Chris Kelsay retired on Wednesday.
For most franchises, the departure of a a veteran role player who was a little too light for one position and a little too slow for another would be a footnote, a paragraph in the newspaper and two or three on the blogs.
These, however, are the modern-day Buffalo Bills we are talking about. For a franchise that has not won anything, or even done anything particularly memorable, since the last millennium, simply sticking around for most of the mediocrity and enduring Gregg Williams, Mike Mularkey, Dick Jauron, Perry Fewell and Chan Gailey makes you kind of a big deal.
That continuity, as much as anything he ever did on the field, made Kelsay one of the team's de facto leaders and locker-room spokesmen, if only because he was one of the few guys reporters knew would be there from year to year.
For the past couple seasons, his presence has been due in large part to the four-year, $24 million contract extension he signed in 2010, an apparent reward for his role in that team's 0-3 start. The Bills were so inspired by that message from management they got to 0-8 before going .500 during the second half of Chan Gailey's first season as head coach.
Kelsay's outsized role in Buffalo says much more about the team's front office and coaching than it does about a fairly solid player who, by all published accounts, seems like a pretty decent guy. He has been treated like a star because, well, compared to his peers, he has been.
More than a decade of just-below-average play robbed Buffalo of anything resembling star power. Before their game against Jacksonville last December, the Bills presented longtime punter Chris Mohr with the Ralph C. Wilson Award for Distinguished Service, which, according to the team's web site, honors "former Buffalo Bills players and staff for long and meritorious service to the team."
Nothing against Mohr, who was a terrific punter through most of the Super Bowl era and a good guy with fine taste in music (I once ran into he and linebacker John Holecek at a Southern Culture on the Skids show at Nietzche's back in the late '90s). But, as I stood in the rain on the sidelines that day, having scored a credential in return for running memory cards from photographers to their editors and back, the ceremony got me thinking.
Mohr's final season was 2000, the first of 13 straight and counting in which the Bills have failed to qualify for the playoffs.
What player from any of those teams are the Bills going to trot out for the home fans a decade from now (assuming, of course, that the franchise is still anywhere near Buffalo)?
I can't think of a single Wall of Fame candidate from this dismal era, much less anyone with a realistic shot at enshrinement in Canton. There's Ruben Brown, but he left for Chicago as a free agent after the 2003 season and played in the postseason in four of his first five years here.
After that, there's, um, just about no one. Quarterbacks and running backs get most of the glory in retirement, as they did during their playing days, but let's look at the options at those two spots.
Doug Flutie? Maybe, if you really want to stretch the nostalgia thing. And Alex Van Pelt has served the team as a quarterback (albeit primarily a backup) and announcer. But Rob Johnson, Drew Bledsoe, J.P. Losman, Kelly Holcomb, Trent Edwards, or Fitzpatrick?
Probably not.
Among the running backs, who would you honor? Fred Jackson is a strong possibility, due to both (relative) longevity and productivity, and Spiller might just end up on the Wall if he keeps this up. But Travis Henry, Willis McGahee or Marshawn Lynch?
Not much at other positions, which tend to cycle through every couple of seasons, either. Aaron Schobel had a few big statistical years, but was never a dominant force and not exactly a personality that resonated with fans.
Along with punter Brian Moorman, who was released during last season to more fanfare than is normally afforded someone who plays his position, Kelsay probably has the best shot at being the center of a pre-game and/or halftime ceremony that most of the home crowd will miss while standing in line for beer or the bathroom. Kelsay's greatest statistical season was 2005, when he put up 5.5 sacks for the league's 29th-ranked defense on a 5-11 team.
Kelsay will be remembered at least as much for his off-field charitable efforts -- he was a spokesman for the NFL's All-Pro Dads program and the team's recipient of the Ed Block Courage Award in 2008. (Not to take anything away from that honor, but other recent Bills honorees include James Hardy, the second-round bust wide receiver, and Travis Henry, who since his 2004 designation has served three years in prison for cocaine trafficking, a moonlighting he opportunity he apparently embraced to help pay the $170,000 a year he owes in child support for his 11 -- at last official count -- kids.)
Mostly, Kelsay will be remembered for showing up. Like the teams he played on, that's about the best you can come up with.
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