Hope is an elusive concept for a Buffalo sports fan. To hope for a Buffalo sports team’s success is to contradict mountains of previous evidence against Buffalo and leap face-first into the belief that this might just be the year for the Sabres or the Bills, and often times this leap leaves its fans lying face-first on the ground.
Hope, however, is becoming more than an illusion for Buffalo this year. No, not for the Sabres—they’re a lost cause—but for the Bills, who had one of their best weeks in recent memory while most of Geneseo was home for break. On the national stage on Thanksgiving night, and in what was anticipated to be a hotly contested matchup versus the Dallas Cowboys, the Bills displayed a dominance that has been missing for more than 20 years.
Quarterback Josh Allen looked like a stud, wide receiver Cole Beasley made the Cowboys look like fools and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’s less-than-pleased face made its way all over Twitter. The Bills were fun to watch, and not just for a dedicated and often not-quite-sober local fan base.
The game against Dallas was the cherry on top for a Bills fanbase that is hardly used to what it has seen in the past week. Not only did the Bills win convincingly in primetime, but the New England Patriots and quarterback Tom Brady looked lost for most of Sunday Night Football against the Texans, as they had few answers for Houston’s game plan.
Now it’s time for the questions lingering in the minds of many Bills fans, are the Bills actually for real? Is this not just a fleeting hope during another year of New England’s dominance?
This time the hope is for real. This time the leap it takes to believe in Buffalo won’t end with a faceplant, but a triumphant crash through a folding table. Now this isn’t to say the Bills will be Super Bowl champions—or even AFC East Champions for that matter. This is to say that the Bills are relevant league-wide for the first time in many Geneseo students’ lifetimes.
Thursday’s game against the Cowboys was the highest-rated Thanksgiving game in the past 27 years, according to CBS. The game drew 32.5 million viewers. Ten percent of the American population saw the Bills dismantle America’s team in a game that awakened the hope of even the most cynical Bills fans.
One game isn’t enough to tell this story, however, and it definitely isn’t enough to convince Bills fans that their team is for real. What is more convincing is the fact that the Bills have a defense that ranks in the top-three for most defensive categories, including total yardage allowed. Most importantly, the Bills have a true leader in their head coach—Sean McDermott.
McDermott, along with General Manager Brandon Beane and Defensive Coordinator Leslie Frazier, has created a winning and hardworking culture in the Bills locker room. Through this culture, the Bills have elevated a team of misfits and overlooked prospects into a formidable team ready to take on any other team in the NFL.
The Bills have finally regained their fans’ trust and have earned the respect of the NFL, which can be seen in the words of Bills’ defensive tackle Jordan Phillips, “Put the world on notice. We were the worst 8-3 team in the NFL, now hopefully we get a little respect.”
The Bills are 9-3 for the first time since 1996, due in no small part to this culture. For the first time in this millennium, it is no longer foolish to say that the Bills are worth believing in.