I find it hard to sit down and watch any game with absolute confidence that my heroic pigskin avatars will prevail. That may sound funny coming from a Patriots fan; in the last five regular seasons, New England has won 63 and lost 17, a .788 winning percentage. Anyone can have a bad day at the office but Tom Brady has had fewer than most. I should worry? But I do. Even before the games I know they should certainly win (a home game against Miami in December) I suffer spectral anxieties about the rare happenstance only the most sophisticated of predictive analytics could account for. I will regularly consider the game turning on a receiver slipping to the turf, turning a certain reception for a first down into a pick six. That happens. All the time…
The relentless poor-mouthing of the Patriots doesn’t help. They’re really good. We’re going to have to play hard. Fitzpatrick went to Harvard! Fred Jackson is a stud. Merriman hates us. Kelsay always does something crazy against us. Wait – that was Aaron Schobel wasn’t it? Etc. The Bills sound like a good young, promising, rebuilding team that wakes up this Sunday with the top scoring offense in the NFL, the leading rusher in the estimable Fred Jackson and QB Ryan Fitzpatrick is tied for the league-lead with 7 TD passes.
More importantly, this game means a whole lot more to Buffalo than it does to New England. For the Patriots, this is an important regular season game, a division game on the road. For the Bills, this is Super Bowl sliders. Break the losing streak and kick the Patriots to the second place curb. If the Jets lose to the Raiders, they would hold sole possession of first place in the division.
For as long as the New England has been taking home AFC East banners, Buffalo has been divisional door mats. They’ve lost to New England 15 times in a row. Seven and a half years. Ouch.
These Buffalo Bills look like they might have a team that could outscore the Patriots and take home the W. Their fans will be insane (seven and a half years!), frothing at the mouth in anticipation of a New England boiled dinner. The players will be jacked. The young Bills have an opportunity to announce themselves with authority, to slay the dragon, kill the great white whale, take the monkey off their backs, punch the bully in the mouth, drink their own milkshakes and stake a claim to the title “AFC East Champions.”
Despite the kudos offered by the Patriots, the Bills can still play the Rodney Dangerfield card. CBS isn’t sending #1 announcing team Jim Nantz and Phil Simms to Buffalo this Sunday. They’ll be in Oakland where the weary Jets visit. Who’s in the booth at Buffalo? Marv Albert and Rich Gannon. A basketball guy and a former player who totally hates the New England Patriots (suck it Oakland). Seriously, CBS. You couldn’t even give us Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf for a battle of unbeaten teams? With New England involved it seems like a ratings winner. Everyone who doesn’t love the Patriots hates the Patriots. They loathe and despise the Patriots. They own Bernard Pollard jerseys. Half of them think it’s a good possibility that Bill Belichick is Lucifer in a hoodie. The haters would gladly accept any opportunity to see the Brady Bunch take a beat down. If you show it, they will come.
As noted above, Buffalo Bills = Top Scoring Offense
Of course, the injuries to key players would make me nervous regardless of the opponent. Dan Koppen is out for the season. Aaron Hernandez, Sebastian Vollmer, Patrick Chung and Albert Haynesworth are out this week; Jerod Mayo had been listed as questionable. Even the punter, Zoltan Mesko is hurt.
Okay, I need to take a breath.
The Bills beat the Chiefs senseless in Week 1 and while that seemed shocking at the time, a 30-point loss by the Chiefs now seems like a sure thing. They also outlasted a Raiders team that left Buffalo last Sunday ranked 25th in yards allowed and 26th in points allowed. Fitzpatrick is leading the league in TD passes – tied with Tom Brady (and Matthew Stafford) but he is 20th in passing yardage and his 6.6 yards per attempt average ranks 26th.
Brady, of course, leads in both passing yardage and yard per attempt.
Of course.
I feel better.
I was talking to somebody about the good old days…
…and Warren Zevon was playing in the background…
· Mohammed’s Radio was playing…
· A song about outlaws…
· And a desperado…
· A song about a martyr…
· A song about a blender…
· And a love song to play over the credits for the good old days.
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