BUFFALO — Things are bad in New York City when it comes to professional football. They are very bad. They are glum, and they are grisly, and sometimes it can seem as if the darkness is destined to last forever.
I have a news bulletin for you:
It doesn’t have to last forever.
I have spent the past few days in downtown Buffalo, and I can state this with absolute certainty: This is the happiest place in the NFL. This is the most optimistic place in the NFL right now. It may go against civic tradition to be so buoyant — after all, after the Bills blew their AFC playoff game with Kansas City a few months ago the locals had to sift through a deep pile of candidates to determine where that game stood on the list of sporting heartbreaks.
But that was a few months ago. This is now. And it’s not just that the rest of the NFL seems to believe that the Bills are the champions-in-waiting. The locals are allowing themselves to buy in, too.
“I know how dangerous that is,” a Bills fan named Paul Kuchalski said Thursday afternoon at KeyBank Center. He was wearing a Richmond sweatshirt, but a Bills ballcap — “I wear something with a Bills logo just about every day,” he explained — and was happily willing to blast holes through the caution that usually pervades such things.
“I look at it this way: What else can sports do to hurt us?” he said, referring to bad beats Buffalo teams have suffered. “We’ve lived through Scott Norwood. We lived through No Goal. We lived through the Music City Miracle. We lived through 13 Seconds. So if your plan was to work the reverse jinx and hope things work out that way … well, it hasn’t worked. So why not just embrace what we have.”
And good things keep happening for the Bills. Von Miller, freshly crowned a champion, left the warm embrace — and just general warmth — of Los Angeles this week because he wanted to come to Buffalo. The list of affluent people with choices who would pick Buffalo over L.A. is probably short — maybe the late Tim Russert would’ve done it. But Miller just did.
“It was hard to walk away [from the Rams],” Miller said last week during his introductory press conference in suburban Orchard Park. “The only way you can walk away from that is to walk into something special. And what they’re doing here is extremely special. [The Bills] are going to win a Super Bowl with or without me. They’ve built an amazing team.”
And that’s the amazing thing. As hopeless as New York feels right now, Buffalo used to dwarf the despair. The Bills went 17 years without sniffing the playoffs, and needed a borderline miracle to eke in in year 18. The stadium was a mess, the ownership a mess, there was no stability. Nine different coaches came and went. Nobody wanted to be here. Nobody wanted to play here. Certainly nobody went out of their way to come play here.
Now they are lining up around the NFL. Ownership is good. The stadium is a better experience and a new one may be on the way. And the Bills are the league’s sexiest team, with a superstar quarterback and a roster stuffed with talent.
“It’s a destination place, for sure,” Miller said.
The Jets, by most accounts, did fairly well in free agency, but there were still some players they would like to have signed who they chose not to. And it’s understandable. The Jets (and the Giants) have to overpay at this point, because players know they are in for a rebuilding process. It’s not the easiest recruiting tool. And it can seem hopeless.
But it was hopeless here, once, and not too long ago. It seemed the skies would never brighten, and now it feels 80 degrees and sunny even on days when it’s 40 and spitting sleet. Nobody is waiting for the other shoe to drop anymore. They have bought into hope. And that can happen here?
Why can’t it happen on the other end of the state (and just across the state line)?
Vac’s Whacks
Kevin Willard managed to put both feet in his mouth after Seton Hall’s no-show against TCU on Friday night, both hinting at his departure while his present team was still smarting in its locker room, and floating Shaheen Holloway’s name as his successor when Saint Peter’s is, you know, still in the tournament. Willard’s a good coach. That was a terrible look.
I really, really wanted Ron Harper Jr., Geo Baker and the rest of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights to get another few swings in this tournament. They were an awfully fun bunch to watch for four years.
The Phillies, with that lineup in that ballpark, are going to be something to behold this year.
If you haven’t started watching “Winning Time” on HBO yet … honestly, what are you waiting for?
Whack Back at Vac
Hank Hansen: I’m missing the other March Madness — the Allman Brothers Band at The Beacon.
Vac: Sigh. A tradition like no other.
Robert Lewis: The Yankees are so old that when LeMahieu plays second, they can play in the local over-30 softball league.
Vac: Let’s just say, the feedback from Yankees fans so far this spring hasn’t exactly been bursting with joy.
@IamNYSports: What exactly was the point of this lockout if teams like the A’s and Reds are all dumping their best players? Makes no sense.
@MikeVacc: I think it underlines and emphasizes that some owners don’t have the stomach to be in the game.
Richard Siegelman: It’s a “lucky” thing that Pete Alonso wisely didn’t view life-saving automobile seat belts the same foolish, dumb way Kyrie Irving views the COVID-19 vaccine.
Vac: He’s not wrong. Alonso could’ve chosen to ignore the law and gone freestyle. That wouldn’t have ended well.
