Details Change As Buffalo Bills Never Do
I don’t know if this is Hell or Purgatory, but another apocalyptic conclusion to a promising season is definitely not a trip to paradise. We’re residing here mentally for eternity. Anyway, isn’t football fun?
The Bills missed their chance to be .500 in the playoffs. They’re instead 19–21 in the knockout round following the latest crushing letdown while leaving us fretting for months about whether they possess enough resources to be put into action next time. Endless woe offers good preparation.
The 40th postseason game in franchise history brought us to a spot that should be less painful considering how familiar the area is. Collapsing in a typically impossible manner was something for which we braced, and the crash position still didn’t leave us prepared for impact.
Buffalo’s fellow playoff viewers who found themselves recently eliminated from participation can’t blame conditions even though that’s way more fun than responsibility. Temps shoveled as thoroughly as they could. As for the familiar locale, it’s not random luck that allowed them to stay home. Playing in their local simply made cashing in on a scenario more unlikely than trendy parlay bets extra agonizing.
Everyone is sick of reviewing specifics. Residing in football purgatory means ample occasions for going over the same pattern of flubs even though the particulars may differ. An outcome that’s eerily similar to previous heartbreak makes fate seem inescapable. It was was bad enough when CBS showed highlights of the previous playoff game against the Chiefs. But then we had to endure the soft reboot.
Our football world along with the rest of it couldn’t have been engineered to cause more agony. Some guaranteed predictions don’t offer much comfort. One side’s exclusion is a certainty upon which to bet. Those hurt the most can’t stop looking away. It’s not a train wreck, which gets repaired.
There’s this one team incapable of overcoming tripping over their own feet. Life’s sole guarantee is that mistakes made by the Bills always lead to cataclysm. Unlike some slightly better sides that are able to overcome errors, our side’s flaws are inevitably fatal. A franchise that seems culturally unable to elude their past demonstrates continuity in the wrong sense.
A sporting soap opera keeps fans tuned in by never concluding drama. Viewers who tire of being manipulated crave a plot twist. Bingers know what’s going to happen yet keep tuning in. Rewarding hackneyed tales with ratings will never send the signal that the plot needs refreshing. Maybe storylines will resolve next century.
Putting everything together one time is a simple task that’s never easy. A few other teams manage to pull it off: by my count, someone has won the championship every year it’s been played.
By contrast, every season of the Super Bowl era has featured the same ending told in different ways for one franchise. Bills diehards can and should count the AFL championships; Jan Brown sure does. It’s not to scoff at franchise history, but it would sure be nice to triumph in the finale that’s been played since Jackie Gleason had a show. Winning the last rebel league title before the chance to win it all in a rather fitting fate for the Bills.
An uncannily strange season even by Bills standards is still disappointing even if fans figured it’d be scuttled before the knockout round began. A bizarre loss to the Jets set its tone before an odd turnaround where they kept winning games without impressing. Celebrating while feeling like efforts weren’t thorough only seems like ingratitude. The binary nature of results belies the maddening habit of Sean McDermott’s teams to never put foes away. The pilot wonders why does the plane keep dipping.
Cassandra was a Bills fan. Noting deficiencies is not a sign of pessimism. There’s no more crucial difference than the one between being critical and negative. Positive zombies demanded enjoying victories no matter how shaky the play felt. Those who only seemed reflexively crabby were damned for noting why sweet results were unsustainable.
It’s too depressing to write a script where a team can’t managed to be good enough for one postseason run ever. There’s not even a curse: Buffalo sports teams didn’t trade Babe Ruth or offend a goat’s owner. Our beloved city offers an example of life being cruel because that’s what it does.
Indifferent existence expresses no concern for whether or not recipients of perpetual agony committed any offenses to deserve it. Another offseason spent trying to think of how we possibly could’ve offended karma this much will not yield an answer.
An established pattern must be acknowledged. Focusing on the last unpleasant result instead of stepping back to view the broader scene means there’ll be more rendering of fans’ souls. Attempting to learn just why this entity can never assemble a sufficiently dynamic combination may be the only way to break out.
It’s easy to review one argument instead of noting how it embodied the relationship. A marriage counselor notes the frustration is never about the oven mitt. Buffalo still aches from regret. Another season feels like reading a text before a breakup and wondering if a different emoji would’ve changed its mood. But the year never liked us that much.
