On Saturday morning in my car, just after 8.30am, I checked WGR 550, the Buffalo sports radio station where there is usually plenty of Bills talk to be heard, especially this season with the Bills off to a 5-1 start and Bills Nation thinking about the possibility of the team's second playoff berth in three seasons under head coach Sean McDermott. The programming carried by the station at that moment was an infomercial for a sport betting tout service, thinly disguised as a football talk show. The sell line for these services go something like this: "I have access to critical game-deciding information which will help you have a winning weekend in college football and the NFL....subscribe to my service and I will give you my guaranteed locks for this weekend..." I was about to turn to another station when the tout said that his red-hot NFL "lock" this week was his pick for the Eagles v. Bills game on Sunday: "A guaranteed cover and outright winner for this game is available free if you subscribe for the next three weeks", he said. He then promised that he was so certain about this that he would refund subscription fees if his guaranteed Eagles v. Bills result failed to deliver. Across the various sports books, the Bills were somewhere between a one and a three point favourite in the days leading up to yesterday's game but by kick-off, most books had moved the line to a pick 'em. I did not subscribe to the tout service who offered a guaranteed winner for the game for two reasons: first, because I would never subscribe to such a service anyway (I prefer to spend $20 every week on a long-shot Pro-line ticket) and, second, I knew that all indicators pointed to the service advising punters to take the Eagles plus one or two. The "sharp" money late last week and leading up to kick-off was clearly with the Eagles. I'm sure that the tout I heard on Saturday morning is issuing no refunds today.
I had a bad feeling going into the game. The Eagles, at 3-4 and a Superbowl winner two seasons ago, were in a desperate situation - or at least they were highly motivated to improve their record to 4-4, rather than let it slip to 3-5, especially after being blown out by the Cowboys last Sunday. The Bills were coasting with a 5-1 record, having enjoyed a easy schedule and still in search of anything close to a "signature win" to establish themselves as a credible threat in the AFC. With the mostly soft schedule they face for the rest of the season, the Bills appear to have two remaining opportunities to record this elusive signature win: the first will come on Thanksgiving Day at Dallas and the second will be in week 16 at New England.
This is my 16th season as a Bills season ticket holder. Yesterday's visit to Orchard Park by the Philadelphia Eagles was only the second in all of those years. The NFL schedule is constructed so that out-of-conference divisions are matched against each other every four years, switching from to home to away, which means that an NFC team will visit a particular AFC team only once every eight years. The Eagles played in Buffalo in 2003, 2011 and yesterday with their next visit scheduled for 2027. The Eagles won easily in 2003 with Donovan McNabb under centre (and Drew Bledsoe at quarterback for the Bills) but the Bills managed to win in the 2011 game which featured a key Ryan Fitzpatrick hard count which drew the Eagles offside giving the Bills a first down at a critical point late in the game which was played on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. The Eagles lead the all-time series 8-6. The other relevant connection between the two teams is that Sean McDermott began his NFL coaching career in Philadelphia under Andy Reid who remains a close friend and mentor to McDermott.
The Bills face Washington next week in their third consecutive home game. I have decided to stop using the name of the Washington football team for the same reason that long-time Blue Jays play-by-play broadcaster Jerry Howarth stopped using the name of Cleveland's baseball team. Daniel Snyder, the Washington team owner, responding to pressure from Native American groups demanding a name change, declared that the team's name will never be changed as long as he remains the owner. The team's name is particularly offensive - as is the logo which is similar to that of the Chicago Blackhawks.
Speaking of the BIackhawks, I recently saw an artist's rendering of a suggested culturally appropriate change to the Blackhawks logo which features a bird rather than a human head but with a similar design style and the same coloured feathers. I really like the image and if I were Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz, I would change the team's logo to something like this. Easy for me to say but the change would not only leave the team's name in place but I suggest that it would generate significant positive public relations - and not just among Native Americans. Not to mention the potential sales revenue from an entire new line of Blackhawks branded jerseys and other clothing and swag.
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