The weather was perfect for a football game yesterday in Orchard Park, if not a little too warm for the third week of October but what else should we be expecting these days? From our vantage point on the visitors side, the sun was low over the south side of Highmark Stadium and the game took place in a small window between the brims of our ball caps and the head and shoulders of the folks sitting in front of us. For a 1pm game in October – a rarity for the Buffalo Bills these days - the low sun lasts for the entire game. Between the direct rays from above and the reflection off the shiny Field Turf, it almost felt like a sort of snow-blindness after three full hours. Not that I’m complaining. I’ve been to plenty of cold weather games with wind, sideways rain and snow. Those are coming in a few weeks but yesterday’s conditions required probably the last sun screen application of 2024. And the stadium was absolutely full and brimming with energy. Bills fans went home happy, however slow their journey probably was.
As good as the weather was and as well as the home team played (in
the second half at least), the traffic yesterday was epically bad everywhere. As
dawn broke and as I naively made my way down Yonge Street for a pick-up at
Harbourfront, the traffic seemed to be building to weekday levels with throngs
of pedestrians crossing at every intersection south of Bloor Street. Yes, I unknowingly
picked the day of the Toronto Waterfront Marathon to execute what became almost
impossible – getting all the way down to Bay and Queens Quay then on to the
westbound Gardiner toward Niagara. Bottom line was that the multiple closures
and the resulting traffic jam even at 7.30am cost us about 40 minutes and it
would have been at least 20 minutes more had I not executed a brazen and highly
illegal manoeuvre move involving streetcar tracks at Spadina and Lakeshore. The
40 minute delay could not have been the only reason that the Queenston-Lewiston
bridge was backed up for an hour compared to the usual five to seven minutes we’re
accustomed to early on a Sunday morning. Maybe cross-border shopping is in
vogue once again; maybe the spectacular weather caused everyone to bolt out of
bed and drive to Western New York; maybe it was something else but we didn’t get
parked in Lot 7 until just before 11.30am – around two hours behind our usual
schedule. But we tailgated, cooked our lunch and somehow got to our seats a few
minutes before kick-off.
The game started very slowly for the Bills offence in
particular with three straight three-and-outs and an Amari Cooper dropped pass on his first target, not to mention an anemic pass rush as the lowly Titans built themselves an early 10-0 lead. Things
certainly turned around for the home side in the second half as the Bills scored
34 unanswered points as they cruised to an easy win. Fans quickly took to the
Amari Cooper cheer of “Coooo-per” as the new receiver started his Bills career
with four catches and touchdown. Cooper does not fit the standard mold of star
NFL wide receiver: he comes off as being quite thoughtful – even cerebral,
calm, reserved and reflective. He is also an accomplished chess player, having
finished second in a recent tournament of NFL players. Titans cornerback
Chidobe Awuzie was the winner. Cooper appreciates that football and the routes
he runs as a receiver is clearly analogous with chess. Who knew?
Yesterday was Josh Allen’s 100th start as an NFL
quarterback. His record now stands at 68-32 which ties him with Montana, Bradshaw,
Favre and Aaron Rodgers for the most wins in his first 100 starts. Allen went a
paltry 4 for 11 for 65 yards in the first half but finished 21 of 33 for 323
yards – his first 300 yard passing game this season. This against the
Titians defence which came in ranked as the league’s best against the pass,
having not given up even 200 passing yards in a game through their first six. The
Bills receiving corps now seems well balanced with Cooper, Shakir and rookie Keon
Coleman who finished with four catches for 125 yards and what we thought was a touchdown
before it was overturned on replay review. Add in tight ends Dalton Kincaid and
Dawson Knox and James Cook out of the backfield and Allen now has what looks
like a nice variety of options in the passing game.
With a comfortable lead, we were able to leave early and
would have easily engineered a speedy exit from Lot 7 had the Sheriff’s office
not been asleep at the switch. We were stopped two vehicles from the main route
onto Southwestern Blvd for about 30 minutes as pedestrians ignored barricades
and streamed through the stopped traffic until the authorities finally showed
up and instituted the usual alternation between pedestrians and vehicles. The new
stadium, now fully rising from the site just west of Abbot Road, will purportedly
have much better and safer pedestrian and vehicle separation and egress. After
witnessing multiple near misses as we sat waiting, it was clear that the
present situation is quite ridiculous and dangerous. Once finally out onto the
roads, they were expectedly slow but the Peace Bridge was in surprisingly good
shape and we were left only to deal with the QEW and the Gardiner which were
stressful and slow at times. Yesterday’s traffic situation was probably the
worst I’ve experienced in my 30+ years of attending games in Orchard Park. Finally
got home just before 9pm, making it almost a 14 hour day.
Border Report: The surly guy we got after our hour-long wait
at the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge asked me where we were going. “Orchard Park” I
said, as I always do. “Going to the game?” he asked with an irritated tone. “Yes,
sir” I replied. He came back with “making me fish for it?”, indicating that he
would have found it helpful had I offered the "why" in addition to
the "where" without the need for another question on his part. He wasn’t very
nice about it. Upon further reflection, I see his point and I’ll expand my
answer for next time. Yet another example of it always being something different
at the border.
Up next for the Bills is a long trip to the Pacific
Northwest next Sunday to face the Seattle Seahawks in what is considered
probably the loudest stadium in the NFL.
No comments:
Post a Comment