“At Ralph Wilson Stadium the true gladiators perform outside the coliseum.”
What follows the introduction is a 9-minute documentary that truly displays the wild side of tailgates in the frozen tundra.
NFL Sunday is usually spent in a recliner, sitting on a bar stool, or if you’re lucky, on your feet at the game. You buy your ticket and watch your favorite players represent your team on a day many people have been working so hard for. That sounds like a nice day at the field. An hour commute to the game, and an hour back.
Wrong.
As you wake up from a long Saturday night, Pinto Ron has already been in the grass lot since the crack of dawn preparing for the party.
With his Bills hat, Bills coat, and ZZ-Top-Esque beard, it is easy to tell he is ready for the game.
Ron confesses that at the time the documentary is filmed, will be his 370th straight Bills game dating back to the late 1980’s. It is safe to assume that our beloved die-hard isn’t sitting in the suites, but that’s just how we like it.
BillsMafia condiment spray
This is not a tailgate wide event, so if you are going to a BillsMafia tailgate and don’t want to spend your Sunday cleaning mustard out of your hair, then you don’t have to.
Besides virtually never missing a game, there is one more thing Pinto Ron is famous on the streets of Buffalo for.
At one point during the tailgate, Ron will slither away for a bit. He trades his thick down jacket for a white cut off and enters the center of the circle that has formed to welcome him.
Standing there with a dry hamburger in need of some ketchup, he is then doused with as many condiments as you can think of.
Head to toe; it makes you ponder how he cleans himself up for the game or if he even does. But that is the legend of Pinto Ron.
The tailgate-wide optimism is real every week
Well mostly.
“Preseason, we wake up, we look at the calendar, and we say this is the f****** year. Every year disappointment comes after that.”
Some of the fans just enjoy the party, but most would not be out there if they didn’t have a deep passion for the Bills.
The fans go into every game with hopes of a win. And all though the Bills just went 7-9 and missed the playoffs for the 17th straight year, hopefully, the tailgate softens the blow.
Petition for Richie Incognito to jump through a table
Like clockwork, you see the contents of beer running down the chest of either a man or woman followed by a table getting crushed under someone. I couldn’t count on fingers and toes the number of tables getting pulverized in the documentary. A classic pre-game ritual for any Bills fan with a chiropractor handy. Or not.
Bits and pieces of an interview with Buffalo Bills left guard, Richie Incognito, were seen throughout the video.
“You feel how passionate they are for football, for the Bills, from just how hard they party on Sunday.”
Incognito loves the spirit of the town, and he fits perfectly into the blue-collar culture the team has. Buffalo has taken him as their own, and I know for a fact that if he didn’t have to go out Sunday and block Ndomukong Suh and Leonard Williams, then he would be out there with BillsMafia.
Enter Mary Hayes. The proud mother of Hub and Dillon Hayes who had their fifteen minutes of fame this past fall, and have turned it into something more.
When the New England Patriots come to Buffalo the fans go a little harder, the players put a little extra work in, and the Hayes brothers throw a phallic piece of rubber onto the field.
The two two brothers are shown wearing Lob-a-Knob” sweatshirts in a short interview showcasing their feat last year.
They claim the fans around them were absolutely dying of laughter, and that is now their identity.
You would be lying if it didn’t give you a laugh as well.
There are so many different types of fans, and each has their own identity and ceremony. Whether it is a superstitious practice, a broken table, or a bottle of mustard dumped on your head. Let’s just hope they start to work this year.
Next: Buffalo Bills: 7 Best Free Agent Signings in Team History
Ever been to a BillsMafia tailgate? Leave your experience in the comments below!