For over ten years, the overwhelming consensus in the Queen City was “maybe next year.” But for the first time in what seems like forever, our Buffalo Bills nation not only has confidence, but hope. Starting the season 4-1 with a surreal victory over the despised Patriots has created a sense of belief you can only experience if you are what I call a “true” Bills fan.
The all too familiar feeling of waking up on Sunday and experiencing boring “bound to lose” football has come to an abrupt end and we are now potentially at a starting point to something special. It’s impossible to prove to the other end of a “true” Bills fan that we are the greatest, but this blog plus a few pictures is a start.
Does your favorite team determine the outcome of your entire week? Most would probably say no. A Buffalo Bills fan is different. After a Bills win or loss on Sunday, that feeling of great emotional joy or heartbreaking loss is a determining factor in this community’s sense of happiness for that upcoming week.
What I’ve personally experienced this season is something in my first 27 years as a Bills fan I’ve been yet to go through (and remember). Sure, we started the season 4-0 in ’08, but even then we knew deep down inside the Pats probably had our number. The satisfaction our team has created this past month and a half has given us as fans a reason to forget the torment and road we’ve been down in the past and other than one mishap in Cincinnati, Monday mornings have been that of excitement, anticipation, and of course; one massive hangover from celebration!
I’ll be the first to tell you I have no idea if the Bills will finish the 2011 season the way they’ve started it. But what they’ve done to the mind of us “true” Bills fans thus far is given us a brand new reason to be passionate again. Those who were losing hope are either back or questioning why they lost it in the first place and those who’ve never given up are on top of the world. Regardless, right now the Buffalo Bills are a way of life once again. I myself am looking forward to waking up next Monday; huge smile on my face.
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Photos by Theresa Villano
