An Offseason of Prison Thinking While Waiting for the Buffalo Bills
The offseason feels like a sentence with no exclamations and many questions. Were we convicted for our misdeed of liking the Buffalo Bills? Prison is already not a super time, what with the inability to go where you’d like, lack of wifi, and murderers who dislike you. But being stuck with your ghastly thoughts is the most severe punishment, especially for those expecting an exacerbated incarceration.
You do the time. Don’t let the time do you. Prison thinking is the one way to make a term more agonizing. The lack of free time and fear of unpleasant encounters with fellow involuntary residents aren’t bad enough. Getting carried away with thoughts is a certain way to make confinement go beyond bars. The metal ones aren’t nearly as fun as those with bourbon.
This is a long time without football in the same sense Rosen is the second-best quarterback Josh drafted in 2018. Fans are doomed to care about how one team is about moving a ball or stopping it. Without any of that action for most of the year, people naturally plot about what’s next. The fact things in the future technically haven’t happened yet fails to dissuade busy brains. You can’t fall asleep while your mind wonders why the word short is longer than the word long.
If you want to control your thoughts, social media is not for you. Every idea everyone has ever had is presently posted. Refusing to put them in chronological order is how online conglomerates keep them fresh. The randomness would help with quality control if status updates were plays being called.
Your mind hates you. That’s why it’s always thinking of when you wished everyone happy Easter at the Christmas pageant and whether the person in the produce section asking if you liked the Wegmans guacamole hoped you’d suggest going on a date. And fantastical narratives get stuck as a gift from your amused skull’s contents. It’s like dreaming while being awake and nearly as surreal. The lack of new sensory information means reliving past moments incessantly.
There’s not an actual window closing, and the figurativeness of the discussion makes determining its accuracy maddening. It’s not bad enough how that particular phrase gets repeated like “spider hole” in the weeks after Saddam Hussein lost at hide and seek: the fear that decline is occurring is exacerbated by how there’s no way to prove such right now. We have to wait to see if things are going to get woeful.
There’s nothing worse about worrying than the sense your frenetic consciousness may have a point. One player can make a difference, sort of. Expecting the Bills to contend for as long as they have Josh Allen is like presuming Superman will stop any supervillain from destroying Metropolis. It would be swell not to rely on one person even if it’s the particularly impressive superhero in question.
The seemingly ceaseless interval is particularly tough for sports fans whose petitions to have seasons start the day after championships have been continually disregarded. A nagging fear of returning to football obscurity might not just be our runaway thoughts derailing. It’s not bad enough to be deprived of the sport for all these cruel months: this could all be buildup to letdown. Cheer up.
There’s evidence that gloom could be the only thing that wins this season. Even annoying optimists might conclude management has not done nearly enough to alleviate fears that this team could actually be regressing. Stefon Diggs may have caused headaches, but he still occasionally caught passes in between ibuprofen doses.
A lack of worthy worthy could be a looming problem, what with needing someone to catch what the quarterback throws. The Bills could be shifting toward the new style of big receiver where tight ends are a slightly different version of the same job description. But it’d still be nice to have more traditional options, especially since management went the unconventional route of adding a draftee and journeymen instead of the superstar the quarterback deserves.
We know a lot and also nothing. Embrace the uncertainty instead of futilely attempting to control it. Presumptions only lead to confusion. Taking comfort in predictions is ultimately unfulfilling if they don’t come true. Sports books grow richer by the moment based on people mistakenly thinking they know what’ll happen next. Looking for tendencies is natural, which is why scouts are always in demand. For now, be reassured by the lack of knowledge, as there’s no better option.
Bad things are bound to happen. I am sorry to be the one to inform you how life works. The track record of them occurring incessantly isn’t helping maintain faith, especially with so much time between sermons. A universe where we’re the subject of ceaseless practical jokes doesn’t seem funny.
Allen covers up innumerable flaws in roster construction and game planning. Buffalo’s savior should be coach as well. Terry Pegula wouldn’t have to pay a new person, which is the most important factor for one of the richest humans ever.
Convicts still haven’t been paroled. The stint in mental prison would be easier to withstand if we had been charged with doing something malicious. But we merely committed the crime of liking football and having some connection to Buffalo. It’s no fun sitting in a cell while pondering what we did wrong, namely being born. Letting negative thoughts with little basis take control is the one way to make missing a sport worse.
