ball off to either running back, Drew Brees, who found the Buffalo pass rush to be virtually undetectable, was able to pass for a pedestrian sounding 184 yards, easily and repeatedly finding open receivers for first downs. Turns out that the Saints punter needn't have even bothered to dress for the game - or make the trip to Western New York at all as his services were not required. Not even once. That's right, apart from the first quarter turnover and kneel downs at the end of the game and the end of the first half, every Saints drive resulted in points.
Our strategy of waiting for a colder weather game with more importance and the excitement and pressure of the Bills trying to keep pace with the Patriots in the division or at least stay in the hunt in the AFC wildcard playoff race, didn't work. At least not in terms of seeing a competitive game. The stadium was as quiet as I can remember it and I've been there about 60 times over the last 30 years. If the comeback game - the Miracle at Rich - in January, 1993 was the best game I've ever seen live, yesterday's was probably the worst one. We left with about 8 minutes remaining in the third quarter and John Murphy was describing the final few painful seconds of the game as we were just about to drive across the Peace Bridge. On the bright side, at least it made for an easy exit from the parking lot, no waiting at the border and an early arrival home. I half-heartedly hoped that the Broncos might upset the Patriots last night and preserve a slim chance for the Bills to catch them in the division with two head-to-head games still to come in December. I think I'm dreading those games now.
I have noticed in recent years - I guess since 9/11 - that US Border Patrol officers have an amazing ability to ask a question, every time I cross, which I have never been asked before. It seems hard to believe because how many different questions are there to ask of 2 men in their mid-50's, decked out in Bills gear at 9am on a Sunday at the Lewiston crossing? "What is your citizenship?", "Where are you going?", "What are you bringing with you?" We always get those questions but then there is always a question which I presume is designed to take us out of our comfort zone in order to see how we respond in terms of the actual answer or our body language, or if we pause before answering or look or seem uncomfortable in some way. During the outbreak of Mad Cow Disease, we were regularly asked if we were bringing beef in the USA. A few years ago, one officer asked repeatedly if either of us had ever been arrested. Yesterday, we were asked a question I have definitely never been asked at a border crossing before. After advising the officer that we had 6 cans of beer with us, with a look of curiosity he asked "Is that going to be enough?". I think it was a rhetorical question but the irony of course is that it wasn't nearly enough.
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