I Bill-ieve!

The NFL season is about to start (I think there's only, like, a few hundred days left?) and I can't wait! and the main reason that I can't wait is because if there are NFL games that are going on, that means there are usually BILLS games going on, and the Bills are the coolest team in any sport in the history of humanity (and then some).

I'll give you a quick history of the Bills, for those of you who are not familiar with them, or for those of you whose minds have been poisoned by the misinformation of the mass media, which wants you to like any team, ANY team, except the Bills. Not to mention that the Bills are continuously sabotaged by the NFL because The Bills don't like to play by "the rules", so to speak. If you know what I mean.

Conspiracy theories aside, although I have many, the Bills have a very interesting history. The team started some time in the 60's, and I believe they had some amount of success in this time period. This success continued, completely uninterrupted, into the present day!, giving the Bills some 40 years of continuous success--an NFL record. What was their secret? To me, these are the four cornerstones to the success of the Buffalo Bills:

A. LOCATION. They are located in the great city of Buffalo, New York. What's great about Buffalo? It has a big lake by it on which you can go sailing in the summer and ice skating in the winter (unlike the Bills' divisional rivals, who come from cities like New York City, NY, Miami, FL, and the middle of nowhere in Massachusetts). There's a church of Scientology kind of near the downtown area, by the restaurant that created the original Buffalo wings! Which has a Wendy's next door. This is where we went to eat when we visited Buffalo (The Wendy's), and it was great, as Wendy's always is. Just three or four hours away from Buffalo is Niagara Falls, the largest waterfall in... Upstate New York? Um, no, THE ENTIRE FREAKIN' WORLD! Buffalo is also the proud home of Ralph Wilson Stadium, home of the Buffalo Bills. The Buffalo Sabres also play in Buffalo, and they have a similar record of success to the Bills. Except they play hockey. Not football. So it's not that similar, really, because in hockey there's 82 games in a season, and in football you only play four games in the playoffs if you win the first three, while in hockey you only play four games if you lose every single one. But I digress.

B. FANS. The Bills have the best fans in the world. Proof? Well, they live in a great city, and great cities have great people; also the Bills are extremely successful, and a team can't be successful without great fans; therefore, the Bills have great fans. They occasionally wear Bills gear and/or go to the game to cheer on their team.

C. THE COLD. In Buffalo, New York, the weather is freezing cold. Especially near the end of the football season. This gives the Bills a huge advantage, because it's pretty darn hard to play football in the cold because not only do your hands freeze, but so does the ball, which is filled with water. The only way to throw it is to balance it on your frozen palm, then to heave the ball forward as if giving a high five. This of course makes offensive strategy completely different, as no receiver has any reason to go further than 15 yards away from the quarterback, since that's as far as he can throw. The only way to catch a football in this weather is to pin it between your chest and your arms; don't even think of trying to use your hands. The Bills have perfected these techniques like no other team has. Furthermore, the Bills have a policy of only hiring players who were born and raised above the 42nd parallel.


D. THE BIG GAME. The Bills often lose the big game. This includes four Super Bowls in a row in the early 90's (the first one was lost in a missed field goal; the rest weren't even close), and that one where the Titans threw the ball on a kickoff and scored a touchdown and for some reason didn't get a penalty. The Bills have proven they excel at losing the big game. Always losing the big game may seem like a reason that a team would NOT be successful; on the contrary!! In order to lose the big game, you must win many small games to get to the big game n the first place. Because of all the small games they have won on the way to losing the big game, the Bills' all-time win-loss record is one of the best. Another upside to losing the big game is that it really puts your life in perspective. It makes you think, what is really the point of this game? Winning, losing... Does it even matter? It's important to think sometimes. If there's on thing Bills players and fans do a lot, it's think about the game of football.

Anyway, this is why the Bills are so good.

But wait, you may say! The Bills aren't any good at all! In fact, THEY SOCK!!! Ah, not true. Every single year, the Bills are one of the most overachieving teams. Each season, so-called "experts" pick them to win only three or four games. But they always win six to eight games! The Bills are always winning games they aren't supposed to. To a snobby Colts or Patriots fan, 6-8 wins might not seem very good, but us Bills fans know that each of these is a good win, and with each one, we're improving.

One problem with the Bills is that they always lose to certain teams. They lose to the Patriots and the Browns no matter what. For some reason. And we all tear our hair out each time, because they always blow it in the most ridiculous and humiliating way. BUT IT'S OKAY WE LOVE THE BILLS! LOVE... love... Must... love... Bills....

Bills players are great. Some of the all-time great players that have been on the Bills include Frank Reich, Jim Kelly, Doug Flutie, J.P. Losman, Trent Edwards, Rob Johnson, and of course, TERRELL OWENS.

So yeah that's about it for the history of the Bills. They had a great draft this year. Many criticized them for not drafting a quarterback early in the draft, but nonagenarian owner Ralph Wilson defends that decision with these words:

What the heck do we need a quarterback for?! In my day, we passed the ball four times a game, and rushed ninety-four times, and the games were 90 minutes long and a minute was much longer in those days. More importantly, we played good defense in those days, which is something this ball club has been doing for years now. I think that Brian Brohm lad is going to go a long way on this team.

So it should be another good season of entertaining football for us Bills fans. I can't wait to see some of their games on TV!!! .... Oh wait.... They don't really show any Bills games on TV here in Idaho. But no matter, on each game day I'll just go to Youtube and watch highlights of The Comeback, while wearing my Bills shirt. Then I'll look up the score of the Bills game and if we won, I'll shout, "HOORAY! GO BILLS!"

Love, James