Bills Rushing To Avoid 0-2 Start

(EDITOR'S NOTE: In an effort to pay homage to Bruce Smith, who will have his iconic No. 78 retired during tonight's home opener against the New York Jets, the editorial staff of We Want Marangi took the summer off, relaxing while the Buffalo Bills sweated under the hot sun. Since largely contact-free practices and exhibition games in which almost no one who matters come September gets much playing time bear little resemblance to the sport of American football, we don't think we missed much.

We bring this up mainly to quell rumors that one or more WWM staffers were suspended for Week 1 after testing positive for excessive levels of Kaopectate, Flinstones Chewable Vitamins and/or horse tranquilizers.)

Late one spring afternoon a few years back, a friend called, asking if I wanted a free ticket to see Bob Dylan perform that night at the University at Buffalo's Alumni Arena.

Since a few other friends were going, I accepted, but had no real expectations one way or the other. I'd heard a Dylan concert could be either a flashback to the genius that made him a legend, or a total shitshow.

However it turned out, I figured it was a chance to see one of the most influential musicians of the past century perform live, as well as a spontaneous opportunity to hang out with some buddies. But I didn't really have a strong sense how it would turn out.

That feeling, or lack thereof, returned as the Bills' season opener approached. Buffalo's 2015 campaign was, by any measure, a crashing disappointment, a letdown at least as big as any the Bills had perpetrated during their 16-season playoff-free skid.

The offseason didn't bring much more good news. Buffalo's first two draft choices, Shaq Lawson and Reggie Ragland, who were expected to bolster a defense largely responsible for last season's letdown, were lost to injury before the first exhibition. Then starting linebacker Manny Lawson, who reportedly had a league suspension following a domestic-violence charge looming, was cut.

Most preseason optimism hinged on the continued improvement of quarterback Tyrod Taylor, heading into his second season, and an offensive line that cleared the way for the NFL's top running attack in 2015. The only significant addition on either side of the ball still ambulatory for Opening Day was Reggie Bush, who won the Heisman Trophy 11 years ago, but hadn't done much over the past two seasons in Detroit and San Francisco.

A 1-3 exhibition record, including a shutout on each side of the ledger, didn't offer much in the way of what the regular season would bring. Still, as it always does around here, things were pretty optimistic around here, as well as among the national pundits.

Nobody sane predicted a serious challenge to New England for the AFC East title, but  contention for a wildcard berth, representing Buffalo's first playoff appearance since 1999, was a common prediction. Taylor would get better in his second season while a second full year in Ryan's system almost had to yield results on defense, the consensus held.

The defense did look improved in Baltimore, allowing Ravens runners just 3.0 yards per carry and sacking Joe Flacco four times. There was one breakdown, when Mike Wallace got behind Stephon Gilmore for a 66-yard touchdown early in the second quarter for Baltimore's lone touchdown.

As it turned out, it was the only one the Ravens needed.

One long pass, made possible by Taylor's athleticism when he escaped a sack and connected with Charles Clay for 33 yards, set up the only Bills touchdown, which came on a 1-yard LeSean McCoy fourth-down dive.

That dazzling play by Taylor turned out to be the only one he and his offense managed all day. The rest of the time, the Bills looked like they were marking time through another exhibition, failing to establish themselves on the ground or in the air.

The No. 1 rushing game of a year ago managed just 65 yards, while runners were dropped behind the line five times for 18 yards in losses. McCoy and Taylor couldn't break free, while Bush's three tries added up to four yards in reverse.

Bush's lack of impact has even led to speculation that Buffalo should consider bringing back the newly released C.J. Spiller.

Other than the hookup with Clay, Taylor completed 14 of 21 passes, which would be good numbers if those completions had added up to at least double the 78 yards they covered. Under pressure much of the day, Taylor's willingness, and ability, to throw deep marked his first year as the starter, but on Sunday, he resorted to the sort of quick, safe dump-offs that earned Trent Edwards the "Captain Checkdown" nickname during his largely forgettable stint in Buffalo.

Taylor's offense did nothing after entering the fourth quarter trailing by three, going three-and-out on its final three possessions, while the defense wore down enough to let Baltimore hold the ball for nearly 12 minutes in the fourth quarter, including the game's final 4:29, while tacking on an insurance field goal.

Buffalo's familiar-but-allegedly-improved attack wasn't any more effective earlier, failing to do anything after a huge break, when a botched shotgun snap created the game's lone turnover, setting the Bills up at Baltimore's 47-yard line midway through the first quarter. Three snaps and four yards later, Buffalo punted.

The seven points the Bills managed were the fewest scored by any team Sunday. Only the once-again-Los Angeles Rams accomplished less, getting blanked by San Francisco during the Monday-night finale.

Back to that Dylan concert. That night, the old man and his band killed it. Raw and bluesy, they were the best bar band you could want to hear.

But then, non-existent expectations are easy to exceed. Somehow, on Sunday, the Bills failed to do even that.

Which, of course, leaves them with even less to live up to tonight in front of a sold-out, likely well-lubricated crowd at newly renamed New Era Field.

The Jets started off 2016 with an even more painful loss, as Nick Folk's first career missed extra point proved the difference at home against Cincinnati. And Ryan Fitzpatrick showed why New York took its time in re-signing him, starting off this season as he ended the last one, snuffing his team's chances with a late interception.

New York's defense figures to keep Taylor under pressure, having sacked the Bengals' Andy Dalton seven times, intercepting him once. And the Jets featured new running back Matt Forte in Week 1, with the ex-Bear piling up 155 yards from scrimmage on 27 touches.

All of which gives tonight's game extraordinary importance for a mid-September contest. Maybe Taylor will resume arcing long throws to Sammy Watkins, McCoy will prove as elusive to the Jets defense as he was to the Philadelphia police who wanted him charged after an offseason bar brawl, and New York's quarterback will again Fitz all over the turf in Orchard Park.

If not, it might be tough to not start thinking about expectations for 2017.

***

One thing about tonight's home opener is certain.

The Bills' uniforms, imposed by the NFL's Color Rush mandate, will be heinous. All-any-color duds make professional teams resemble high-school squads, with Buffalo's red pajamas particularly painful to watch.

Mercifully, the league is not forcing the Jets to don the all-green unis that, in combination with the Bills, particularly tortured colorblind viewers last November. If aesthetics mattered to the league office as much as selling more officially licensed jerseys (SPOILER ALERT: They don't), it would have dressed Buffalo in white, since the Bills' white-on-white combo might be the sharpest get-up in the game, especially when topped with the throwback standing Buffalo helmets.

***

This being America and all, WWM believes those who have spent a remarkable amount of time on social media raging about Colin Kaepernick's refusal to stand during the pre-game playing of the national anthem, as well as an increasing number of his peers offering similar protest, are every bit as entitled to their opinions as the second-string San Francisco quarterback and his like-minded colleagues are to theirs.

It was interesting, though, to note that only two people out of about 20 in the room where we watched the first half of Buffalo v. Baltimore stood during "The Star-Spangled Banner" -- and to be fair, we were already on our feet -- and only one of us took off his baseball cap.

(ANOTHER EDITOR'S NOTE: If you're the type who likes to fill the gaps between actual action during an NFL telecast, you can always follow @davidstaba on the Twitter for WWM-style semi-informed commentary and gratuitous cheap shots.)

The Loss Generation

Sixteen Years of Mediocrity Produce Few Football Memories

(Note: In keeping with longstanding policy, We Want Marangi does not publish the last names of Buffalo Bills fans, believing that they suffer enough regret and shame without enduring public humiliation, as well.)

Tyler is 22. He grew up somewhere between Buffalo and Rochester (WWM is also keeping his precise location undisclosed, for the reasons cited above). A three-sport athlete in high school, he’s been a Bills fan as long as he can remember.

What he can’t recall, though, is much of anything his team has done right during that span. He was an infant when Buffalo reached its fourth straight Super Bowl. He has no memory of The Music City Miracle, the Bills’ last appearance in the National Football League’s post-season, which ended with Tennessee’s Kevin Dyson catching the most infamous lateral in the game’s history and delivering it to the Buffalo end zone 75 yards away.

Since that day more than 16 years ago? To be fair, there isn’t a hell of a lot to remember.

Asked for the high point of his fandom, the game he remembers most, Tyler has to think about it. And think about it. Finally, he comes up with one.

“That time they blew out New England in the season opener,” he says. “What was that, 2008?”

His team’s recent history has been so bleak, even the relatively vivid memories are vague. The only time anything like that has happened this millenium was in 2003, when the Bills, fortified by the game-week signing of banished Patriots safety Lawyer Malloy, dismantled New England 31-0.

A great day, to be sure. Drew Bledsoe led the Bills to touchdowns on their first two drives against his old team, while Malloy helped the defense batter Tom Brady into one of the worst games of his career. The then-26-year-old completed just 14 of his 28 passes for 123 yards, while the Bills picked off four of them. with 350-pound defensive tackle Sam Adams thundered 37 yards with one of them for a touchdown that put Buffalo ahead 21-0 in the third quarter, seemingly shattering the Patriots’ hex on the Bills, then just three seasons old, in the process.

Satisfying as it may have been, though, it was only the first game of a long season. The next one went pretty well, too, as Buffalo drilled Jacksonville – then a perennial AFC contender, believe it or not – 38-14 to inspire Super Bowl talk both locally and nationally.

Highly premature Super Bowl talk, as it turned out. Bledsoe and the Bills went 3-11 from there, getting obliterated by New England in the finale by a highly appropriate score – 31-0.

That Tyler’s best memory of his team stems from an ultimately meaningless game pretty well sums up his generation’s experience with the Bills. But at least it was directly football-related.

Jackie, age 24, has to go back even further for her high point as a Bills fan, to Dec. 1, 2002, when the Bills beat the Dolphins 38-21 on their way to an 8-8 finish (which, it should be noted, is the second-best record the franchise has posted during its playoff exile).

Not because Bledsoe threw for 306 yards and three touchdowns, or because Travis Henry ran for 151 yards long before embarking on a less-successful career as a drug trafficker and deadbeat dad, or even because Buffalo won despite a career-best 227-yard rushing day by Miami’s Ricky Williams. The game is indelible for Jackie (and she’s not alone – it’s the only 21st-century contest on the list of most-memorable Bills-Dolphins game compiled by buffalobills.com) because of the steady, heavy snowfall that led it to be dubbed “The Snow Globe Game.”

“I just remember the whole crowd singing, ‘Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow,” she says.

Her friend Nevada, 23, cites a more recent Buffalo-Miami clash, the Bills’ 19-14 win on Nov. 15, 2012. Not that it had much significance for either franchise, but because it was the first Thursday night home game played at Ralph Wilson Stadium (for the record, the Bills were technically the home team against the Jets in a 2009 Thursday-nighter at Rogers Centre, but UFR refuses to officially acknowledge that the whole Toronto debacle ever occurred).

It’s a pretty stark contrast with their peers around the league. Take the combatants in last Sunday’s Super Bowl. You’re forgiven if you’ve already forgotten a game overshadowed by whatever that was at halftime and Peyton Manning’s post-game focus on his endorsements and business holdings, but the Wade Phillips’ defense won 24-10, with Manning and the Denver offense largely staying out of the way.

So the Broncos have made two Super Bowl appearances in the last three years, along with seven other playoff appearances since the Bills made it to the NFL tournament. The Panthers, who didn’t exist when Buffalo lost its fourth straight Super Bowl, have also gotten there twice during the Bills’ non-playoff skid.

None of which is nearly as galling to the local faithful as the Patriots and their dominant run -- six Super Bowl berths, four Lombardi Trophies and 12 playoff appearances in the last 14 seasons.

Buffalo fans over 30 can relate, if bitterly. They remember their team going to the Super Bowl four straight years and reaching the playoffs six times in a row, eight out of nine and 10 out of 12 from 1988-99, as well as the big regular-season wins that got them there.

If you fall in an older demographic, you might also recall Jim Kelly getting motorcaded to training camp in Fredonia. Or Joe Cribbs jumping to the USFL, then returning. Or the 1980-81 playoff teams who inspired an incredibly cheesy theme song. Or the years when O.J. Simpson was known solely as the best football player on the planet.

Those who sat in War Memorial Stadium have Jack Kemp, Cookie Gilchrist, Elbert Dubenion and the most dominant defense the American Football League ever produced, along with two league titles, to look back on with fond nostalgia.

Tyler’s generation, meanwhile, remembers weather and the calendar. And Bledsoe and J.P. Losman and C.J. Spiller. And, of course, the sprawling pre-game tailgate party that has kept the stadium in Orchard Park sold out through most of this bleak era, despite widespread harrumphing from some older scolds among the fan base.

“Any home game at the Ralph is awesome,” says 21-year-old Austin.

Even slightly older Buffalo fans have some memory of Bills games that mattered, even if they’re not the most pleasant.

Josh, now 28, was 12 years old and grounded, due to some infraction lost to the ages, and therefore forced to watch Buffalo’s Jan. 8, 2000 visit to Nashville on a 4x4-inch black-and-white television in his bedroom. When Steve Christie’s 41-yard field goal pushed the Bills ahead of the Titans with 16 seconds remaining, he made a break for it.

“I came running out of my bedroom, yelling, ‘Oh my God, they won!’ I got yelled at by my dad, ‘Get back in there – you’re going to jinx them!’ Before I could, the Music City Miracle happens. He’s blamed me for it ever since.”

Maybe a traumatic memory is better than none at all.

'The Precision Jack-Hammer Attack:' A Hunter S. Thompson Super Bowl Reader

(It's Super Bowl Sunday, which means it is time for We Want Marangi's annual re-posting of our look at Hunter S. Thompson's thoughts on one of the most uniquely American institutions, first published in February 2013.)

Hunter S. Thompson wrote about a lot of things -- bikers, bluegrass, police corruption, high-powered weaponry and horse racing, to name a few.

Mostly, and most successfully, though, he wrote about politics and football. At his best, both at the same time.

In particular, presidential elections and Super Bowls were his twin inspirations, regularly scheduled events that embodied what he hated and loved about America and Americans. Even his suicide note was entitled "Football Season is Over."

I'm not going to try to write about his writing here, because doing so would be an exercise in ego and pointlessness, other than to introduce a few of my favorite passages you can enjoy while, or instead of, sitting through the four-hour pre-game show leading up to the epic struggle between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers. It's got to beat getting force-fed yet another fond farewell to Ray Lewis and further exploration of the brotherly love shared by the Harbaughs.

As a recovering sportswriter, I've never read an analysis that captures the profession's spirit, or lack thereof, as this bit from Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, a collection of Thompson's Rolling Stone articles on Richard M. Nixon's final run for office:

There is a dangerous kind of simple-minded Power/Precision worship at the root of the massive fascination with pro football in this country, and sportswriters are mainly responsible for it. With a few rare exceptions like Bob Lypstye of The New York Times and Tom Quinn of the (now-defunct) Washington Daily News, sportswriters are a kind of rude and brainless subculture of fascist drunks whose only real function is to publicize & sell whatever the sports editor sends them out to cover. . .

Which is a nice way to make a living, because it keeps a man busy and requires no thought at all. The two keys to success as a sportswriter are: (1) A blind willingness to believe anything you're told by the coaches, flacks, hustlers, and other "official spokesmen" for the team-owners who provide the free booze. . . and: (2) A Roget's Thesaurus, in order to avoid using the same verbs and adjectives twice in the same paragraph.

Even a sports editor, for instance, might notice something wrong with a lead that said: "The precision-jackhammer attack of the Miami Dolphins stomped the balls off the Washington Redskins today by stomping and hammering with one precise jackthrust after another up the middle, mixed with pinpoint precision passes into the flat and numerous hammer-jack stomps around both ends. . ."

Right. And there was the genius of Grantland Rice. He carried a pocket thesaurus, so that "The thundering hoofbeats of the Four Horsemen" never echoed more than once in the same paragraph, and the "Granite-grey sky" in his lead was a "cold dark dusk" in the last lonely line of his heart-rending, nerve-ripping stories. . .

There was a time, about ten years ago, when I could write like Grantland Rice. Not necessarily because I believed all that sporty bullshit, but because sportswriting was the only thing I could do that anybody was willing to pay for.

A few paragraphs earlier, Thompson served up a brutal parody of every hack who ever filed a game story (present company included):

They came together on a hot afternoon in Los Angeles, howling and clawing at each other like wild beasts in heat. Under a brown California sky, the fierceness of their struggle brought tears to the eyes of 90,000 God-fearing fans.

They were twenty-two men who were somehow more than men.

They were giants, idols, titans. . .

Behemoths.

They stood for everything Good and True and Right in the American Spirit.

Because they had guts.

And they yearned for the Ultimate Glory, the Great Prize, the Final Fruits of a long and vicious campaign.

Victory in the Super Bowl: $15,000 each.

They were hungry for it. They were thirsty. For twenty long weeks, from August through December, they had struggled to reach this Pinnacle. . . and when dawn lit the beaches of Southern California on that fateful Sunday morning in January, they were ready.

To seize the Final Fruit.

They could almost taste it. The smell was stronger than a ton of rotten mangoes.

Their nerves burned like open sores on a dog's neck. White knuckles. Wild eyes. Strange fluid welled up in their throats, with a taste far sharper than bile.

Behemoths.

Those who went early said the pre-game tension was almost unbearable. By noon, many fans were weeping openly, for no apparent reason. Others wrung their hands or gnawed on the necks of pop bottles, trying to stay calm. Many fist-fights were reported in the public urinals. Nervous ushers roamed up and down the aisles, confiscating alcoholic beverages and occasionally grappling with drunkards. Gangs of Seconal-crazed teenagers prowled through the parking lot outside the stadium, beating the mortal shit out of luckless stragglers. . .

A year later, Thompson referred back to the 'The precision-jackhamer attack of the Miami Dolphins ...' lede in a lengthy Rolling Stone piece entitled "Fear And Loathing At The Super Bowl: No Rest For The Wretched." Gonzo Journalism at its finest, Thompson blends his thoughts on Watergate, labor relations and fortune-telling with a mini-profile of Oakland Raiders strongman Al Davis, trademark accounts of substance abuse and a pre-dawn sermon based on Revelations 20:15 from the 20th-floor balcony of his hotel.

As in the best of Thompson's work, he cuts the psychedelia and free-form association with some remarkably precise description of the physical and psychic impact of Miami wide receiver Paul Warfield:


This was what happened in Houston with the Dolphins' Paul Warfield, widely regarded as "the most dangerous pass receiver in pro football." Warfield is a game-breaker, a man who commands double-coverage at all times because of his antelope running style, twin magnets for hands, and a weird kind of adrenaline instinct that feeds on tension and high pressure. There is no more beautiful sight in football than watching Paul Warfield float out of the backfield on a sort of angle-streak pattern right into the heart of a "perfect" zone defense and take a softly thrown pass on his hip, without even seeming to notice the arrival of the ball, and then float another 60 yards into the end zone, with none of the frustrated defensive backs ever touching him.

There is an eerie kind of certainty about Warfield's style that is far more demoralizing than just another six points on the Scoreboard. About half the time he looks bored and lazy -- but even the best pass defenders in the league know, in some nervous corner of their hearts, that when the deal goes down Warfield is capable of streaking right past them like they didn't exist. . .

Unless he's hurt; playing with some kind of injury that might or might not be serious enough to either slow him down or gimp the fiendish concentration that makes him so dangerous. . . and this was the possibility that Dolphin coach Don Shula raised on Wednesday when he announced that Warfield had pulled a leg muscle in practice that afternoon and might not play on Sunday.

This news caused instant action in gambling circles. Even big-time bookies, whose underground information on these things is usually as good as Pete Rozelle's, took Shula's announcement seriously enough to cut the spread down from seven to six-- a decision worth many millions of betting dollars if the game turned out to be close.

Even the rumor of an injury to Warfield was worth one point (and even two, with some bookies I was never able to locate). . . and if Shula had announced on Saturday that Paul was definitely not going to play, the spread would probably have dropped to four, or even three. . . Because the guaranteed absence of Warfield would have taken a great psychological load off the minds of Minnesota's defensive backs.

Without the ever-present likelihood of a game-breaking "bomb" at any moment, they could focus down much tighter on stopping Miami's brutal running game -- which eventually destroyed them, just as it had destroyed Oakland's nut-cutting defense two weeks earlier, and one of the main reasons why the Vikings failed to stop the Dolphins on the ground was the constant presence of Paul Warfield in his customary wide-receiver's spot.

He played almost the whole game, never showing any sign of injury; and although he caught only one pass, he neutralized two Minnesota defensive backs on every play. . . and two extra tacklers on the line of scrimmage might have made a hell of a difference in that embarrassingly decisive first quarter when Miami twice drove what might as well have been the whole length of the field to score 14 quick points and crack the Vikings' confidence just as harshly as they had cracked the Redskins out in Los Angeles a year earlier.

The above represents Thompson at the peak of his powers, the writer who produced Hells Angels, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent And Depraved." Over the three decades before his suicide (for which I remain pissed at him), his genius unraveled, whether due to fame, wealth, drugs, the internal victory of cynicism over hope for his country, or a swirl of all four.

But the Super Bowl remained his personal Holy Day, and he could still reach back and find the groove when writing about it.


Whoops. Strike that. Leeches are not rodents. They are blood-sucking members of the Hirudinea family, a sub-species of the hermaphroditic sucker-worm that is frequently applied to headache-victims and other human wounds. Leeches used in human treatment range in size from three inches to 13 inches when fully bloated. They have two ugly mouths, one on each end, filled with tiny, razor-sharp teeth by which they attach themselves firmly to the flesh, prior to sucking. The leech has many eyes.

The Oakland Raiders are the only team in football that still routinely uses leeches for treatment of serious injuries. It is an old-timey medicine, deriving no doubt from the team's Bay Area roots, with its powerful Italian community and its many neighborhood grocery stores and exotic foreign delicacies, along with sausage, fresh fish and leeches ... I have many fond memories of hanging out in North Beach at elegant Italian restaurants with Raiders players in the good old days of yesteryear, when the silver-and-black dynasty was just getting started, long before they turned into the gigantic, high-powered winning machine that they are today.

Things were different in those years, but they were never dull. Every game was a terrifying adventure, win or lose, and the Raiders of the '70s usually won -- except in Pittsburgh, where cruel things happened and many dreams died horribly. You could see the early beginnings of what would evolve into the massive Raider Nation, which is beyond doubt the sleaziest and rudest and most sinister mob of thugs and whackos ever assembled in such numbers under a single "roof," so to speak, anywhere in the English-speaking world. No doubt there are other profoundly disagreeable cults that meet from time to time in most of the 50 states ...

But so what? There is nothing more to say. I have obviously made my decision about the Raiders. They are simply a better football team than the Buccaneers, and they will win. A realistic line for this game would be 10 or 11, but right now it is hovering around 5 or 6.


For all Thompson's gifts, football prognostication was not one of them. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers stomped the balls off the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII, 48-21.

(NOTE: If, for some reason, you do not already own The Great Shark Hunt, an anthology of the first and best two decades of Thompson's writing career which includes the full articles from which the first two passages above are lifted, you can do so here. For only $11.87, for God's sake. Or, if you are a lazy and/or cheap bastard, you can get the whole thing in .pdf form here.)

Peyton's Last Stand

It says a lot about the peculiar appeal of professional football that one of the sport’s most iconic images is that of a bald man—who looks far too old to be playing such a brutal game—on his knees, bleeding and dazed.

The concussed player in question is Yelberton Abraham Tittle, whose Hall of Fame web page and nearly every other reference abbreviates as Y.A. Appearances to the contrary, he was only 38 when the photo was taken by Morris Berman, a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette photographer known slightly less widely for a close-up of the mutilated bodies of deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress after they had been killed and dragged through the streets of Milan by the fascist ruler’s former subjects.

So Berman knew a powerful image when he saw it.

I remembered his Tittle photo (the Mussolini shot is one you would only try to forget) while thinking about Peyton Manning’s starring role in the buildup to Super Bowl 50 on Sunday, when the Denver quarterback will attempt to keep his crumbled 39-year-old body upright, ambulatory and effective in the face of Carolina’s highly predatory defense.

Manning’s place in football history is already secure, even if he doesn’t catch up to brother Eli by winning a second Super Bowl ring. He has easily surpassed Little Bro, and every other quarterback ever, in every significant career statistical category, from yards to touchdowns to endorsements.

This year, though, Archie’s boy missed six games with plantar fasciitis and has admitted he has no feeling in the fingertips of his throwing hand, following neck surgery that caused him to miss the 2012 season and get bounced from Indianapolis, where he spent his first 14 NFL seasons. As a result, he produced the worst statistical regular season of any starting Super Bowl quarterback ever, according to FiveThirtyEight, the analysis site known for predicting electoral races with remarkable accuracy before transferring from the New York Times to ESPN in 2013.

Manning’s numbers—especially the 17 interceptions he threw, compared to just nine touchdown passes—and general feebleness are major reasons the Broncos are a consensus six-point underdog as of press time. In the NFC Championship game, the Panthers pressured and pummeled Arizona’s Carson Palmer into six turnovers in Carolina’s 49-15 curb-stomping of the Cardinals.

Tittle’s bludgeoning came in the second game of the 1964 season, his 17th as a professional. As a rookie with the Baltimore Colts of the old All-America Football Conference, which merged with the NFL in 1950, he was the losing quarterback in a playoff game against the original Buffalo Bills, who bear no resemblance other than name to the current edition. Except that those Bills, of course, went on to get smeared 49-7 in the AAFC title game by the Cleveland Browns.

After the merger with the NFL, Tittle wound up with the San Francisco 49ers, who he quarterbacked with little distinction until 1961, when he was traded to the New York Giants. Like Manning after his arrival in Denver, Tittle experienced a rebirth, leading the Giants of Frank Gifford and Sam Huff to three straight NFL Championship games.

Having lost all three, two of them to Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers, Tittle and his Giants had just opened their campaign for a fourth when 6-foot-7, 280-pound Pittsburgh defensive end put his helmet into the ancient quarterback’s chest. The impact left Tittle without a helmet and with a concussion, cracked sternum and pulled rib muscles.

Berman’s image captured what is commonly, and incorrectly, remembered as the end of Tittle’s career, which earned him induction into the Hall of Fame. Somehow, in the days long before concussion protocols or, it seems, any other sort of medical oversight, ol’ Y.A. was taped up and sent back out to start again the next week. He wound up playing in every New York game that season, even though the Giants fell all the way from the sport’s biggest game during the pre-Super Bowl era to a 2-10-2 record. He even thought about coming back for the ’65 season before yielding to his wife’s pleading and finally hung it up.

Manning has hinted he plans to do the same after Sunday, according to multiple reports. If you’re the betting type, you can even place a wager on whether or not he will announce it during his inevitable post-game interview. Not that we encourage betting on sports, or anything, but if you bet $100 that he will, and he does, you win $500. But you have to bet $1,000 to win $100 that he won’t.

While there are also available bets on whether Manning throws at least one interception that gets returned for a touchdown or if he will be named Super Bowl MVP (he’s a distant second-favorite to his Carolina counterpart, Cam Newton, mainly because quarterbacks have won the award in 27 of the previous 49 Big Games), you can’t wager specifically on whether he finishes the game making a well-paid vow to visit a famous amusement park, on the sideline scowling under his trademark pink forehead, or under a doctor’s care.

Yes, it’s possible that—if Denver’s Wade Phillips-masterminded defense can somehow contain Newton, the game’s most dynamic quarterback—Manning can use his unquestioned mental mastery of the game, while mustering enough of his faded skills, to pull off the upset. After that dismal regular season, he has cobbled together two playoff games solid enough to keep advancing.

It would be a great story, especially if you  are the type whose heart is warmed by happy endings for famous people you'll never meet. But story lines rarely stand up to the reality of superior force, and Carolina's is the fiercest defense Manning has faced this season, and Newton the most uniquely talented quarterback Phillips and his defense have tried to throttle.

Given how Manning and his opponents look heading into Sunday, a more Tittle-like conclusion seems like a much better bet.

Wade Makes Peyton Super Again

So, as you might have heard (and certainly will approximately 2,384 times in the run-up to Super Bowl 50), Peyton Manning is going back to the Big Game one more time.

He should really buy something nice for Wade Phillips.

If not for the positively brilliant game plan designed and implemented by the former Buffalo Bills head coach last Sunday against New England, Manning’s role in the Feb. 7 telecast from Santa Clara would be limited to his trademark 30-second aw-shucks appearances endorsing insurance, colored sugar water and crappy pizza.

That Manning’s rotting corpse was even on the field against the Patriots stands as a testament to the job done all year by Phillips and the most dynamic defense fielded by the Broncos since the Orange Crush carried another feeble Denver offense to Super Bowl XIII in January 1978.

Phillips’ defense was, without any statistical dispute, the National Football League’s best in 2015. The Broncos gave up the fewest yards overall and the fewest passing yards, while finishing third against the run. They led the league with 52 quarterback sacks, without exposing themselves to the big plays that can result when the pass rush doesn’t get there. No defense gave up fewer passes of 40 yards or more than the five yielded by Denver. In case you were wondering, the Bills, as coached up by Rex Ryan, finished second-from-last with 21 sacks, while giving up 11 40-plussers to tie for 17th in the rankings.

As impressive as they were in the traditional statistical categories, which do not take into account game situation, field position or anything else besides pure counting of yards, Denver was even better by the more sophisticated analytic numbers. Rather than attempt to accurately paraphrase the Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) system devised by Pro Football Outsiders, the most widely cited Moneyball-For-Football metric, we’ll simply quote footballoutsiders.com:

“It takes every single play during the NFL season and compares each one to a league-average baseline based on situation. DVOA measures not just yardage, but yardage towards a first down: Five yards on third-and-4 are worth more than five yards on first-and-10 and much more than five yards on third-and-12. Red zone plays are worth more than other plays. Performance is also adjusted for the quality of the opponent…Because DVOA measures scoring defenses are better when they are negative.”

The Broncos led the league in Defensive DVOA, as well as Weighted Defense, which puts more emphasis on games played later in the season, when more is at stake. Again, as a point of comparison, Buffalo finished 24th and 29th in those two categories.

The numbers, impressive as they are, don’t come close to capturing how dominant the Broncos looked throttling Tom Brady for most of the AFC title game. Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware didn’t just seem to be hurrying, flustering and/or flattening Brady on just about every pass attempt—they really were. According to Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com, Denver hit Brady 20 times and made him hurry at least 10 other times.

And they did it without frequently blitzing linebackers or defensive backs, a tactic long a vital part of Phillips’ defensive approach. Instead, Phillips positioned the likes of Danny Trevathan, Brandon Marshall, Aqib Talib and T.J. Ward to jam New England’s receivers at the line and smother their short routes, denying Brady the quick options he has been using to thwart pass rushes for a decade-and-a-half.

Phillips even used a three-man rush on 14 pass attempts, according to Barnwell’s ciphering, confusing Brady to the degree that he managed just four completions for 41 yards in those situations, while getting sacked once and throwing an interception to Miller, the fearsome pass rusher who had dropped into pass coverage on the play.

Hear that, Mario Williams?

Phillips’ success with Denver comes after spending a year out of football, just the second time he was without a job for a full season since 1976, when he started his NFL coaching career running the defensive line for his father, Bum Phillips, with the Houston Oilers.

His masterpiece against New England seems to have generated more media praise than any achievement across those 40 seasons, which has to be especially gratifying for a guy who got barbecued locally during his three-year stint as head coach in Buffalo and nationally throughout three-plus seasons running the Dallas Cowboys.

Given Manning’s physical decline and Denver’s general offensive struggles (the Broncos have been outgained by their two playoff opponents), Phillips will need to produce another pièce de résistance to give his team a chance against Cam Newton and Carolina, which was a five-point favorite at press time.

That’s a far more likely route to a Denver win than a suddenly revitalized Manning. Both Phillips and Manning are scions of 1970s NFL legends, it’s the 68-year-old Son of Bum (as he self-identifies on his highly likable Twitter account @SonofBumhttps://twitter.com/sonofbum) who remains at the top of his game.

It Can Always Be Worse

Ryan's Promises Proved Empty, But 8-8 Allows For Schadenfreude

The 2015 Buffalo Bills were far from the worst bunch to wear the franchise’s various uniforms during its extended exile from the National Football League’s annual postseason tournament.

The 8-8 record compiled during Rex Ryan’s first season in Buffalo ties this year’s model with the 2000 and 2002 editions for the second-best ledger during the 16 seasons since the Bills chased Kevin Dyson into the end zone in Nashville to end their most recent playoff appearance. Admittedly, that’s a pretty low bar, since Buffalo has failed to win more than nine games in one season during that stretch, finishing under .500 a dozen times.

And despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth by fans, particularly those with disposable time to spend on social media (where declaring almost anything the best or worst EVER has become a requirement) during the holiday season, it fails to qualify as the most disappointing campaign during that span, either.

That dishonor is shared, more or less equally, depending on your taste, by:

2003—After destroying the then-much-less-hated New England Patriots 31-0 to open the season and trouncing Jacksonville a week later to inspire national “are the Bills Super Bowl contenders?” discussion, they snuffed such talk by going 3-11 the rest of the way as the never-nimble Drew Bledsoe fully fossilized, guiding a steadily disintegrating offense to a shade over 12 points per game in the process. The 1971 Bills, who get this vote as the worst team in franchise history, averaged 13.1 on the way to a 1-13 mark.

2004—The Bills, and Bledsoe, aided by the emergence of Willis McGahee and an inordinate amount of defensive and special-teams touchdowns (nine), got as close as Buffalo has gotten to playing January games that matter this century. Needing only to get by Pittsburgh, which had already clinched home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs and rested just about everyone anyone had ever heard of, the Bills gave away the lead in the fourth quarter and lost 26-24 to a team quarterbacked by a sixth-stringer named Brian St. Pierre, even though he misfired on the only pass he threw—his last in the NFL until 2009.

2014—After their defense—one of the league’s best in just about every important statistical category—throttled Aaron Rodgers and Green Bay in their 14th game, the Bills had but to beat 2-12 Oakland to set up a win-and-in situation for the finale at New England, which, like Pittsburgh a decade earlier, would have no incentive to do anything but avoid injuries. So naturally, they faltered against the Raiders, also by a 26-24 count. Also like their ancestors from 2004, these Bills finished a highly disappointing 9-7.

Expectations for this year’s Bills inflated under the power of a hype machine that started churning on January 12, the day Ryan was named the organization’s 18th head coach. The idea of Ryan, whose defenses had carried the New York Jets to the AFC title game in each of his first two seasons as their coach, taking over a team built around a defensive line with four Pro Bowl-caliber starters which had stifled some of the NFL’s best quarterbacks down the stretch in ’14, was enough in itself to get the locals more fired up than they had been in years.

Two days later, when Ryan was formally introduced at a Wednesday press conference, things got downright frenzied around here.

“I’m not going to let our fans down,” Ryan said, before making an even bolder vow regarding the team’s postseason-free era. “I know it’s been 15 years. Well, get ready. We’re going.”

Which did not seem unreasonable at the time. Kyle Orton’s below-average quarterbacking and a running game that ranked near the bottom of the NFL did at least as much to keep Buffalo out of the 2014-15 playoffs as any opponent, so it stood to reason that any improvement when the Bills had the ball would finally get them in.

Well, the offense did get better with Tyrod Taylor at the controls—particularly once he realized throwing to Sammy Watkins a lot was a pretty good idea—and LeSean McCoy, Karlos Williams and, late in the year, Mike Gillislee combining to stage the league’s most productive running game.

But Ryan’s promised bullying defense, widely considered a given heading into the season, never materialized for any length of time. Once again, the sum total was not quite good enough.

As you watch this year’s playoffs, and see teams like Houston, Washington, Minnesota and Carolina—all of which had worse records in 2014 than Buffalo—try to capitalize on their shot at reaching Super Bowl 50, you can take some small solace from this:

Things could always be worse. You could, for instance, be a fan of the Cleveland Browns. Their owner, Jimmy Haslam—whose truck-stop company paid out $92 million in fines after admitting to bilking customers out of $56 million with a fraudulent rebate scheme—just fired his third head coach and third general manager in the four seasons since buying the team. One of the candidates to be the fourth coach fired by Haslam is none other than former Bills runaway coach Doug Marrone.

The two first-round picks they got in the Sammy Watkins trade, cornerback Justin Gilbert and guard Cameron Irving, have been more spectacular busts than any Bills selection since Aaron Maybin.

And another 2014 first-rounder, Johnny Manziel, reportedly spent the weekend of the last game of his second season skulking around Las Vegas in a blond wig and fake mustache while introducing himself as “Billy” in a futile effort to avoid yet another firestorm over whether or not he actually wants to play professional football.

OK, so that’s not much in terms of consolation. But around these parts, at this time of year, being able to look down on the Browns is about as good as it gets.

WWM Flashback: It Was Twenty (-Three) Years Ago Today

(Note: Because the members of the We Want Marangi editorial board would prefer having our fingers forcibly run across a cheese grater, then soaked in lemon juice, to rehashing last week's unsightly win over the Dallas JV or previewing today's Rex Bowl II, we decided it would be better for everyone concerned to go with a re-run. So we offer this one from the WWM archives (originally published on Jan. 3, 2013), commemorating the then-20th anniversary of what remains, in our view, the most gratifying couple of hours in Buffalo Bills history.)

We are at the only bar in Brockport we could find showing the pirated broadcast of the wildcard playoff game between the Bills and the Oilers.

The place is packed, but very quiet as Warren Moon hits every pass he throws, moving Houston to touchdown after touchdown, while Frank Reich scatters passes around like, well, like a backup quarterback.

I'm working as a news reporter after occasionally covering the Bills through the 1990 and '91 seasons, so my rather perverse childhood loyalty to the team has seeped into my staunch objectivity. I stand at the bar, in the midst of a group that included the most intense Steelers fan I've ever known, two Dolphins fundamentalists, a Long Island native who has a contentious relationship with the Jets, and my girlfriend, genetically predisposed to all Boston-area sports teams.

So there are more than a few biting comments about the demise of the Bills, who have been to and lost two straight Super Bowls, as the score hits 28-3 by halftime.

"The problem," I say, to one of the Dolphins fans, "is that we're not drinking enough."

This provided us with common ground, despite our denominational differences.

While ordering a round, I looked about the bar and noticed something interesting.

No one was leaving.

Granted, it's early on a cold day-after-New Year, and most of the mix of townies and college kids who had hung around town through Christmas break don't have anything better to do or anyplace better to do it, but it still makes for a striking contrast to the shots of fans streaming out of Rich Stadium.

Shortly after the bartender brings over another half-dozen drafts, Bubba McDowell grabs a tipped Reich throw and returns it 58 yards for a touchdown.

Thirty-five to three.

Still, the bar door stays closed.

And it starts.

Reich can't miss his suddenly wide-open receivers, and Moon can't keep his feet still, or his passes on target.

Kenneth Davis goes in from a yard out. 35-10.

Some sarcastic rumbling around the bar.

An onside kickoff. What? Beebe sneaking inbounds. 35-17.

Hey, you never know.

Reed, backing in. 35-24.

Are you kidding?

Reed again, diving. 35-31. With a whole quarter left. The cartel of loyalists of Buffalo's arch-rivals are yelling themselves hoarse for the Bills.

Reed, of course, one more time. 38-35, Buffalo.

Holy crap.

By this point, Buffalo winning -- impossible an hour earlier -- is inevitable. No anxiety or drama, just joyful disbelief.

Even when Houston ties it, or wins the overtime coin flip.

And Nate Odomes picks Moon and Steve Christie ends it.

Buffalo 41. Houston 38.

Dolphins hugging Steelers, Jets and Patriots because the Bills won. Despite our disparate belief systems, we had willed it, with a superstitious boost from the stack of empty cups in front of us. Every anguished, delusional hope of every Buffalo loyalist had been validated over a rapidly escalating two hours.

The feeling, 20 years later, was the best I have ever had as a fan. I saw my other inexplicably favorite team, the New York Mets, win a World Championship and pull off the second-greatest comeback I've ever seen on the way. And it wasn't quite the same.

 I can't imagine a Super Bowl win being any better.

(Recapture a little of it with ESPN's recap from Jan. 3, 1993.)

(The New York Times asks whether it was the greatest comeback, or the greatest choke.)