It was almost like old times.
After 11 seasons spent mostly in press boxes around the National Football League and the last two covering games from sports bars, house parties and neighborhood taverns, your BillStuff coverage team returned to the stadium in Orchard Park as a paying customer on Sunday.
The last such ticket-possessing experience came in January, 1991, when Buffalo hosted the Los Angeles Raiders for the AFC Championship at what was then known as Rich Stadium. In one of the most thorough beatings ever administered, the Bills took a 41-3 lead at halftime and the delirious crowd spent the second half in a blissful stupor wrought by the knowledge that their team was finally going to the Super Bowl.
That, and the whiskey.
Sunday, well, Sunday was a different story.
An invitation came through Mrs. BillStuff's family to join them in the luxury box leased by the family business. Given the last-minute nature of the arrangements, the first step was getting there and getting a ticket.
When covering a game in an official capacity, you glide right up to One Bills Drive, park for free and zip into the press box. Getting to the game on Sunday meant sitting through snarled traffic only to realize Drive 5 was closed, being rebuffed by a private lot admitting only 4x4 vehicles and finally finding a spot about a mile from the stadium that cost about $10.
That left time for some minimal tailgating with Neil and Chanel, two of the aforementioned family members, before seeking out a ticket.
I figured it wouldn't take long, and it didn't. Near the stadium gate strolled a man in his late 40s, sing-songing the magic words.
"Who needs a ticket? Who needs a ticket?"
"How much?" began my first experience in the scalping universe.
"Thirty bucks," he said.
I started to walk away, knowing that, with "The Star Spangled Banner" playing in the stadium, the piece of cardboard in his hand was minutes away from worthlessness.
"How much do you want to pay?"
"Five bucks."
"Oh, come one. It's worth $48."
"But that's not what you paid. Five bucks."
"OK, twenty."
"Five."
"Fifteen."
"Five."
"Let's split the difference -- ten."
"Done and done," I said, handing him a $10 bill and admiring his mixture of persistence and willingness to negotiate.
About three seconds after the exchange, his bark changed.
"Who's got tickets to sell? Who's got tickets to sell?"
Price of the ticket and a parking space if paying retail: $48.
BillStuff's actual cost: $20.
The bargain got better inside. They aren't kidding when they say "luxury box." Food ranging from beef filet and bratwurst to pizza, battered shrimp and, of course, chicken wings. Stadium-type chairs, with bar seating in the back next to a fully stocked refrigerator.
It was a great setup that made an otherwise excruciatingly ugly game downright bearable, so long as you didn't look at the field too often.
When you did for more than two plays in a row, you could count on seeing one of three things.
The Bills fumbled five times -- two by Travis Henry, one by Bledsoe and even two by cornerback/punt returner Nate Clements.
For their part, the Dolphins bumbled it away three times, twice by the startlingly inept Jay Fiedler.
That's eight fumbles. Four fumbles in one game means there was a lot of hard hitting. Six fumbles means the weather was really crappy, making the ball difficult to grip. Eight fumbles means both teams stopped caring not long after kickoff.
Which is understandable, if you can put out of your mind that every player out there made at least $20,000 for three hours work, while big names like Bledsoe fetched as much as $400,000. But let's not be petty.
The Bills, after all, played themselves out of playoff contention a week earlier. By flogging their lifeless rivals by a score of 20-3, the Dolphins kept their own meager hopes alive. At least for another eight hours, until Denver's 31-17 win over Indianapolis officially squished the Fish.
The crowd roared throughout the first half, but the home team slowly sucked the life out of them.
The Bills had six possessions before intermission, not counting a kneel-down on the last play of the half. On four of them, they futilely ran three plays, then punted. The other two ended with Buffalo fumbling the ball away.
The first ended up as the day's most entertaining play, with 10 players diving, reaching or slapping at the ball before Miami defensive end Adewale Ogunleye finally secured it.
That play came seven minutes into a game that had, realistically, already been decided.
Doomed head coach Gregg Williams decided for reasons known only to him to take the ball, instead of the 20 mph wind, after Buffalo won the coin toss. It was an idiotic decision for any number of reasons, none bigger than it gave offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride an opportunity to call the game's first plays.
It almost goes without saying that the first called for Bledsoe to throw. Not just any throw, mind you, but an out pattern to Eric Moulds that requires perfect precision. Into a 20 mph wind.
On Buffalo's third play, Bledsoe got sacked.
After a shanked punt into that 20 mph wind, the Dolphins scored what proved to be the winning touchdown on Fiedler's only decent play of the day.
On the second play of Buffalo's next drive, Bledsoe threw incomplete. On the next, he got sacked.
Sense a pattern here? Good. Because quite frankly, BS is extremely tired of writing about Gilbride's antiquated play-calling, the inability of Buffalo's offensive line to offer Bledsoe any sort of consistent protection, and his refusal to adjust his game to those two realities.
In all, Buffalo netted 11 yards in the first half. There's not a digit missing there. Eleven yards. Stand up, turn away from your computer and take 11 normal-sized strides. That's how much ground the Bills' offense covered in an hour-and-a-half.
Thanks to stratospheric preseason expectations, along with a schedule that brought division rivals Miami and the New York Jets to Orchard Park for the last two home games, the Bills sold out their entire home schedule this year.
The absolutely guaranteed firings of Williams and Gilbride should sell some tickets, but whether any team quarterbacked by Bledsoe will generate the same sort of optimism it has the last two offseasons is iffy, at best.
The box owners who were such generous hosts on Sunday won't be back, but not because they're disillusioned with the on-field product. They signed up for their suite before it was even built, way back when Marv Levy was middle-aged and Jim Kelly had most of his hair, but their lease expired as the Travis Brown Era began late in the fourth quarter.
Despite the thousands of dollars they spent to keep the box all these years, they didn't receive a single phone call, letter or email from the Bills' staff, asking them to renew.
Seems the Seneca Gaming Corporation bought up most of the boxes in that part of the stadium for their high rollers, executives and other business associates. Fair enough. But you'd think the franchise would have bothered at least contacting a company that's spent far more than you and I have in the bank over the years to support the team.
"It's disappointing," said the lessee's wife. "We've had a lot of fun here over the years."
Then again, this is an organization that until recently forced fans to buy single-game tickets at the stadium during weekday business hours. And it might seem a bit odd that a member of the National Football League, an organization that hypocritically harrumphs about betting on its games while knowing full well that wagering has helped turn Sunday afternoons and Monday nights into secular holidays, would get so cozy with a casino.
The Bills, though, apparently have a plan that doesn't involve traditional business practices, like taking care of your loyal customers. With the first out option in their 15-year lease at the stadium built with taxpayer money coming up in February, let's hope that we don't start hearing front-office propaganda about how there just aren't enough corporate dollars in the area to sustain the franchise.
It's clear that those dollars do exist, even when the product is as putrid as the one on display Sunday.
BILLS MVP: Let's be honest here. No one wearing white, blue and red came close to earning this against Miami. But it would belong to Van Miller under any circumstances.
The seemingly eternal radio voice of the Bills called his last home game. The man who witnessed every period of Bills history first-hand and made dozens of calls as memorable as the plays he was describing was, is, and ever shall be as much a part of professional football in Western New York as the charging Buffalo logo.
And despite, or perhaps because of, his legendary status, Van has always been a funny, friendly guy to work around. BS wishes him all the best in retirement, while knowing full well he'll be spending a fair portion of it at One Bills Drive.
THE OTHER GUYS MVP: Terrell Buckley's 74-yard interception return for a touchdown provided a perfect capper to the home portion of one of the most miserable offensive seasons in Bills history.
STATS OF THE DAY: Fiedler (8-of-17 for 46 yards, one TD, one interception) and Bledsoe (12-of-24 for 114 yards, one interception) each had quarterback ratings under 50. Brown, though, went 3-of-4 for 41 yards to clock in at 107.3. Yes, Bledsoe has endured a horrid season. But Fiedler reinforced his status as the worst quarterback BS has ever seen remain an NFL starter for an extended period of time. Mercifully, that clock has just about run out.
AFTERNOON OF THE LIVING DEAD: Or at least the Living Fired. Miami coach Dave Wannstedt somehow escaped Wayne Huizenga's axe after choking away a playoff spot last December. But after plunging from 8-4 to playoff elimination, he's guaranteed to be competing with Williams for defensive coordinator vacancies this winter.
WING REPORT: Meaty with a tasty sauce, the luxury suite offerings held up well even after time on a sterno table. The rest of the grub was first-class, too. Grade: A-.
BS FAN OF THE WEEK: Dave has been tailgating in the same corner of the stadium parking lot, along Route 20, for years. In order to procure the corner where the hundreds of people he's met expect him to be, he said he generally arrives around 7 a.m.
On Sunday, he had to wait in line for an hour and a half before litigation-cautious team officials ordered the gates remain locked until 9 a.m. Seems someone is suing some team over an accident caused by an overenthusiastic tailgater, according to anecdotal evidence offered by the parking-lot crowd on Sunday.
"I don't know if I'll always be able to get this same spot," said Dave, who sets up a strategically placed tent to protect his guests from the elements. "But I'll be here somewhere."
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | December 23 2003 |