Parity Parody (or, Bills to Pay)
It was my first football-free weekend in quite some time, this past one. I was away, got some fresh air in the country, thankfully not sitting in my apartment otherwise wasting my time twiddling my thumbs wondering what to do when there’s no football to be watched.
But it’s Monday now, and so begins a week of excessive speculation, analysis, and dissection of the game of all games, the Super Bowl.
The whole endeavor makes me appreciate all the more the weekends leading up to the Super Bowl, when there are two, and before that four, games to be enjoyed - so much football, most of it good, some of it fantastic. That division rivalries showed up all through this year’s playoffs confirmed for me my preference for those weekends, pound for pound, over the bloated exercise coming up this Sunday that nonetheless is one of the few collective experiences we have anymore, seriously worthy enough to merit giving the whole country that Monday off.
My team, on the other hand, is not one of the two playing this coming Sunday. Hasn’t been to the show in a while, though I can look over at the NFC Champs and see how long Super Bowl droughts can be.
Me, I cheer for the Bills. I pulled for them against the Giants all those years ago. Was as happy as I could be when Frank Reich led them back against the Oilers. Was as sad as anyone when Tennessee took an illegal pass and turned it into a “Miracle.” When I was 9 and I went with my family to Niagara Falls, my dad bought me a Bills jacket. This Christmas, my girlfriend (a Buffalo gal)’s parents got me a Bills hoodie.
Know why I like rooting for them so much? They play in New York, dammit. Sometimes Toronto, yeah, but that’s because the owner hates everyone in Buffalo just slightly more than he loves himself. But never New Jersey. Never all their home games in Jersey.
One day they’ll be back to the Super Bowl, however many years from now. And I know they had their chances those four consecutive seasons. If a dynasty is continued excellence, that one from the early 90s is hard to argue against, even without the big win.
The Bills’ biggest obstacle to getting back to the Super Bowl actually isn’t how bad they are. It’s how good they are. They’re solidly mediocre. And it’s killing them.
They’re a hair under satisfactory. 7 wins, 9 losses in each of the last three seasons. That’s not good, but it’s far from awful. When you’re not awful, people don’t pity you. They just write you off and forget about you. More importantly, you don’t get the top draft picks. You just pick 10th-20th every year, not getting the franchise quarterback you desperately need to be courageous enough to take the reins once and for all. You get stopgaps at a position here or there, nothing more, and it’s never enough. I’d much rather sit through one awful season just to win a Super Bowl in any of the next four years. .500 is a tiresome thing. To strive for that percentage is to know just how low the bar is set.
Now, this isn’t just a Bills issue – this could absolutely be written about most franchises in sports, certainly most football franchises. In a league where dominance is shunned, where as many people root against the pursuit of perfection as for it, all so that 32 teams can play evenly matched games, a case like the Bills’ isn’t unique. We just must understand that close games are not necessarily good games, or entertaining games to watch. Sometimes yes, but many times no.
While I’m watching, waiting for the Bills to put it together, I’ll amuse myself thinking how far this parity thing will go. What’s the end of that road, every team finishing at .500? 32 8-8 teams? How about 30 8-8 teams, one 7-9 team, and one 9-7 team who’ll get home field advantage in their conference’s playoffs. In the other conference, meanwhile, 12 tiebreakers will be needed to solve which 8-8 team is marginally better than the others.
It’ll come down to whose grass is greener, I’m sure.
