Why the Bills MUST BEAT THE PATRIOTS

We Know when it comes to the Bills playing the Patriots, the Bills are the patsies.  The last time the Bills won a game against New England was the 2003 season opener.  15 straight losses since then.  Closing in on the NFL record for consecutive losses by one team to another….which as we all know is the 20 straight times the Bills lost to the Dolphins in the 1970's.

Will “son of the streak” end this Sunday at the Ralph?  Will the Bills finally get a “W” instead of a walloping?

It could happen.  If Chad Henne could pass for 400 yards against the Pats’ defense, I like Ryan Fitzpatrick’s chances.  The Patriots’ offensive line is letting Tom Brady take some hits, and we know he doesn’t like that.  The Ralph will be rocking.  Chan Gailey won’t be intimidated by Bill Belichick.

Those are reasons why it could.  I’ve come up with five reasons why the Bills NEED TO WIN.

56-10

 Of all the embarrassments of the Dick Jauron era, this was the most embarrassing.  Of all the pathetic performances, this was the most pathetic.  Of all the times he should have been fired the moment a game ended, this was the top of the list.

November 18, 2007.  Sunday night.  Prime time.  Nationally televised on NBC.  The Bills were coming off a four-game winning streak.   It ended in humiliating fashion.

The Patriots came to Ralph Wilson Stadium and stomped the Bills. It was Buffalo's worst defeat since the War of 1812.  
Yes, 2007 was the year the Patriots went undefeated and Tom Brady & Randy Moss had record-breaking seasons and the Patriots were really, really good.  But the Bills played really, really badly.  They were tentative.  They were uninspired.  THEY PLAYED SCARED. 

Brady threw five touchdown passes….four of them to Moss.  The Patriots scored touchdowns on seven straight possessions.   It was the worst loss in Bills history.  And with all the bad losses the Bills have had over the years, that’s saying something.

To make up for Drew Bledsoe

 I know, I know….we were all so excited when Tom Donahoe made the bold move.  Trading a first-round draft pick to the Patriots for Bledsoe.  Finally, a real quarterback for the Bills.  Yeah, Flutie was exciting, but Bledsoe was the real thing.  An all-pro.  A rocket arm. 

Belichick was going to regret trading a great quarterback to a division rival.  And it started off so well.  The first half of the 2002 season, the Bills averaged 30 points a game and were headed for the playoffs with a 5-3 record.  But reality set in, and the team finished 3-5 in the second half, averaging only 17 points a game.  Defenses figured out that Bledsoe wasn’t very mobile and he got sacked a few times.

Still, the 2003 season opener gave us hope.  A 31-nothing thumping of the Patriots.  But the team ended up 6-10.

But things were going to be better in 2004.  And in the season finale, all the Bills needed to do was beat the Steelers, who were playing a bunch of backups & third-stringers, and playoffs here we come.  They lost.  And the Bledsoe era/error was over.

The phantom foul

If you’re old enough, you remember the Buffalo Braves, our NBA expansion team that came into existence the same year as the Sabres.  Like all expansion teams, they started out slowly, but in the 1973-74 season they made the playoffs for the first time.  They went up against the powerful Boston Celtics.   Led by Bob McAdoo, Ernie DiGregorio, and Buff State’s Randy Smith, the Braves hung tough.  With the Celtics leading three games to two, Game Six was played at the Aud.  The Celtics led by four points in the final minute, but the Braves tied it up with seven seconds left.  When Jo Jo White missed a last-second shot, it was headed to overtime.  But wait.  Referee Darrell Garretson called a foul on McAdoo.  The kind of foul call that’s never made in that situation.  White made two free throws and the Celtics led by two.  But the Braves got hosed one more time.  When White fell, there was one second left on the clock.  Time for one more shot by the Braves.  But the refs decided the game was over.  End of game, end of season for the Braves.  Owner Paul Snyder pounded on the referees’ dressing room door, screaming “You can’t throw me out of here.  I own the place.”  Even White said the Braves should have gotten one last shot.  The team filed a protest with the NBA, but needless to say that went nowhere.  The Celtics went on to win the NBA title. The Braves made the playoffs the next two seasons.  They lost to the Celtics again in the 1975-76 season.  That was their final playoff appearance before leaving Buffalo two years later. 

John Y. Brown

Speaking of the Braves, it’s a foregone conclusion that eventually we would have lost the team.  NBA teams have moved from city to city faster than Kobe Bryant could say “the sex was consensual”.   Buffalo wasn’t going to be a big enough market, and the Braves were never going to top the Sabres in fan support.

But we didn’t have to lose the team as early in their history as we did.  And we wouldn’t have if Paul Snyder hadn’t sold out to John Y. Brown, the former owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Brown bought KFC from its founder, Colonel Sanders, in 1964.....built the company up, and sold it for a mega profit in 1971.  He did the opposite with the Braves.  Instead of building the team up, he tore it down.  In their last two seasons in Buffalo, stars were sold off, the team’s record dropped, and so did fan support.  Which helped Brown, because there was a clause that said their lease with the Aud could be broken if they didn’t sell 5,000 season tickets.

Irv Levin owned the Celtics back then.  He wanted a team in California.  But there’s no way the league would let the Celtics move out of Boston.  So Brown and Levin worked out a swap.  Brown got the Celtics, Levin got the Braves, and Buffalo got screwed.  The league approved the deal and Levin moved the Braves to San Diego, where they became the Clippers.  (The only consolation for Braves fans is that the Clippers have been one of the worst franchises in all of professional sports for decades)

To this day, die-hard Braves fans won’t eat at KFC. 

Brown didn’t own the Celtics for long.  He went on to become elected Governor of Kentucky in 1979.  He failed to move the state capital to California.

 

The Red Sox

Wait a minute.  What does Boston’s beloved baseball team have to do with Buffalo?  Well....you know how Buffalo was in the running for a major league expansion team but they gave it to Florida instead….and Marlins tickets are about as popular in Miami as a thong on a hairy European at the beach?  And we keep thinking we’re such a great minor league baseball town we should be in the majors?  Actually, we were.  Until we got hosed.

Let’s go back….way back back back back to the late 1800’s.  The Buffalo Bisons were in the National League.  In 1886 they moved into the minors, as an original member of the International League.  In 1899, they moved to the Western League, which in 1901 became the second major league, the American League.  So Buffalo going to be back in the big leagues.  Except for one thing.  The league decided to include a different team instead of Buffalo.  A team from Boston.  They were called the Boston Americans.  Soon to be known as the Red Sox.  Yep, the first “Major league sports screws Buffalo” story.

You know that Red Sox curse which lasted for all those years?  It wasn’t because they traded Babe Ruth.  It was because Buffalo baseball fans put a hex on them.

Over the years, there have also been some good Buffalo-Boston memories.  Jim Schoenfeld checking Wayne Cashman through the Zamboni entrance.   OJ running for 250 yards against the Pats.  In fact, until the current 15-game losing streak, there have been plenty of Bills-Patriots games that turned out just fine for the Bills.    

I say it’s time for that to happen again. 

Go Bills!