Bills 37, Commanders 3

Throughout most of the 1990s,Toronto sports radio personality Bob McCown maintained a residence in Las Vegas and often did his syndicated radio program Prime Time Sports from his home studio. After having his usual time slot taken from him by "Tim and Sid", McCown left the airwaves of the Fan 590 in Toronto in 2019 (after quite a public expression of his displeasure with the demotion) and earlier this year he suffered two serious strokes which left him unable to walk or speak - although he said this summer through his Twitter account that he is on the mend and hopes to be back doing his sports podcast again before too long. I remember McCown saying repeatedly that by far the best place to be for a Superbowl was Las Vegas. I presume that what he meant was that it was the best place to be if you couldn't actually be at the game in person.

Now that online sports gambling platforms have earned official status in most jurisdictions in North America (the television ads are ubiquitous on almost all live sports broadcasts) and now that the league has officially climbed into bed with them, NFL viewership ratings are climbing even further - something I doubted was even possible. With the Raiders now settled into a new stadium in Las Vegas, the Superbowl will be played there in a few months. The combination of the frenzy that takes over the sports books in the big Vegas hotels for the Superbowl and with the big game actually taking place there, Vegas will truly be the place to be in early February for even the most casual football fan. 

Last week, I received an email from the league setting out a few of the Superbowl packages offered by the major hotels on the Vegas strip. For a bit more than $14,000 USD, you can enjoy three nights at the Wynn, admission to the Superbowl Players Tailgate Party which features appearances by 50 NFL celebrities, a five-star food menu created by celebrity chefs, an open bar etc etc. The party will apparently not feature open fires in a parking lot which typifies the kind of tailgating we experience in Orchard Park. The package obviously includes ground transfers to and from Allegiant Stadium and a game ticket but air transportation to Las Vegas is not included. Since attending a Superbowl has long been an item on my own bucket list (although it is not really near the top), perusing these Superbowl packages did cause me to fantasize about it and if I were in a position to piss away $20,000 CAD on a Vegas weekend at the Superbowl, it would be tempting. But in the course of indulging my fantasy, I realized that my bucket list item is really to attend a Superbowl in which the Buffalo Bills are playing.

Although we may know well in advance that the Bills will not be playing in the big game, if they do in fact make it to their first Superbowl in 30 years, we will not know this until after the AFC Championship game - two weeks before the Superbowl. What will the price for these hotel packages be by then (if they are available at all) and what will a flight to Vegas cost if it is booked so close to the game, I asked myself. Why am I even wondering about this I also asked myself.... Then I remembered that if the Bills do make it to the big game, as a season ticket holder I will be entered in a Superbowl ticket lottery which I now realize is not only my best chance but my only chance of getting to the big game. I have it all planned out: After winning a pair of the tickets allocated to each Superbowl team (or winning the option to purchase them), I would drive my car to the California desert and camp in Death Valley National Park (as I have done before) and make the two hour drive to Las Vegas on game day. I might even watch the Superbowl Players Tailgate Party from outside the fence. So that's my plan to attend Superbowl LVIII in Las Vegas: the Bills win the AFC Championship Game, I win the ticket lottery, drive there and camp in Death Valley. It's a solid plan. Wish me luck.

Some of this fantasizing was made possible yesterday by a dominant performance by the Bills in Landover, Maryland. The game was not as close as the score would indicate as the Bills found the endzone three times in the fourth quarter to extend their lead to 37-0. By this point, I was looking at  specific campsites at the Furnace Creek campground. Buffalo's defence was too much for Commanders quarterback Sam "Thurston" Howell who threw four interceptions and was sacked nine times. 

In south Florida, the Miami Dolphins racked up no less than 10 touchdowns against the inept Broncos defence. The 70 points the Dolphins scored was the most in an NFL game since 1966 and the 726 yards of total offence was the second most ever in league history. Denver coach Sean Payton called his team's performance "embarrassing". 

These same Miami Dolphins, now 3-0, travel to Orchard Park next week in what will be a huge test for the Bills defence. For a week four game, there is plenty at stake: a Bills win would pull them even with Miami in the AFC East with a hold on the tie-breaker while a loss would put them two games behind with the Dolphins holding the tie-breaker (which would effectively give them a three game lead).  

Bills 38, Raiders 10

The Oakland (then Los Angeles then back to Oakland and now Las Vegas) Raiders tenure at the decrepit Oakland Alameda County Coliseum dates back to 1966 and, by all accounts, the stadium has not aged well. The Athletics baseball team - arguably MLB's weakest franchise at the moment - still calls it home (and plays most of its games before crowds of well below 10,000) but the Raiders, who have actually moved away from it twice, departed for good before the 2020 season. Overseeing the move to Las Vegas was the team's current "owner" Mark Davis. The only child of Al and Carol Davis, Mark assumed the de facto role of owner upon his father's death in 2011 when the team was left to his mother and him. Together, they own 47% of the team but under its governing partnership agreement, they hold a controlling interest. For having permanently moved the team away from Oakland, Mark Davis probably isn't the most popular personality in the Bay area or among certain traditional elements of Raiders Nation (which has a large membership across the US and beyond). 

Al Davis was one of the NFL's most colourful and controversial personalities. He is the only person in NFL history to serve as scout, head coach, general manager, league commissioner (for the AFL) and team owner. He was known as a very litigious yet highly principled man who, among his many notable actions as Raiders owner, sued the NFL in 1980 for not allowing him to move the team to Los Angeles (he succeeded in doing this two years later) and in the 1960s, he forbid his team from travelling to cities where black and white players would be required to stay in separate hotels. He hired the league's first black head coach (Art Shell) and its first Latino head coach (Tom Flores). The Raiders also became the dumping ground for some of the NFL's least savoury players (in terms of criminal records etc) and, partly in response to criticism for this, he coined the phrase "Just Win Baby". Son Mark, with his signature "bowl" haircut has followed in his father's social justice footsteps by being the first NFL owner to speak out against domestic violence in response to some of the more infamous incidents involving NFL players and when NFL owners voted to require players to either stand for the national anthem or remain in the locker room until after the anthem, the Raiders were the only one of the league's 32 teams not to vote in favour of the measure (they abstained).  

As the player warm-ups wrapped up yesterday at a mostly sun-drenched Rich Stadium, from our seats at the 45 yard line, we noticed a heavy security presence making its way up the aisle beside our section. Two Erie County Sheriff's officers and at least four very large suit-attired men were escorting Mark Davis up the aisle from field level behind the Raiders bench to his private box just above our section. It wasn't clear at first what the security was for but I recognized the bowl haircut and then Davis's rather unique face below it. If any disgruntled member of Raider Nation (or perhaps anti Colin Kaepernick hammerheads) wanted to get at Mr. Davis, they were certainly not going to be successful yesterday. Despite his feeling secure in the stadium as I am sure he did, Mr. Davis probably didn't enjoy the game very much.

The Bills treated their fans to a blowout win in the home opener but the game did not start well as they allowed the Raiders an easy touchdown on their first possession and then went three-and-out on their first offensive drive. But Terrel Bernard got his hands on a tipped Jimmy Garoppolo pass on the next series and Bills tied the game shortly afterward and never looked back. Josh Allen silenced the naysayers with a tidy three touchdown day with no turnovers. A very conservative offensive game plan seemed to be the perfect remedy for his wild turnover-filled Monday night in week one. James Cook looked dangerous all day and racked up 123 yards on 17 carries. The Raiders Josh Jacobs, the league's leading rusher a season ago, was held to minus two yards on nine carries. A comfortable fourth quarter lead also allowed us to leave with a few minutes left, beat the stadium traffic and enjoy a smooth trip through the border and home as we listened to Mike Schopp and the Bulldog take post-game calls. 

Occupying the seats just to the left of mine is a father/son tandem who attend every game  The father, in his early 80s, has been a season ticket holder for 50 years. The son, who has a clear resemblance to Metallica frontman James Hetfield, is a US Postal Service worker. They are dedicated "salt-of-the-earth" fans, life-long Buffalo residents and the kind of folks who make Bills Nation one of the best fan bases in the NFL. During the many television breaks yesterday, Mr. Hetfield and I discussed the new stadium under construction across the road and we commiserated about the lack of information from the team about timelines, seat selection and the likely cost of the personal seat licences (PSLs) which will be required to maintain seats in the best sections of the new stadium (if not the entire stadium). The most recent speculation I have seen is that for seats in our section, the PSL cost will likely be somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000 USD per seat (a one-time cost). Mr. Hetfield and his dad have determined that their budget could handle a cost of only about $5,000 or perhaps a bit more and they are very concerned that they will be priced out of their seats and will see their five decade long tradition come to an end in a couple of years. I have no idea what I will do once we know the cost of the these PSLs but if fans like Mr. Hetfield and his dad are shut out of the Bills new stadium for financial reasons, this would be quite sad for them and probably for many other fans in similar positions. 

Next up for the Bills is a trip to Washington to play the Commanders. They had better be careful not to look ahead to the looming week four game in Orchard Park against the now 2-0 Miami Dolphins.     

Jets 22, Bills 16

When the Green Packers came for their once-every-eight-years trip to Buffalo in 2022, it was reasonable to think that it would be Aaron Rodgers last trip to western New York as an NFL player. Whoever bought my tickets to the game must have thought so anyway - it's the only reason I can think of to pay almost $1,500 USD for a pair of tickets. "Unless he somehow ends up on the Jets next year" I said at the time. It obviously wasn't a stretch to suggest that scenario as the Jets had hired an up-and-coming, young and bright head coach in Robert Saleh and built a top tier defence but had suffered from horrible quarterback play under Zach Wilson who was benched late last season in favour of someone named Mike White. The "Gang Green" fan base in New York had grown restless with their team as they had watched the Giants, their NFC cousins, have a successful 2022 season (winning a playoff game) under former Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll. The Jets also own the league's longest playoff drought which dates back to 2010. The Packers were clearly going to move on from Rodgers and hand the quarterbacking reins to Jordan Love. Although the trade negotiations and the process of securing Rodgers buy-in for the deal over the off-season took longer than it should have - including his strange period of meditative isolation for several days in a remote cabin somewhere - but the deal finally received Rodgers blessing - only after his long list of requirements was met. Optimism abounded in J-E-T-S Nation through the summer, training camp and the pre-season.

Meanwhile, upstate, the 2023 off-season saw the only NFL team which is actually based in New York, (1) lose its all-important middle linebacker (the "mic" linebacker as it is known and the quarterback of the defence) Trumaine Edmunds to the Bears in free agency, (2) lose its respected defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier to semi-retirement from coaching (he said he was taking 2023 off) with the head coach assuming defensive in-game play-calling, (3) lose its kick returner and back-up running back Nyheim Hines who was badly injured in a jet-ski accident in July and is gone for the season (he commenced legal action last week against the other "driver"), and (4) its star wide receiver Stefon Diggs pout about something-or-other and, although he was on-site, miss the first day of the mandatory mini-camp in May without a full explanation of the exact nature of the issue or whether or not it had been fully resolved. Head coach Sean McDermott at one point said he was "very concerned" about the situation. The team did bolster its offensive line through free agency and the draft and selected another tight-end with the initials "DK" in the first round but the Bills fell out of favour with the pundits as the season approached and were no longer the favourites to win the Superbowl as they were a year ago. But they still had their all-world quarterback in Josh Allen along with a solid veteran roster around him. 

The first Monday Night Football match-up of the season last night between these two division rivals was therefore much-anticipated by both fan bases and by NFL watchers everywhere. Add in the 22nd anniversary of 9/11 with the game in New York (actually, New Jersey) and the hype meter was at its maximum for September football last night. 

Unfortunately for the Jets, their long-suffering fans and the league itself, four offensive snaps into the game, Aaron Rodgers went down on an innocent enough looking sack tackle. His left ankle appeared to flex the way ankles aren't designed to flex and, although he got up right away, he quickly sat down on the field and was attended to by trainers. At this point, I was thinking a sprain which would take him out of the game for a series or two before they taped him up and sent him back out. But he went first into the tent, then a cart picked him at the tent (by this time he had an inflatable boot on) and took him inside. Reports late last night indicate that he may have suffered an Achilles injury and could be lost for the season. For the Jets, this was the worst possible start to their season and, trailing by 10 points at the half, they looked dead in the water.

But Josh Allen, looking more like a rookie than a six-year veteran, singlehandedly turned the game around for the home team by turning the ball over four separate times: three interceptions - each of which looked to have been thrown into double coverage - and a late fumble deep in his own end with the game tied and the clock winding down. The Jets managed only a field goal on the next series and Allen led his team into position for Tyler Bass to connect (just barely) on the 50 yard field goal to send the game to overtime. The Jets sent their fans home happy (until they learned the news on Rodgers anyway) by returning a punt for a touchdown and pulling out an unlikely 22-16 win.

Week One was not a good one for the AFC's three top quarterbacks. Patrick Mahomes played well enough in the Chiefs loss to the Lions but Joe Burrow, now the NFL's highest paid player, looked like he should have been earning the league minimum in the Bengals loss to Cleveland. And last night, Josh Allen somehow reverted to being a turnover machine. Do these three losses by the top three teams in the conference portend what is to come for the rest of 2023? The only thing I can say with (some) certainty is that I wouldn't want to have to play the Chiefs, Bengals or the Bills in week two. Look for each of them to rebound. The Dolphins just might be the team to beat in the AFC.  

Speaking of week two, the Bills return home on a short week to face the Las Vegas Raiders in Orchard Park on Sunday in the home opener - the third last home opener at Rich Stadium (as I have decided, for nostalgic reasons, to once again call it). It will be my first trip to Buffalo since 2019.