Buffalo Bills: A Bryk’s House

(Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)
(Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)

From turf to quarterbacks, to the Bickering Buffalo Bills, Scott Bryk gives his thoughts in a mid-July edition of A Bryk’s House.

Erie Community College received about one half of the old turf from the Buffalo Bills’ New Era Field earlier this summer. Pump the brakes. The Buffalo Bills and alms are usually not what I think of as a pair. I do not suggest that by any backing data.

I am well aware that the players and coaches are always involved in philanthropy events. I tend to think of NFL teams as all about net profit as they scrub the financials repeatedly in the never-ending search for the almighty dollar.

I understand that Mr. Wilson used to buy the extra tickets to get games televised. I understand the Pegula’s keep the tickets affordable in addition to keeping the affordable seats in our city. I do not want to be totally misinterpreted as the NFL does many good things, and many more that I do not even know of.

That said, I also watch teams pack up and move over who is responsible for buying new stadiums. I see the price to park in Chicago if you want to tailgate as opposed to just rent a spot to store your car.  So much is about money;  if you want proof, take a look at the NFL stores and the cost to buy t-shirts. My comment was based on perception from years of following the NFL.

I wonder if the donation is a tax credit? Why did they not give the other half of the turf to another school?

Buffalo’s Pat Brady purchased the rest of it with a bid of $4,551 and created the company Buffalo Turf. He’s in the process of selling modest portions to Bills fans as a souvenir item. It is incredible how much of demand there is for this, considering the teams that have played on this recently replaced turf have done very little winning.

We have absolutely no reason to believe that any truth to “Negative Stanley’s” suggestion that Pat Brady is a relative of The GOAT up there in Boston. I will stop right there because Stanley’s conspiracy theories are somewhat quixotic. Hey Stan, Lloyd Christmas comes to mind for the second week in a row. “We landed on the moon!”

Souvenir turf. I guess that would be ideal for the man cave since my other sport of choice is ice hockey. I have yet to see chunks of ice being sold and transported home in an ice cream truck and shoved in a freezer at home to show all man cave visitors.

Unless said ice is already melted and purchasing the melted product in liquid form possibly in your teams’ little souvenir glass bottle similar to the large ship in the bottle, I reference those ships inside a bottle, leaving everyone brainstorming how exactly the ship got in the bottle with such a small entrance now closed off with a cork. The brilliant new marketing company would have a Sabres hockey puck in a glass bottle with the water that was melted from the ice sealed safely inside.

This is why I am not inventing new sports fan items. Because they actually want a functional product that tends to, well… sell.

Ideas of how to market melted ice quickly passed and the turf situation got me reminiscing about the glory years as goalposts came down. Netting and turf were cut and taken home by fans who had rushed the field in celebration. This is where you wave your hands like Wayne and Garth, making the dream segment noise.

Back in the late 1980s and early 90s, the Bills played many meaningful games. Yes, they had some good times in the prevenient 1980s coached by Chuck Knox qualifying for the playoffs. Then they dropped to the bottom of the league during the Kay Stevenson and Hank Bullough days. When Joe Ferguson started declining due to aging, it was not pretty.

The site of him shaking his head in disbelief heading to the sidelines after tossing a pick-six yet again was much too familiar. The famous helmet color change from white to red was linked to Fergie’s color blindness. They hoped. That with so many white helmets in the AFC East, as well as the entire conference, the change may help the Bills veteran quarterback identify his receivers over the opponents defending players. I always was a bit skeptical finding the move a bit desperate for any edge.

The helmet color rarely was a topic discussed earlier in his career; or college, when he was having success identifying his target and executing throws with accuracy.  I was one who believed that when he had better protection, better receivers, a solid running attack, and his skills and athleticism were not on the decline, the helmet color was insignificant. The helmet color change was not the solution to save Stevenson’s job or act as the Fountain Of Youth for the Bills quarterback.

Buffalo saw a very brief stint of Joe Dufek, a wild reach with former Super Bowl and CFL  quarterback Vince Ferragamo followed by starting Bruce Mathison purely based on desperation.  The seasons at the end of Fergie’s starting days followed by the handful of experimental starters — based on lack of options — seemed like an eternity searching for the next franchise guy.

Little did Bills Mafia know that the search after Jim Kelly is still not a done deal after 22 years. We are optimistic about Josh Allen, but the jury is still out on the talented prospect. In comparison, the search after Ferguson was not worthy of the magnitude of complaints.

By the time Bill Polian hired Marv Levy, reuniting from a previous working partnership in Montreal of the CFL, the USFL, and the Kansas City Chief, the team slowly started to gel. Bills fans were really ready to do some winning.

Back to back 2-14 seasons landed the Bills quality players like Hall of Fame Bruce Smith and others. By 1988, after Kelly was here for a couple of seasons due to the demise of the USFL, the Hall of Famer was breaking out as a premier NFL quarterback.

Other vital components were being put in place such as Shane Conlin, Cornelius Bennett and the steal of the century draft pick in the second round, running back Thurman Thomas. 1988 ended the bad years with the Bills clinching the division title with a victory over the Jets, finishing 12-4; and the fans brought the goalposts down. They were 8-1 to start that season — atop of the entire NFL.

Now the Bills did have playoff teams in the early 1980s, so the years of suffering from the two-win seasons were not that long of a losing stretch. Forgive me for stealing shamelessly from Darcy Regier as he locked up the word “suffering”  in April of 2013, requesting fans patience. The team and fans still are suffering years after he departed the Sabres.

It was kind of standard rebuilding after the Knox teams. It is bottoming out, getting high off of draft choices, trades, and other signings — usually the recipe to return to the playoffs. Never would the impatient fans who brought the goalposts down for a regular-season game against the Jets when Fred Smerlas blocked a kick, ever have imagined the suffering of the great Bills drought of the current century that recently ended two seasons ago.

Being division champs is an immense reason to celebrate after the 2-14 and other losing seasons before ’88. The players and fans had fun two years ago, but Buffalo snuck in with nine wins as a wildcard team, and it came down to Buffalo needing help even after winning the ninth game.

Enter Buffalo’s unlikely hero; Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton. He clinched Buffalo’s playoff hopes and dreams, sealing their destiny on fourth and 12 with a perfect pass to defeat the Baltimore Ravens. The Bengals saved the day to help end the “suffering”  being the playoff drought.

In 1988, the Bengals ended the Bills’ dream season in the AFC championship game as Icky Woods and  “Boomer” Esiason progressed to the Superbowl eventually being one of Bill Walsh/Joe Montana’s victims. Cincinnati lost an earlier Superbowl to Walsh/ Montana when Ken Anderson was behind center.

Buffalo did not go away after the AFC Championship loss. Not even close. The Bills locker room, full of future Hall of Famers and current Pro-Bowl egos, re-grouped and evolved into the 9-7wildcard bickering Bills, exiting the playoffs earlier as Ronnie Harmon dropped a certain TD pass from Kelly allowing Cleveland to advance.

The Bills bounced back and aggressively dominated the AFC on the way to four AFC conference championships and Super Bowl appearances.  We all know the outcome of the four trips to the “dance,” a ride of a lifetime even though losing at the “show” all four efforts.  I still consider them a dynasty while others refer to them as Almost-a-Dynasty. I am getting choked up all of these years later.

It’s worth mentioning that more goalposts came down in Orchard Park during home AFC championship games. Turf and netting were cut and taken as souvenirs. I was on the field on a couple of occasions celebrating with 80,000 fans.

The field rushing and goalpost ritual became a focus of security and safety. For several years, when the Bills were ready to clinch anything, the horse-riding police surrounded the field.

It just is a little baffling as to the Bills dry spell was a handful of years, ending against the Jets in 1988 when the goalposts came down. We thought it was so long ago since Ferguson and Knox had us in the playoffs as well as a division title. Little did we know that the drought ending in 1988 was a coffee or smoke break compared to the split shift/lunch and dinner sabbatical of a playoff drought the Bills began with the music city miracle loss to Tennessee.

New turf sure inspired a walk down memory lane. I digress…

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