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Yesterday morning, the story broke that a very mean meanie of a man-child who plays catch for a living deigned to say something critical of our fair burgh. As usually happens in these situations (e.g., hockey players who quite correctly criticize how dead our downtown is after business hours), our local media and commentariat freak the hell out, defending to the death the mistaken notion that Buffalo is a world-class city.
Oh, look. A sports figure said Buffalo isn't great. Let's all huff & puff with Buffalove & tell that Tom Brady he's a meanie! #whogivesashit
@buffalopundit
Alan Bedenko
Seeing that Channel 2 and 4 were turning this into the top story, I started the #BradyonBuffalo meme.
The purpose of it – and most people got it – was not to mock Brady, but to mock our community sensitivity and over-reaction to what a Tom Brady thinks of Buffalo. Here’s a multi-millionaire superstar about to play in his fifth Super Bowl. He’s won three of them already. He lives in a world-class city – a Boston that just thirty years ago was a parochially-minded, predominately Catholic, faded and crumbling city with a shrinking tax base and a massive inferiority complex. Today, Boston is a world-class city, and Buffalo isn’t. It’s a simple fact that we should just accept.
Take, for instance, how Channel 4 reported on Wednesday’s meme:
Brady’s comments started a flurry of conversation on Twitter, with Buffalo Twitter users using the hashtag
#BradyonBuffalo to mock Brady’s comments.
No, we used it to mock Buffalonians’ oversensitivity to outsiders’ criticism of our region. We used it to poke fun at the predictable top-story treatment this would get in all local media, complete with angry reactions from tourism officials and political figures.
You know what? With three exceptions – the Mansion at Delaware, the Hampton Inn on Chippewa, and the Embassy Suites at the Avant, Buffalo hotels are pretty crappy. I mean, have you set foot in the last Adams Mark on Earth yet? Leave it to a concrete eyesore in Buffalo to cling to a dead chain’s trademark. Tim Graham in the Buffalo News is, so far, the only local mainstream media type to get it exactly right, pointing out the small number of local hotels that can accommodate a football team (hint: the Mansion isn’t one of them).
Here are some of my favorites. Stop being such a whiny crybaby, Buffalo. Suck it up.
Wait, you guys ran the horse porn guy for Governor, right? #BradyOnBuffalo
@ChrisSmithAV
Christopher Smith
Really digging the high percentage of Uggs-clad hipster-wannabes! #BradyonBuffalo http://t.co/BSY0mxuE
@DerekPunaro
DerekPunaro
Thinks melting cheese over spaghetti is disgracefully unhealthy. #BradyonBuffalo
@buffalopundit
Alan Bedenko
To sum up, #Buffalo, you don't need to rely on the opinions of outsiders to justify your residency here. #BradyonBuffalo
@buffalopundit
Alan Bedenko
That’s right, Buffalo, after the long years of heartbreak, Bills fans can finally go spilling into the streets to tip over cars and climb up on the greasy undercarriages to shout WE ARE NUMBER ONE!
Well, not in the standings, and not because we won the Super Bowl, but because—according to a story in today’s Wall Street Journal—the Buffalo Bills are the handsomest team in the NFL.
From the article: The most attractive sample of players, with an average facial symmetry rating of 99.47, was one of the worst teams in the league: the Buffalo Bills. Their record last season was a woeful 4-12.
It should be noted that the WSJ isn’t guarantying that our good looks will translate into glory on the gridiron this year: To be clear, we’re not saying there’s any proven connection between winning football teams and good looks. If anything, it may be an inverse relationship: Teams with particularly attractive players might be guilty of favoring people who are more presentable than talented.
(Pictured: Bills lineman Tom Sestack, who dominated the line of scrimmage, and was the cornerstone of a defense that led the team to consecutive AFL championships in 1964 and 1965—before the Super Bowl era.)
From the “Snappy Answers to Stupid Claims” department…
On page A3 of today’s Buffalo News, you can read the full-color, full-page open letter to the community from The Buffalo Niagara Partnership Executive Committee, also known as “the usual suspects.”
Question: What kind of Chamber of Commerce is so jittery about its public image that it feels the need to buy such expensive ad space in an attempt to convince the community it allegedly serves that things are on the right track?
Here are the things the BNP is taking credit for:
UB 2020 established as the regional priority for Albany action
Unfortunately, it’s a plan rooted in the dream that public money should be spent with no oversight. This is a plan? Why not just propose robbing Fort Knox? Both plots are illegal. Only difference is when the UB plan fails, the perpetrators won’t go to jail, they’ll just blame “politics as usual” for foiling their dubious scheme.
Modernization of the Buffalo Niagara International Airport and bringing low-cost carriers to our region
Just how much more modernization needs to be done at the airport? Transporter machines? This place has been modernized so many times you’d think we’d be zipping around it like the Jetsons wearing jet packs.
Construction of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and creation of nearly 5,000 jobs in the life sciences
Sure. How are things progressing with the dissolution of ECMC as a public benefit corporation? Don’t mind me, just a taxpayer, just asking.
Federal Courthouse going up on Delaware Avenue
Really? Taking credit for this? I had no idea a group of local businessmen exerted such influence on the Federal Government. Should be a busy place.
Development of more than 1,000 lofts, apartments and condos in downtown Buffalo—a place very few people lived in just a decade ago
Over the past 16 years, Andrew Rudnick has made like $6 million dollars in salary as head of BNP. Buffalo is the third poorest city in the nation, and lots of people live downtown. They just don’t have much food, and little shelter.
Demolition of the Aud and significant work on the outer and inner harbors
Excellent. Destroy a monument to American War Veterans in the hope of luring a fishing store. Better throw a few more buckets of tax breaks into the water. Drives ‘em into a feeding frenzy.
Retention of the Niagara Air Reserve Station
“Retention” sounds so much better than “reduction.”
Creation of Charter Schools throughout the region
Why shouldn’t we be discovering more ways to siphon public education funding into private enterprises? Think about the kids.
Downsizing of the Buffalo Common Council
The benefits of this accomplishment are all around us, for everyone to see.
Introduction of an affordable Enhanced Drivers License as an alternative to passports at the border
I don’t know whether I should feel safer or more of a sucker. Maybe I should buy a Nexus card for good measure.
Business Backs the Bills effort, which kept the team here
Which, for nine days every fall, guarantees a surge in alcohol related arrests for local law enforcement.
“Some of our success, however, is largely invisible,” the ad crows. Yeah, we know all about it. Invisible like the Emperor’s New Clothes.
Local poet Aaron Lowinger sends us this poem:
Bills Fan
it’s third down
on mt everest
my dad at the bar says
mt everest is the highest
but not the most difficult
it’s third down and extremely long
there’s an overbearing wind
dressed in another teams uniform
that’s blowing and blowing
right in bills fan’s face
security is on alert
a balloon knocks the stadium’s power out
there are no lights on in the bathrooms
bills fan is pissing wherever
the sink
the mop bucket
the floor
his pants
it’s third down
on K2
the bills may never score again
the kicker has left the stadium
the kicker is a painter
he has left to go home
into his basement studio
and paint another triptych
in his ‘riders of the apocalypse’ series
the bills just got scored on
we’re not sure how
my dad recites the kol nidre prayer
“i renounce and deny any affiliation
with the buffalo bills . . .”
the bar goes quiet
the sky which had always been gray
gets heavier
and sucks the drunk red
out of bills fan’s face
it’s third down
and the bills decide to punt preemptively
the punter takes the field
to ‘wild thing’ and pumps his fist
bills fan loves a good punt
i piss myself at the bar
it doesn’t feel like pee
it feels like the longest tear
my body has ever created
outside a cop car goes off the road
and plows into a Tim Horton’s
i can’t stop watching the game
it’s still third down
and raining yellow snow
ralph wilson stays alive
bills fan renews itself every generation
in the waste areas off the buffalo river
where we all used to get beat up as kids
breaking windows and making teachers cry
the bills get the ball back
first string quarterback is injured
second-string quarterback has peach fuzz all over his face
we don’t have a third-string
only the punter comes back onto field
wild thing
you make my heart sing
bills fan gets pumped
the end is near
in the fourth quarter
they turn the scoreboard off
it’s third down and one
and the coach calls a flea-flicker
to be thrown by a running back
the ball’s in the air
it’s so high
it looks like a punt
the Jills go into their wild thing routine
the kicker painter at home
is going expressionist with black oil paints
the bar holds it’s breath
just as the ball is falling into a cornerback’s arms
a 5 foot 3 receiver runs under it
and splits the defense
this is better than a punt
he’s the fastest shortest guy ever
and no one will catch him
Apparently, nice guys do finish last.
Buffalo’s nauseating retreat from a three-point lead with just more than two minutes to play Sunday in New Jersey all but assured that the Bills will conclude 2008 at the bottom of the AFC East, as well as serving as this month’s laughingstock of professional sports.
The game-turning fumble by the helpless J.P. Losman, the direct result of the most inexplicable single play call in the franchise’s 49 seasons, put Buffalo at 6-8, three full games behind their three foes in the AFC East, a division the Bills led barely two months ago, with two contests left on the schedule.
Back then, Dick Jauron’s team looked positioned to put Leo Durocher’s old taunt-turned-cliché to rest, to prove that a football team coached and populated by humble, decent men with some sense of perspective might actually triumph over the glaring, jaw-jutting, mustachioed mindset prevalent through most of the National Football League.
It was easy to pull for those Bills, whose efficient and entertaining string of early-season wins reflected the philosophy espoused by Jauron and the man who hired him, Marv Levy.
Buffalo’s strong start also seemed to validate Levy’s two-season return as general manager, further puncturing the notion that only spittle-spraying football traditionalists can build a winning team.
But while Levy and the only head coach he hired share Ivy League backgrounds and a more expansive world view than most football types, Jauron’s team showed none of the resilience that was at the franchise’s core during his mentor’s tenure on the sidelines.
Jauron’s team never recovered from the knockout blow absorbed by Trent Edwards in Week 5. Yes, the Bills and their starting quarterback recovered in time to put together a comprehensive win over San Diego, but that accomplishment has become significantly less impressive as the Chargers have also stumbled to a 6-8 mark.
Buffalo became increasingly lost as November dragged into December, managing only a pair of field goals in lifeless losses to San Francisco and Miami.
The offense came to life Sunday, due mainly to bravura efforts by running backs Marshawn Lynch and Fred Jackson.
So it was only fitting that the Bills chose to give the ball to neither back on Sunday’s pivotal play, but to instead entrust the game to Losman.
Losman is another guy you want to like, an amiable sort who is one of the few Bills in modern times who chose to make his home within Buffalo’s city limits, instead of barricading himself in a suburban mini-mansion.
Unfortunately, Losman’s level of civic commitment matters as much as Jauron’s degree from Yale when it comes to Sunday afternoons and Monday nights.
Jauron told reporters after the game that he, and not offensive coordinator Turk Schonert, decided it would be a good idea to eschew all rational thought and let Losman roll out on second-and-5.
Whether that’s true or not, the disastrous but thoroughly predictable result – sack, fumble, Jets touchdown, ballgame — would ensure Jauron’s dismissal in any other city. On Sunday, however, NFL.com reiterated its earlier report that Ralph Wilson had given his coach a three-year extension back when things were good, which would mean the Bills owner will be paying Jauron to do something for the next three years.
But after a season of collapses, both sudden and ongoing, bringing Jauron back as coach would rate as an up-yours of epic proportions to the fans who bought every ticket for every game in the stadium that bears Wilson’s name.
Wilson must know that. You don’t achieve his level of success without knowing what your customers want.
The only question now is if he cares.
Pick up Thursday’s Artvoice for further analysis of Sunday’s debacle.
Miami
Any realistic playoff hopes floated into the wintry November night along with Rian Lindell’s field-goal try against Cleveland three weeks ago.
Finishing with a winning record, or even at .500, isn’t going to happen, either.
At this point, even matching the barely mediocre 7-9 marks of the past two seasons does not appear tenable. Doing so would require the Buffalo Bills to remember how, precisely, you beat a team other than the Kansas City Chiefs, a feat they have not accomplished since October 19.
After Sunday’s rancid 16-3 loss to Miami in Toronto there remains, however, one distinction well within the Bills’ reach. To achieve it, they need only to keep doing what they have been doing.
Barring a three-game winning streak spanning the rest of December, the 2008 edition will have completed the most stunning, thorough collapse in the franchise’s 49 seasons.
Before this year, seven Buffalo teams opened the schedule with at least four straight wins. All but one reached the postseason, with the 1975 version providing the lone exception.
That, however, was at a time when only four teams from each conference qualified, as compared to today’s six entrants. And since the Bills had the league’s best offense and O.J. Simpson, then a nationally beloved superstar and spokesman, broke the record for touchdowns in a season with 23, the year ended amidst optimism for the future (which would turn out to be wholly unfounded, with Buffalo winning a total of just five games over the next two campaigns).
Moreover, 17 versions of the Bills have found themselves at least four games over .500 at some point in the season. Of that group, only the ’73 team — which only reached that benchmark in the final week, after being eliminated from contention — and the aforementioned ’75 squad failed to qualify for the postseason. Both of those teams finished with winning records, at least.
This year’s model has already joined that decidedly prestige-free club, while offering none of the excitement of their underachieving ancestors.
Since scoring six touchdowns during the 54-31 walkover in Kansas City, Buffalo has managed none in the last two games.
Offensive coordinator Turk Schonert has shown little interest of late in getting the ball to the team’s top runner, Marshawn Lynch, or its franchise receiver, Lee Evans.
A gimpy Trent Edwards struggled in the first half against San Francisco before leaving with a groin injury and his healthy replacement, J.P. Losman, has been even worse.
The defense and special teams, crucial to Buffalo’s 4-0 and 5-1 starts, have been blandly average during the two-month skid that followed—playing well enough to avoid humiliation, but failing to produce game-changing plays.
Dick Jauron, who may or may not have received a contract extension when times were good, has yet to show that he has any remedy for whatever has befallen his team.
To characterize Buffalo’s performances over the last two weeks as lifeless would be an insult to the departed. The first National Football League regular-season game played in Canada, which included one touchdown, four field goals and countless displays of ineptitude, turned out to be a great marketing tool—for the Canadian Football League.
Neither the Dolphins, nor the 49ers a week earlier dominated, or necessarily played well enough to beat even an average National Football League team.
For these Bills, though, even considering themselves average would rate as a remarkable act of hubris.
Pick up Thursday’s Artvoice for further analysis of Sunday’s debacle.
JP Losman is sacked. AV correspondent Dave Staba reports…
by Dave Staba - posted 12:16 pm, December 2, 2008
JP Losman is sacked.
AV correspondent Dave Staba reports on Sunday’s loss from the cheap seats at Ralph Wilson Stadium:
Trent Edwards rolled to his right.
And he rolled to his right.
And then he rolled some more.
Finally, a moment before he would have run completely off the field, Buffalo’s quarterback flung the ball towards his intended receiver, who was evidently sitting in a third-row seat near the southerly corner at the tunnel end of Ralph Wilson Stadium.
No one wearing a Bills uniform was in the vicinity of Edwards’ throw, which he released midway through the second quarter, with his team trailing San Francisco 7-0. The National Football League’s play-by-play insists the intended receiver was Josh Reed, whom it places in the “front right corner of end zone.”
As the official account of the game is understandably commentary-free, it does not mention that Reed would have needed to be roughly 19 feet tall to have gotten a hand close to Edwards’ fling.
Taken in isolation, the third-down play was unremarkable. With no open receiver or clear running lane, Edwards did the sensible thing. Following the incompletion, Buffalo was in position for a kick no more daunting than a routine extra point. Neither the quarterback nor the coaches who called the play could have known that the generally reliable Rian Lindell was about to become far less so, bonking the sure thing off the left upright.
The truly galling part about the incompletion, one of 11 issued by Edwards before a worsening groin injury forced to him to pack it in for the day at halftime, was that it was immediately preceded by another one. With the Bills all of six feet away from tying a game they absolutely had to prevent a steadily unraveling season from complete disintegration.
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