Becoming a Bills Fan

When talking about football, people always ask me, “How did you become a Bills fan?”  They’ll usually say, “I didn’t know you were from Buffalo,” or more often, “I thought you said you were from Scranton”.  The answer I always give is it’s O.J.’s fault.

When I started watching football in the early ’70s, O.J. dominated the league.  As a young impressionable youth, I was hooked.  I remember watching him break Jim Brown’s single-season rushing record in the snow at Shea Stadium while I was at Monticello Raceway with my dad.  Of course, it didn’t hurt that my parents were actually married in Lackawanna, NY, not far from Orchard Park, while my dad worked for the railroad.

Growing up in Northeastern PA, there wasn’t a preferred “home” team.  The northeast United States is crammed with NFL teams, and Scranton seems to be at the epicenter of it all.  Within a 5-hour drive, you could get to 8 NFL stadiums – Eagles, Jets, Giants, Colts (Ravens), Redskins, Bills, Patriots, and Steelers.  It was then, and I believe to this day, home to a fan base for all kinds of teams – including those mentioned above, as well as many others, including the Dolphins (my brother) and Vikings – go figure.

In my early days of fandom, I remember receiving the Farmer’s Almanac. I would pour through the pages for interesting facts and figures, but the one thing I truly remember was seeing all of the NFL and MLB teams, along with their addresses. I wrote a few letters over the years and sent them off. On occasion, I’d receive a response from the team. Below are a couple of pieces that I received from the Buffalo Bills in 1973 and 1974.

It wasn’t easy following the Bills back then.  No internet.  No ESPN.  No NFL Network.  No NFL Sunday Ticket.  I would only get to see them on TV on a rare occasion, but I always followed them through the newspaper.  I collected and traded for all of their cards and still have them stored away.

I also didn’t have a lot of opportunities to see the Bills live, in action.  Buffalo is about a 5-hour drive from Scranton.  The first time I got to see them was in 1988 when they hosted Miami.  I went on a bus trip sponsored by one of our local drinking establishments, The Palms.  The excitement was unbelievable.  This would be an early career match up of  Jim Kelly vs Dan Marino.  The projections for the game were an offensive shootout.  The results, however, were much different.  A 9-6 field goal battle and victory for the Bills paved the way to a 12-4 record and an eventual loss to the Bengals in the AFC Championship Game.

There were only three other occasions that I was able to catch them while living in PA – all in the 93/94 season.  I happened to be in Pittsburgh for business during the Monday night game with the Steelers in early November.  Oddly enough, the Steelers were hosting a Buffalo Wings competition in the parking lot.  The Bills entered the game with a 7-1 record and got shut out 23-0.  It was a brutal walk back to the rental car in my Bills jacket.  The friendly city of Pittsburgh was not so friendly that evening.  This loss was the first out of 3 of the next four games.

At the end of that streak came the Eagles.  The Bills entered Philly at 8-4 and got back on their winning ways to run the table the rest of the season – to finish as 12-4.  That set up my final time seeing them while in PA, the 94 AFC Championship Game against KC in Buffalo – otherwise known as the “Chuck Mangione Game“.  The Bills knocked Joe Montana out of that game early, effectively ending his career, and easily won the game 30-13.  The victory sent them to SB XXVIII for their last of 4 straight SB appearances and a crushing defeat against the Cowboys.

With 4 games under my belt, I was 3-1 watching the Bills live in person, including an AFC Championship Game!

Since then, it hasn’t been so easy.

After the move to AZ in 95, seeing a game in Orchard Park was pretty much out of the question.  Now I had to wait and hope for the Bills to come west.  I ended up meeting a fellow Bills fan, Greg, through his wife at work.  Greg was from Buffalo but lived in San Diego and then moved to Arizona.  We started watching the games together on the weekends and have since become great friends.

We started to watch the schedule even more closely when it was announced in April.  Starting in 1998, we’ve traveled to see the Bills play numerous times – mostly in San Diego, once in Dallas, and a couple of times here in Phoenix.  With the exception of the 1999 game in Tempe against the Cards, every game has resulted in a loss.

When the 2012 schedule was released, the excitement for the Bills season was already at a fever pitch based on the off-season activity and development of some of the newer players.  We knew they would play the NFC West, but we didn’t know if they would play the Cardinals – and if so, would it be here in Phoenix.  Once announced, the wheels were put in motion for yet another event out at Glendale.

The tradition continues…

Go Bills!