Sunday’s silver lining: Where there’s no more hope, there’s no more disappointment

Arrayed evenly around the wooded peninsula, they looked up as one, fully aware—in varying degrees, most likely—that they were flat busted, caught engaging in the most common illegal act at any Buffalo Bills game, this side of possessing an open container of alcohol: public urination.

Tim and I took in the tableau from our post in the ECC parking lot, a few first downs away from the trees and a few hours before the Buffalo Bills hosted the San Francisco 49ers, while savoring the pork chops Renee had expertly prepared on a tiny charcoal grill. We watched the aircraft hover and wondering what action law enforcement would take next.

“Think they have a machine gun?” I said, a bit surprised at the hint of hopefulness in my voice.

“No,” Tim said, a little sadly. “But if that thing comes down, we’re gone, man.”

It did not, of course. But the prospect of a fiery crash would prove the most exciting thought any of us would have on the most dreadful day, from both the meteorological and sporting perspectives, of the 2008 season to date, a 10-3 loss to the 49ers that was even duller than the score would indicate.

Those eight men, and hundreds, even thousands of their peers, openly communed with nature on a day when whatever remaining angle the Bills still had on reaching the playoffs slowly closed.

Faced with a third straight imminently beatable opponent, they drowned in a torrent of their own making. Misfired passes and kicks, misspent timeouts, and misinformed play-calling produced Buffalo’s second loss in three weeks, the sixth in the last eight outings, one that further relegated talk of reaching the postseason for the first time in nine seasons to the realm of wishful, wistful thinking.

On such a day, with a cold, drenching rain dousing any enthusiasm generated by the home team’s sporadic moments of success, you have to look for bright spots:

■ The liberation enjoyed by fully hydrated attendees, at least a certain portion of us.

“It’s great to be a guy,” said a young man as he took advantage of the illusion of privacy afforded by the trees adjacent to the ECC lot.

Such freedom, however, is gender specific.

“Look at that line,” Renee said, pointing to the couple dozen mournful-looking souls queued up outside the nearest portable toilet. All but one were women. And, after several minutes of standing perfectly still, waiting in vain for the magical sound of the plastic latch turning, he thought better of the situation and made for the woods, too.

Such anarchy dissipates as you get closer to Ralph Wilson Stadium and the woodlands, gulleys, and ditches of Orchard Park give way to a sea of asphalt and gravel. A few hardy—by which I mean thoroughly ripped—souls will resort to ducking behind a vehicle or guardrail, but the mores of our society generally prevail.

This was not always true inside the stadium. Before reconstruction of what was once known as Rich Stadium increased the size and frequency of rest rooms, a trip to a men’s facility provided a glimpse of civilization breaking down, particularly in the L-shaped hallway leading into the crowded, flooding hellholes.

Now, the old metal troughs have given way to individual porcelain units, elevating the privacy level but creating their own set of issues, better left to the imagination.

■ Whatever aesthetic pleasure the home team provided in the course of a demoralizing 10-3 loss to a team whose quarterback was in the league for five full seasons before anyone allowed him to throw a pass emanated almost exclusively from Buffalo’s uniforms.

They donned their royal-blue throwback jerseys, complemented by white pants and helmets, the latter bearing the red, standing bison of yore.

The furor over the new duds adopted by the Buffalo Sabres a couple years back seemed rooted more in nostalgia than style. The 1970s blue-and-golds were very much of their time, reminiscent of an era that provided several generations’ worth of great memories, but not a lot of on-ice success.

The Bills’ throwbacks, though, just look vastly better than the team’s regular gear. The blue shoulders of the white jerseys routinely worn on the road look like something a designer tacked on at the last moment to artificially inflate the number of billable hours. Same goes for the goofy red stripes down the sides.

The home outfits, though, are an abomination against somebody. The jerseys bear five different colors, including two different shades of blue. Worn in combination with the blue pants, the Bills come off looking more like the varsity at Southeastern Illinois Tech, or a group of men who forgot to change out of their pajamas, than representatives of the world’s most successful sports league.

The throwbacks worn Sunday, though, are as stylistically clean as you will see on any athletic field. The royal blue is distinct without looking gimmicky, a la the baby blue occasionally donned by the San Diego Chargers. And the standing buffalo is straight class.

During relatively good times, like last year’s Monday night game against Dallas, the old-timey duds provide a link to the Bills of 1964 and 1965, which remain the city’s only professional football league champions.

Sunday’s performance against the 49ers, though, recalled darker periods in the annals of the franchise. Instead of Jack Kemp, Cookie Gilchrist, and Tom Sestak, these Bills were descended from Dan Darragh, Bob Cappadona, and Al Cowlings.

■ By halftime, the intensifying rain and escalating frustration wrought by watching Buffalo find innovative ways to avoid setting foot in the San Francisco end zone, despite the remarkable hospitality shown by the 49ers, had us thinking of warmer accommodations.

Tim suggested Wiechec’s, so we beat what would be a very early exiting crowd and were settled in at the Clinton Street landmark by midway through the third quarter. The deep-fried chicken pieces, especially the breaded wing-dings, supplied needed nourishment and a welcome distraction from the futility displayed on the screens ringing the bar.

By this time, J.P. Losman had replaced the gimped-up Trent Edwards at quarterback, with little discernible change in Buffalo’s offensive fortunes.

When Losman flung a fourth-down pass, and Buffalo’s last, best chance at a tying touchdown, to the turf with 10 minutes left, a heavy-set, white-bearded man who looked and sounded as if he has spent many Sunday afternoons in that exact spot issued his verdict.

“Oh, yeah,” he said with elongated sarcasm. “He’s a lot better than the other guy.”

The Bills would get themselves in position for another let-down in the closing moments, but no one at Wiechec’s took the situation too seriously. When Rian Lindell managed to bank a field-goal try off the left upright for the second time on the day, there were shrugs rather than groans.

Sunday’s game against Miami, the first National Football League regular season game ever played in Canada, is generating similar indifference. The game was once seen by some as an irreversible early step towards the team migrating to the north, but the Bills’ recent woes raise the question of whether Toronto would really want them anyway.

Tim, Renee and I were into our second batch of wing-dings by the time of Lindell’s second carom, eating silently and watching what was once a season of unlimited promise borne back ceaselessly into the team’s futile recent past.

Dave Staba has covered the Bills since 1990. He welcomes e-mail at dstaba13@aol.com. To read further analysis of Sunday’s game here, on AV Daily.