The Bills convene around a new quarterback and a near sellout season

“Bro,” Mark said, “follow me.”

Trent Edwards

We walked out of the suburban backyard where we and a couple dozen others had spent the last few hours grieving for our great friend Jay Bonfatti. Three days earlier, news that the exquisite barbecue chef, music connoisseur, gifted storyteller, and infinitely generous soul had died devastated his extended family, a motley network of blood relatives and well-earned friends spread across the planet.

Given the futility of attempting to make sense of such a jarring loss, any diversion was welcome.

When we reached the street, Mark—at once the most optimistic and cynical of fans—opened the hatch on his station wagon, retrieving and unfolding a length of gray cloth.

“This year’s shirt,” he said, referring to his tradition of coming up with slogans for approaching campaigns by the Buffalo Bills and emblazoning it on a limited number of T-shirts he gives to his own sizable inner circle. “What do you think, bro?”

Over the left breast, blue letters shadowed in red spelled out “THE COUNCIL OF TRENT” over a large “5,” with “2008 SEASON” completing the circle below.

The primary vehicle of the Counter-Reformation during the 16th Century gets referenced far too seldom. And I’ve always thought the Roman Catholic body founded to issue stern condemnations of Protestant heresies was particularly fertile ground for football allusions. So it was heartening to see Mark’s display of sartorial support for Bills quarterback Trent Edwards, the 24-year-old Stanford graduate who wears jersey No. 5 and in whom the franchise’s football people have entrusted the playoff hopes of the faithful and, quite possibly, their own jobs.

Of course, past offerings have not always proven prophetic. I still occasionally wear the 2005 edition, which implored the Bills to “WIN WITH LOSMAN.”

To be fair, they did. Once—in the first of eight games J.P. started that fall before losing his job to the immortal Kelly Holcomb. The back of the shirt reads “AND THAT’S NO MULARKEY!” Despite such optimistic punning, monosyllabic head coach Mike Mularkey tearfully resigned days after the completion of Buffalo’s 5-11 season, having masterminded the team’s second-worst performance since 1986.

Whether the first convening of the Council of Trent in 445 years produces lasting doctrine or quickly gives way to another of the quarterback debates that have distracted media and fans from the team’s growing tradition of mediocrity for much of the past decade, Mark is on pretty safe ground with the slogan on the back, emblazoned in a Gothic font:

Buffalo Football

A Religious Experience

Few subjects beyond those two generate the sort of passion that fuel civic discussions such as who should start at quarterback, why Marshawn Lynch’s downtown traffic difficulties didn’t end with the Bills’ star running back in handcuffs, or whether owner Ralph Wilson’s dalliance with Toronto is simply a cash-generating fling or the first step toward a northern migration.

Meanwhile, failed politicians run unopposed as Buffalo’s job base withers and the region’s population ages and scatters. Those who do question the sort of alleged leadership that has failed the area repeatedly are quickly and loudly dismissed as lunatics or obstructionists, usually with venom much stronger than that aimed at the brilliant minds that created the mess in the first place.

Comparing a violent game based on the acquisition of territory to various belief systems that date back to man’s earliest moments could be considered blasphemous. To football, that is.

While the Vatican closes and consolidates parishes in one of the most heavily Catholic areas of the country and churches of all denominations scramble to sustain membership, the flock following the Bills continues to grow despite a seeming lack of reasonable encouragement.

Buffalo’s football team has not participated in a playoff game since January 8, 2000, when Tennessee Titans tight end Frank Wycheck heaved what remains the most-analyzed lateral in the sport’s history. During the eight interceding regular seasons, the Bills have won more games than they lost just once, when Mularkey’s 2004 team rode a late-season winning streak to the brink of the postseason, only to collapse at home against Pittsburgh’s second- and third-stringers in the season finale.

Including that 9-7 finish, the Bills have won but 53 of the 128 regular season games in the new millennium, losing nearly 60 percent of their contests under the stewardship of four different head coaches, four general managers (including current chief operating officer Russ Brandon, who does not technically possess the GM title but has final say on all the franchise’s decisions, be they football-related or not), and seven unique starting quarterbacks.

This marked lack of success, or even continuity, has not hurt business, though. On August 28, the team announced it had sold 56,011 season tickets, the second-highest total in its 49-year history. Only in 1992, with the Bills coming off back-to-back trips to the Super Bowl and fielding a roster topped by superstars like Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, and Bruce Smith, did more fans shell out for the full season.

This year’s schedule includes only seven games at Ralph Wilson Stadium, though. The cost of a season ticket does not include a seat at the Rogers Centre in for the December 7 meeting between Buffalo and Miami, the first of five annual regular-season contests to be transplanted in Toronto.

The announcement of the Toronto series and the accompanying lecherous ramblings of Ted Rogers, the covetous Canadian cable television baron who is bankrolling the venture, led to much wailing and dread locally. But the prospect of a sporting cuckolding evidently didn’t stop many Buffalo-area fans from buying into the rest of the schedule. The same press release trumpeting the season-ticket sales indicated that only a handful of tickets remain for two home games, the November 30 visit by San Francisco and the season finale on December 28 against New England.

So a football team riding the longest playoff-free skid in the franchise’s history, one which did not add a veteran or first-round draft pick to an offense that was the National Football League’s third-least-productive in terms of both yards and points in 2007, a year that ended with three straight defeats, has virtually sold out its entire 2008 home schedule.

Maybe it’s because the diversion is needed so badly, for all the reasons mentioned above and more. In an area rent by economic, social, and racial differences, the Bills provide one of the few, if not the only, points of commonality.

Some people love fall Sundays because there are no lines at the grocery store. There are those who believe the government money that built and re-built the stadium in Orchard Park would be better used to support the forms of entertainment covered elsewhere on these pages. But whether you love the Bills or loathe their existence, they occupy a place very near the center of life in these parts.

My own experience with the Bills started like many seasons have ended—in crushing disappointment. As a seven-year-old, my father took me to what was then known as Rich Stadium on November 9, 1975. This was the apex of the O.J. Simpson era, and the Juice scored the game’s first three touchdowns against the Colts, still residents of Baltimore.

Buffalo led 28-7 in the second quarter before disintegrating, allowing the Colts to rally for a 42-35 victory, leaving angry fans surrounding us using words I don’t know that I had ever heard before.

And I was hooked.

I grew up as the most superstitious of fans, strongly believing that my wardrobe and body positioning had a direct impact on the outcome well into my college years.

Just as the Bills got really good, my nascent career interfered with my enjoyment of the success I’d been waiting for most of my life. My first job as a sportswriter landed me in the press box, where shouting obscenities at players was forbidden and maintaining any perceptible rooting interest was terribly uncool.

So I watched most of the Super Bowl years with a forced detachment, aside from a detour into the world of news reporting that freed me from objectivity for most of the 1992 season.

I soon returned to writing about sports for something approximating a living, though, and continued doing so for most of the next decade, a stint book-ended by the end of the Super Bowl beatings and the long-running Flutie-Johnson quandary. (In the interest of full disclosure, I was a Rob advocate.)

Sitting through news-free news conferences and interviewing players who would rather choke you than answer your questions tended to blunt any partisan urges, allowing cynicism toward a publicly subsidized sporting venture to grow and flourish.

In early 2001, right around the time Buffalo released Doug Flutie and anointed Johnson as the quarterback of the future (a designation which would last eight games), I was granted parole from the world of daily sports reporting and started freelancing. After covering the Bills in fairly traditional fashion that season for the Niagara Falls Reporter, I decided to try something different.

For the next six seasons, a somewhat irregular cast of contributors—with Mark as one of the key participants—and I watched games from a variety of vantage points, amusing ourselves through seasons that were occasionally stirring, but never ultimately successful by the commonly accepted standard of playing games that matter in January.

The plan is to follow the same basic coverage strategy for the season that opens Sunday in Orchard Park with the Seattle Seahawks in the role of antagonist, except for one twist. After covering scores of games as a working reporter and occupying dozens of seats as a paid spectator, I find myself in possession of one of those 56,011 season tickets.

Like a true season-ticket holder, I blew off this summer’s lone exhibition game at Ralph Wilson Stadium due to a previously scheduled vacation. Those who had more pressing commitments didn’t miss much, as the Bills gave both Edwards and Losman the night off, making way for someone named Gibran Hamdan to go the whole way against Detroit.

Hamdan, whose most notable previous accomplishment was leading the extinct NFL Europa in passing two years ago, prepared for a long autumn of clipboard holding by running around and trying not to get tackled in his own end zone, which he accomplished on all but one occasion.

Apparently, both Buffalo coach Dick Jauron and his counterpart with the Lions, Rod Marinelli, felt very confident about the readiness of their respective teams for the regular season. Barely any starters played for Buffalo or Detroit. This was particularly notable in light of the teams’ identical 7-9 finishes a year ago, which were managed despite possessing the league’s second-worst and worst defenses, respectively.

It’s not as if Jauron has shown a knack for having his charges in peak form when the real games begin, either. In his first season, the Bills limped off to a 2-5 start. Last year, they were 1-4 before staging a fleeting playoff bid.

The onus for avoiding such a season-snuffing tumble falls largely on Edwards. The second-year quarterback’s quest to erase memories of the dismal final month of his rookie year won’t be helped by the absence of Pro Bowl tackle Jason Peters. Peters’ rather bizarre holdout—his representatives and the team reportedly have not negotiated or even talked since early winter—showed no sign of ending as of press time, forcing the Bills to shuffle an offensive line that wasn’t particularly strong to begin with.

Equally vital will be the progress of a long-overmanned defense bolstered by free-agent defensive tackles Marcus Stroud and Spencer Johnson, who provide much-needed flesh for an interior that was routinely gutted by opposing runners last fall, as well as linebacker Kawika Mitchell, who played a key role in the New York Giants’ unlikely run to last year’s championship.

As the opener approaches, though, such questions are easily washed away by the unblemished optimism of a new season. The Bills are undefeated—at least for a few more days.

Let the Council of Trent come to order.

* * *

John F. Bonfatti, then the Associated Press sportswriter in Buffalo, was a fixture in the first press box I ever walked into, at Rich Stadium in 1990.

In the years since, Jay became a better friend than I can adequately describe right now. If you were lucky enough to know him too, or weren’t so fortunate and wonder why one person has inspired such powerful tributes by his co-workers on the pages of the Buffalo News over the past week, do yourself a favor and check out http://buffalonews.typepad.com/inside_the_news/2008/08/a-gift-gone-too.html.

The outpouring of grief, love and memories honor a life that was overwhelmingly full and much, much too short.

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