Media Day: The Exquisite Agony Of Bills Fans

About the highest praise one writer can offer another is to say, "I wish I'd written that."


Ben Austen, a contributing editor for Harper's Magazine, spent a few days in Buffalo the week of New England's 52-28 blitzkrieg on Sept. 30, and produced this rather epic look at the often dysfunctional, but ultimately loving relationship between the Bills and their fans, and the region in general, for Grantland, the Bill Simmons-helmed ESPN spinoff.

Other than the passage excerpted below, I'll leave it to you to go and read for yourself. I don't really have anything to add that Austen didn't say better. Except that, Ben Austen, I wish I'd written that.

There's one play I'll recount. At the start of the second half, with the Bills leading 14-7, Ryan Fitzpatrick threw a short strike to a crossing Donald Jones, who managed to evade a defensive back and sprint another 60 yards for the touchdown. Seconds earlier I had walked up a tunnel leading to the 100-level seats behind the Bills end zone. A thick painted yellow line indicated that this definitely was not a spot where I was allowed to loiter and watch. Before the guard stationed there could bounce me, though, the Bills had scored, leading to a riot of emotional release. No one was wilder in his celebrations than the guard. He leapt and high-fived and ricocheted off the tunnel walls. A paroxysm of fulfillment shook his body. When his darting eyes settled on me, he pounced, wrapping his arms around my middle, elevating my lanky 6-foot-3 frame with a little three-quarter turn as he unleashed a joyous primal whoop. He looked back at the field, taking it all in. Then he lifted me again, this time more tenderly. After the extra point, I watched as the guard began to catch his breath. I could almost see his heart start to settle into its normal rhythms. He turned to me. "Ooh," he breathed, a kind of post-coital sigh. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave. I know that's totally unprofessional after mauling you like that. But I'm sorry."

The Glorious Plight of the Buffalo Bills