I've been a fan of the Buffalo Bills for as long as I can remember, but only old enough, and intelligent enough to realize what I'm watching for the last ten, or so, years. In that time, I've watched my team fail to reach the playoffs each and every season. Maybe one of those teams in the last decade came close to achieving a Wild Card berth, but for the most part, the Buffalo Bills have been a failure for as long as I have been following the team. It would be one thing if the team hit a rough spot for the last ten years, but it gets much worse than that. The Buffalo Bills have failed the reach the playoffs for the last 14 seasons. Yes, that is currently the longest streak in the National Football League. After watching the Houston Texans defeat the New York Jets this Monday night, I find myself asking the question, "Why can't we do that?".
Why can't the Buffalo Bills find undrafted players like Arian Foster, whom in the last five years has led the NFL in all rushing categories, except rushing yards, in which he is in second place behind Maurice Jones-Drew of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Why can't the Buffalo Bills draft like the Houston Texans? A team that lost their marquee defensive player in the off-season (to the Buffalo Bills no less), and yet they haven't missed a beat. Their first round draft pick from a year ago (J.J Watt from Wisconsin) has filled that hole quite admirably. You wouldn't even know that the Houston Texans lost their best defensive player to free agency, as they trumped the Jets to boost their record to 5-0, one of only two undefeated teams this year in the NFL.
Does the Buffalo Bills front office actually WANT to put a quality product on the field, or are they O.K. with achieving a high bottom-line in their finance book? Buffalo has some of the most loyal fans in all of professional football, yet year after year they are rewarded with a sub-par product on the football field. They signed an average, run of the mill quarterback to a 50 million dollar contract a season ago, and for what reason? I doubt any other NFL team would have offered Ryan Fitzpatrick a blockbuster deal like the Bills did, so why wouldn't they sign him to a modest contract for two or three years and see how things pan out? Why? Because that would just make sense, and if one thing is certain, it is that the Buffalo Bills' ownership has made a number of decisions over the last twenty years that simply haven't made sense. Bad draft after bad draft, hiring a coach who led the Buffalo Bills to three consecutive 7-9 seasons, and then extending that coach's contract for another three seasons. Apart from this season, not doing ANYTHING during the offseason to help make the team better, when holes are presented from years of bad drafting.
I know I sound like a hypocrite, because I'll be there every Sunday with my #99 Marcel Dareus jersey on (one of the few quality draft picks us Bills fans can hang our hat on), cheering my team on like any other loyal fan would, but at some point, something has to get better. This team has got to show myself, and other Buffalo Bills fans around the country that the team is heading in the right direction, and that the last two decades of heartbreak are close to an end. To put it bluntly, I have yet to see that this team is headed in the right direction, and that this franchise is committed to winning.
