Meso Skinner, a Bills fan since the team’s inception in 1960, was sitting in a bar near downtown Buffalo on Tuesday. Outside, the temperature in single digits and lake-effect snow hits the single-digit and lake-effect snowfall as it passes through the picture window.
Inside, patrons were warmed by a powerful heater, plenty of drinks and a central theme in the city. As everyone in the bar, the Gully Cat, knew—as everyone in Western New York knew—the Bills were still alive in the National Football League playoffs, and even the weather emergency seemed to hold that hope. Couldn’t get over the fact that their time had finally come. .
“We’ve put up with a lot,” Mr Skinner said. “The buffalo need it.”
There are many sports teams with longtime frustrated supporters: Lions fans, Pirates fans, Vikings fans and all those who root for the Mets, Jets or Cleveland Patriots. All claim a certain level of discomfort.
But it is different in buffalo.
Mr. Skinner was born in the city in 1945, sold beer at the Old Rock Pile (the Bills’ first home) in the 1960s, and, despite all the adversity, remains a loyal fan. To illustrate this, he carefully took out a relic from his wallet. It was a Super Bowl XXVII ticket, a little crumpled and a little frayed around the edges.
He’s loved it for 32 years: a memento of a game in which the Bills were destroyed by the Dallas Cowboys, 52-17. It was Buffalo’s third straight Super Bowl loss. It’s the past that Bills fans have been left holding on to.
Like most buffaloes, Mr. Skinner is hopeful that one day, perhaps very soon, the bills will be back there. They play the Chiefs in Kansas City on Sunday, and if they prevail, they’ll finally be back in the Super Bowl in search of that elusive first NFL title, and a final comeback after decades of disappointment. .
“It would mean a lot more than Buffalo,” said Lisa Korn, a physician who grew up in Buffalo and moved to Boston, where she watches nearly every game on television.
Bills and their community at large have a unique bond. An uninhabited town often emptied of snow, the Buffaloes surround the friendly and tough citizens who have endured half a century of industrial abandonment and snobbery from the rest of the country, all the while exterminating. The very real possibility of frostbite To watch their favorite team play live.
But as the city tries to reinvent itself, some residents see a parallel in Bills, who overcame two decades of poor results and became a contender in the past few years. Now people embrace the slogan, “Bulvi.”
Trite, perhaps, but Peter Dow, an educator who was born in Buffalo in 1932, believes there is an underlying truth behind it. Where once the bills were synonymous with the decline of the buffalo, today they reflect the city’s hope.
“The Bills exemplify Buffalo’s desire to rebuild itself and build a proud future,” Mr. Dow said. “We’re not there yet, but we’re working very hard on it, as are the Bills.”
As signs of recovery, he pointed to a stable population, a relatively affordable cost of living, a thriving arts scene including a prominent philharmonic — and, of course, the bills.
Even in bad times, the Bills have anchored a community that clings tenaciously to being a major league town, at least in football and hockey.
Roger Ross, a sugar salesman from Ovid, New York, about 130 miles east of Buffalo, was in town on business Tuesday. They took the opportunity before Sunday’s game to buy more Bills trades.
“The Bills are more than just a football team,” he said. “The Bills are everything here. They are the lifeblood of this area.
For most of his existence, that blood was anemic. They won two AFL championships, in 1964 and 1965, before the merger with the NFL.They never won a Super Bowl despite four agonizing trips there from 1991 to 1994. From 2000 to 2018, they had just three winning seasons.
Enter Josh Allen.
The Bills drafted Allen in 2018, and he has led the team to the playoffs in each of the past six seasons, emerging as a perennial candidate for the league’s Most Valuable Player award.
More than just nice, Allen is seen as both gritty and humble, embracing the region and endearing himself to Western New York. He grew up in the fields of California and Played college football In snowy Wyoming, the area’s residents are practically relatives.
“Usually, when people think of Buffalo they think of what’s going on right now, the snow and the cold,” Allen told reporters after practice Wednesday. “You must have a hard time living in a place like this.”
Marking his almost Christian arrival seven years ago, Allen plays in a city with a hip neighborhood called Allentown full of restaurants, bars and art galleries. Many people now call it “Josh Allentown”, which may serve as a broader renaming for Western New York.
In yards and playgrounds, kids play touch football in No. 17 Allen jerseys, and grandparents wear them to watch parties. When the snow piles up, blue and red fans lend a hand — and a shovel — to shoveling for $20 an hour, plus food and hot drinks.
On some suburban streets, Bulls flags outnumber American flags, and in everyday conversation, the phrase “Go Bulls” serves as Buffalo’s “aloha.”
“You hear it morning, noon and night,” said Kate Roach, a Buffalo attorney who has had Bills season tickets since the first game 65 years ago. “‘Go Bull’ is used for ‘hello,’ ‘goodbye,’ and ‘have a nice day.’ I have conference calls with other lawyers, and nine times out of 10, the calls end with ‘go bills’.
During a blizzard on Tuesday, Brandon Richardson and his teammates chat at the radiator shop, well, you guessed it.
“These bills are great equals,” said Mr. Richardson, who grew up in Lockport, New York, about 35 miles east on the Erie Canal. “Sometimes it gets separated from there. But we get every walk of life here, and people come in and just talk about bills. It pulls everyone together.
Like many American cities, Buffalo is bound up with racial segregation. But Larry Stutts, owner of Golden Cup Coffee Shop on Jefferson Avenue, agreed that most people keep the bills shared. He said the city is healing from the racist killing of 10 black people by a white gunman in a supermarket just down the street from the Golden Cup in 2022, and Bills players helped in the process. was
“They were all over this neighborhood,” he said. “One thing I can say about Bill’s organization, when the community needs them, they’re there.”
Mr. Stutts, who has had Bills season tickets for 20 years, also proudly noted that the team is the only NFL franchise that actually plays football in New York. The Jets and Giants play in New Jersey.
But even the lowly Jets haven’t had the Bulls: They won the Super Bowl once, in 1969. It never feels recent, never compared.
“It’s been a long time,” Mr. Stutts said. “No one deserves it more. And Josh is going to get us there.
