This year the Buffalo Bills celebrate their 50th Anniversary and as such, I mark the same duration as a Bills Season Ticket holder. My dad, until his death in 1992, and I have made the annual commitment to support our professional football team for fifty years, but in light of the team’s decline in performance since the departure of Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith, Thurman Thomas and the “Super Bowl Bills,” my loyalty is just about spent.
There can be little question that Buffalo’s management lacks the ability to field a Super Bowl contender. Currently sporting a 3-6 record, the Bills seem headed towards their tenth season in a row without making the playoffs. Tueday, owner Ralph Wilson fired Head Coach Dick Jauron in a move that seemed as dysfunctional as ever, in as much as Buffalo had just come off a bye week, when the additional time for adjustment would have seemed more sensible.
Jauron is still owed over 6 million dollars, so for Wilson the move most certainly must have been painful, since the Bills almost never spend to the salary cap. When you can sell out virtually all your home games, and you get an additional 90 million in revenue from the Rogers group in Toronto, why blow it all on winning? Starting at the top, from the newly enshrined Hall of Famer, Wilson, General Manager Russ Brandon, and the Bills braintrust (a really good oxymoron) the Bills continue to embrace mediocrity with no reasonable attempt to compete at a high level. When Wilson eventually got his ticket punched for Canton, it was probably the final nail in the coffin of doom for Buffalo’s pro-football fans, who lest we forget, have supported their team wholeheartedly through its entire fifty year history.
With his election to the Hall, Wilson must surely believe that he has handled his football team fairly and that no one could ever question his commitment to western New York and Bills fans everywhere. Well, I for one do, and I suspect there are plenty of others just like me. At age 91, Wilson is beyond senile, and his dependence on Brandon, a non-football guy is laughable. It had to be Brandon that extended Jauron’s contract in mid-season last year and who oversees the Bills draft. As the game becomes more and more violent, the substitutes' role has become increasingly important and valuable. So it would follow then that in sports like professional football, hockey, and basketball where there is a salary cap, the first priority most certainly should be on talent evaluation, drafting and savvy trading of older and marginal players. If not, then teams are destined to repeat their mediocre play until they refocus their priorities.
Clearly, Wilson has put his hands around the throat of Buffalo fans, and squeezed just hard enough to get their loyalty when history shows he clearly doesn’t deserve it. As far as Jauron went, it is somewhat amazing that he had the job this year after three 7-9 seasons, let alone that he is owed 6 million by a team that desperately needs good coaching. The Bills last winning season was in 2004 when they finished 9-7, but didn't make the playoffs. Since then they have a combined 29 wins and 44 losses. But perhaps even worse, Buffalo has become almost irrelevant as an NFL member. They are barely touched over in discussions on radio and television nationally, and while Terrell Owens' arrival appeared to change this moniker, their subsequent play has plummeted them back into this quasi obscurity.
Sadly, the solution is fairly simple. If Buffalo is ever to see a playoff team again, Wilson is just going to have to spend the money that it takes to win. He will have to relinquish his control to a general manager like Bill Polian, who knows the game and knows what qualities players need to play at the highest level. But now as a Hall of Famer, Wilson will never do this. His ego is just too big. What irks me the most is that Wilson, at 91, will never get to spend the bulk of the hundreds of millions that the team is worth. But he won’t sell the team before his death, because I suspect he thinks he won’t get a fair price and his estate will be jeopardized.
This is precisely what is wrong with pro-sports in general. With estimates of over 500 million, how much does Ralph’s estate really need to survive in this volatile economy? Six hundred million? Seven, eight, nine? This is both sickening and laughable. Where does the greed and madness stop? Who really needs this much money to enjoy their relatively short existence? This can’t be what life is really all about, can it?
So, it would seem that professional football fans in Buffalo are destined for this almost insulting brand of mediocrity along with a seeming disdain for their unhappiness while Wilson is still alive. When he dies and the Bills finally leave Buffalo…and this would seem almost inevitable…the only hope fans might have would be for their resurfacing in Toronto. For at ninety miles away, this might be the closest Bills fans ever get to the playoffs in the future.