Confessions of a fly on the tailgate

Buffalo, the Bills & my personal Super Bowl of absurd worries

No better day than Super Bowl Sunday to share my most shocking confession (at least by Buffalo standards.) This is something I originally revealed in December of 2021 as part of a daily blog I called “Good Morning from Me.” I have dusted off the post and made a few edits, but this is largely what appeared in the original piece.

Good morning From Me: Tuesday, December 7, 2021

I’ve just had my first sip of coffee after finishing up a few dishes in the sink, making the bed, feeding Brian, realizing it is Pearl Harbor Day — 80 years. 

I went to bed early after watching a documentary on the author Margaret Atwood — 82 years. 

After circling and circling, Brian has just settled on the table next to me — seems like 80-something years.

I’m thinking about having been away from my routine — my writing, my diet, — and it’s been wonderful. Stay away for too long, though, and I know I will plunge back to a place where I’ll just have to start all over and that’s something I am trying my best to avoid. 

I have some projects to complete and then there’s work, of course. Isn’t there always? 

You know the one thing that is not weighing on me this morning? 

Football.

Before you get upset, you should know I did not wake up and choose violence, particularly with that Bills loss to the Patriots last night. I just feel like it’s time to talk about the Buffalo in the room.

Football culture, Buffalo Bills culture, fandom — it’s very much a part of the fabric of Western New York. For a lot of people, it is a big part of their lives, even part of their identity. The wins and losses carry great weight in their worlds.

I must confess: I do not happen to be one of those people.

I grew up in Western New York and not only that, I was a teenager in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I remember my oldest sister and her family sometimes coming to visit us on Sundays and my ordinarily mild-mannered and fairly conservative brother-in-law would inevitably end up yelling at the TV in his Zubaz. 

I started to associate Bills games with stress and, ultimately, heartbreak. I remember thinking that I just wanted the team to do well — for my brother-in-law’s sake, if nothing else!

I still feel that way. 

The game would always be something we’d check in on when I was growing up, but our weekends did not revolve around it. I recall my mom being the one slightly more invested, my dad playfully calling to her from the TV room, “Patricia! The Buffalos are on!” He purposely mangled the name just for fun in the event you ever wonder where I got my mischievous streak.

Anyway, my dad enjoyed sailing and skiing, he wasn’t a big football guy. He spent most Sundays during football season with me… at my figure skating lessons. He even started taking them.

The closest my dad ever got to the sport of football was when he had to take a position as a football coach in the 1950s. Turns out, it had been a condition of his employment as a high school history teacher. 

Still, ever the professor, he approached everything with a sort of academic curiosity. It didn’t matter if he really liked something or not — he appreciated if other people did. He was interested in learning about it or at least learning enough to carry on a conversation. He liked to ask questions. 

My dad often considered himself an enthusiast and that is what I consider myself when it comes to the Buffalo Bills and football in general.

Not being deeply invested in the goings on of the NFL always seemed to be fine, no one seemed to care. Fast forward several years: I get a television job in Buffalo.

When I tell you the fact that I did not watch football every Sunday was one of my major concerns about working in Buffalo, it is absolutely no exaggeration. I knew how big of a deal that would be to a lot of people.

I thought about it a lot — would I not be accepted? Would it be a deal-breaker with the audience? How was I going to handle that? 

However I answered those questions, I had to be honest with myself. I realized I was not willing to change who I was or how I spent my time just so the Buffalo audience might possibly like me just a little bit more. I reasoned it was not healthy or sustainable to proceed inauthentically. 

When I started my new job, my initial strategy was to try not to draw too much attention. If the subject of football came up, I decided I would be like my dad — gather enough information to have a conversation or at least ask the right questions.

In practice, it worked out pretty well but I certainly felt like the odd man out. When I worked on the morning show, a lot of on-air conversations about the ins and outs of the games would inevitably go over my head and I would just generally try to be enthusiastic. 

Games were one thing but if the conversation turned to something like the NFL draft? Forget it. You don’t always have a choice, though, in live TV, especially when one of your colleagues smiles at you as she chirps: 

“Kate, what do you think?”

As I recall, the dialogue spinning inside my head was something along the lines of:  “I think I have a better chance of correctly picking the Powerball numbers from now until 2030 than I do weighing in on the intricacies of the Bills offense buuuut..…”

I can’t even remember what I actually said, but there’s a great chance I just changed the subject, choosing to talk about my favorite game day snacks, for example (any kind of dip, in the interest of full transparency.) Still, I always tried to be supportive and upbeat but realistic —thinking to myself: I am who I am but if this audience decides to hate me because of it, that actually won’t be great. 

All of it came to a head one day when a viewer just laid it out in a tweet and tagged me in it. He inquired whether I was not a Bills fan or if I just didn’t know anything about football —noting that I really never had much to add to the Monday morning quarterbacking so enjoyed by my colleagues. 

“Well, this is it,” I thought.

Ultimately, I decided to respond by doing something radical.

I told the truth.

I explained that while I was always curious about how things were going, I really didn’t follow it all as closely as everyone else and I wasn’t going to pretend that I did because it wouldn’t be real. I think I even used the term “Bills Enthusiast.”

I remember his response was basically, “Okay. Cool.”

That’s it. It never really came up again. In later years, it almost became an inside joke for viewers of our show Most Buffalo.

I spend my Sundays doing a lot of things but I don’t typically spend them watching football. For some people, this is beyond unreal. 

“What do you do?”  One of my co-workers said, legitimately at a loss. 

Despite growing up in Orchard Park’s back forty (give or take,) I had never attended an NFL game until working in Buffalo. My first exposure was covering the Bills/Steelers playoff game in Pittsburgh in 2019. I was sent because my boss at the time believed I could tell a different kind of story. 

“I’ve never even been to a game and this one’s a big deal,” I protested. “Are you sure?”

He smiled and calmly replied, “that’s exactly why I want you to go.”

I was nervous but it was remarkable to have the opportunity to be on the field before the game started, in a room in the bowels of the stadium with the still photographers during the game and then back on the field after it was over — the Bills… victorious.

It was so cold that night you could see your breath and I remember a row of fans stayed behind as we finished up our broadcast. They looked like a freight train — their shouts sending plumes of what looked like smoke into the air.

Earlier in that night, I took a video of the team headed out of the locker room and onto the field and posted it on social media. You could clearly see number 17 walk right by and it wasn’t until after I posted it and fans reacted that I realized it was quarterback Josh Allen. 

That is unbelievably embarrassing to admit now to the point it almost seems impossible that I didn’t know… but at the time, I didn’t. I was also laser-focused on just trying to do what I thought would be a good job and for me, that meant giving fans a view they might not have otherwise.

You don’t have to be intimately invested in something to understand its importance or to understand there are plenty of people who might love to be in your shoes.

What helped me through a lot of my worries was a simple idea: I wasn’t there to be an expert about football. I wasn’t there to be a fan. I was there to be a fly on the tailgate — a person who would talk to fans about why they drove to Pittsburgh from Buffalo or Rochester or, in one case Boston, Massachusetts, for the game. I was there to do my job and tell their story. 

The remarkable takeaway for me from that experience was, as excited as the fans were — you could just sort of sense… even in the high energy of the tailgate — many of them thought the season might end that night. There was a sense of preparation for that outcome. So, when I saw some of them again after the game you could see the disbelief, the relief, the pure joy.

It was awesome. 

My first actual game — a home game and not for work —  was in October of 2021 — Halloween. I had to laugh at the idea of feeling like I was masquerading somehow, but It was a lot of fun.

Since then, there have been many more thrilling wins and there have been tough losses.

Whether celebrating or commiserating, though, there is something special about the team, the area, the fans — all brought together by a tradition that is happily considered completely and delightfully bonkers.

It is a lot like family and so is the approach to the ups and downs, particularly the downs: you’re not mad, you’re just disappointed — except when you are mad and then you’re done … except you’re not done with those big stupid idiots … and while we’re at it…  if you’re a fan, you can call them big stupid idiots but if anyone else calls them big stupid idiots, you will fight them to the death.

That’s true love.

I’m happy to casually observe it all from a distance as I have for all my life — forever hoping for the best and rooting for all those fans to one day get that moment they’ve all been waiting for.

And here’s the thing: even though I’ll probably be forever doing whatever I want on everyone else’s football Sundays, I know I still share an unbreakable bond with the heart and soul of Bills Mafia — forever hanging on to a pesky little thing called hope.

All this to say… 

Go Bills.