Just a Meaningless Game

I’d bought the tickets months before, knowing full well that games in the last week of an NFL season could be of little consequence. By then a team could be eliminated from the post season altogether, or all set and able to rest their big-name players.

But sometimes, last games have everything at stake: playoff spots, division titles, home field advantage.

I knew the risks, and I bought the tickets anyway. This was my son’s big Christmas gift. It could be a total bust. But I did it.

I know what you are thinking: This guy hasn’t written something in four years. Is he really reengaging his considerable audience (hi, mom) with a post about a sports game? My answer: Sure. This is just about sports.

The truth is, I miss writing. I miss chronically our days. A few times recently, I’ve looked up old posts to remind myself of experiences that I’d forgotten. Over the years of this dumb blog, I wrote 155 stories. That’s certainly more than I can remember. And I decided I need to remember this.

The boy in his natural environment, finally.

Like I said, I bought the tickets. Fairly good seats at a decent price for the final game of the season for the Buffalo Bills – at home against the Jets. It was to be the last regular season game at the stadium the Bills have called home for 50 years.

When my son opened the gift Christmas morning – two tickets, in the 9^th row of the endzone – he was ecstatic. He’s been a Bills fan for as long as he cares to remember. And he’d never been to a game, despite us living a mere two hours and change from Orchard Park.

We were both excited. I’d only been to one Bills game myself, thanks to a similar gift from my wife for my birthday a few months earlier. So, I knew how fun and fulfilling a visit to Highmark and its legendary atmosphere could be.

Just a week prior, it seemed the final game might matter a great deal. Buffalo trailed the division leaders by a single game. If Buffalo won both of the last two games, and the division leaders lost one, the Bills could secure the division title, a higher seed and home field advantage for a few games at least in the playoffs – important when Western New York’s weather could make other teams less comfortable.

Then the Sunday game before our big day, the Bills lost, the division leaders won, and our match became meaningless.

Meaningless. Hmph.

Now might be a good time to describe how we got to this point, as diehard fans of the Buffalo Bills. This may be a personal indulgence, or an attempt to assuage friends from my youth. But it’s my blog. So skip ahead if you don’t want to hear the history.

I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., in the 80s. I bled maroon and gold for the first few decades of my life. It was my religion. And it had its perks – three rings in total, and victory parades I distinctly recall attending.

Yet, with family roots in Upstate New York and many summers spent on Lake Ontario, I also allowed myself an AFC team. A mistress, of sorts. The Bills. That affair grew more intense when my wife and I settled permanently in Upstate 20 years ago.

Still, I always thought switching NFL teams was like changing religions. Blasphemy, of sorts. And I resisted it, despite the urge.

Then, after enduring many dark days in the Skin’s Dan Snyder era, I woke up one Sunday and realized I just didn’t love them anymore. So, I permanently left my birth team for my adopted one. I officially changed religions. I knew it was the right call when the Bills played Washington’s football team a few years back, and my heart had no questions to ask.

For the record, my first Bills Jersey is a #11 from 2002. Bledsoe. So, this is not some bandwagon thing. It was just a long courtship and a little complicated.

My son’s journey was more natural and direct. I dressed him in Skins’ regalia during the RG3’s debut, and my wife gave him a terrible towel to wave as a toddler for a few Super Bowls. But he showed us his true love early. Pacing the room on Sundays in September with clenched fists, asking to skip his hockey games for big matchups in November, and the eventual tears at some point each January -- sporting the same colors each time, along with his lucky shirt. He was a Bills fan to his core.

His favorite player, no surprise, is Josh Allen. But he has others, including James Cook, Khalil Shakir, Keon Coleman, Dawson Knox, Dion Dawkins among others.

He likes defensive players, too. But he is 15.

As we processed the fact that the game we were attending on our pilgrimage might amount to nothing, we told ourselves the journey itself would be worth it; that the tailgating, despite the G-rating, would suffice; that the simple right-of-passage involved in attending a game with below freezing temperatures was worth the eventual frozen extremities.

So we woke up early that day, donned the colors, and drove the two hours. We visited Hammer’s lot, ate smash burgers, and bought new merch – knit hats to keep our ears from falling off in 20-degrees with a breeze.

We thought it would be okay. We were wrong. It was better. Josh Allen only took one snap. And yet, the game was awesome.

Was it close? I don’t think so.

But, as the last regular season game at Highmark Stadium, the home of this storied franchise for half a century, it was a true celebration of everything Bills, complete with commemorative coins, a military flyover, team legends asking “Where else would you rather be?” and players dancing to The Killers one final time.

The celebration ended with a tribute video on the giant screens, showing past glories and a future filled with hope. The guy next to us bawled. He was not alone.  

We got the tickets at a discount because the game might not matter. But being there was priceless. And I know, someday when I’m gone, the boy will be able to tell people, he went to the last game at the first Hallmark.

Since that Sunday, the Bills won their first playoff matchup. They earned another week. As always, they made it interesting.

Come this weekend, we will again be watching, pacing, hoping and dying inside a little together. All for a meaningless sport that can mean everything if you let it.

Go Bills.

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