Welcome back to another season of Bills football and welcome back to year 2 of the Kgun.com! Wow, I just had a vision of the opening scene of "Major League 2" where the immortal Bob Uecker, playing Harry Doyle, ushers in the disappointing sequel with the first episode of "Tribe Talk".
Sadly, I think this Bills season brings with it the same amount of optimism Cleveland fans have towards the Indians...or any other sports team in the Forest City (yes, that actually is a nickname for Cleveland). It's not that I don't think the Bills will be entertaining, I just think they need one more year of playing under the new regime and their 2011-2012 schedule is brutal.
But as followers of this site know, I'm not here to talk X' and O's. You can go to ESPN or get lulled to sleep by Chris Brown (BuffaloBills.com) if that's what you're after. This is a place for commentary about the misery within the misery that comes with being a Bills (and Buffalo sports) fan. Not to say everything will be negative, but it will derive from a perspective that is unique to the suffering associated with Western New York sports enthusiasts.
With that said, let's talk about age. I'm 29 years old. Some would say it's the prime of my life, but as a football fan, I've reached the moment where I'm officially older than all the players I cheer for and more frequently, criticize. Like my father and his friends before me, I'm the guy who says "you suck" to a kid 9 years younger than me, when he fails to excel at a sport I stopped playing at age 13. The gravity of this reality weighs heavily on my conscience and now I know how Chris Kelsay must feel every time he looks at his paycheck.
Looking at the Bills roster, even my modest math skills tell me I'm as old, or older than 85% of the Bills camp roster. The team I once looked up to and chased after for autographs is officially, my junior. It’s hard enough to be a Bills fan, now I’m saddled with guilt every time I scream an expletive at the plasma screen hanging from my wall. Oh, and did I mention I’m a father now? So not only is cursing frowned upon when you’re sitting next to a toddler, but putting my son in a Bills shirt and subjecting him to this football franchise at such an early age is grounds for a visit from social services.
Being a Bills fan has become the epitome of self-loathing and now, that deep rooted despair has ramifications that never existed in the previous 20 years of cheering for my beloved football team. My only hope, all be it a long shot, is that the franchise can right the ship and enter into a period of sustained success. Only then will there be an end to the barrage of insults that I throw at young athletes making a living the only way they know how. Winnings ways will mean escorting my son down the road of Bills fandom will be an honorable pastime, much like a dad taking his son to his first Yankees game…back when the average father could afford to do so. Am I a dreamer? Probably. But in the words of Sir John Lennon, “I know I’m not the only one.”
Than again, the Bills could be the Yoko Ono in my life, keeping me from living a healthy and harmonious existence…
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