Stranded in Boston

Just an objective observation: My students here in Boston have been giving me crap all week about the game. I am keeping my mouth shut this time -- but I occasionally challenge the more obnoxious ones with the following query: Can you name the Patriot's starting offensive line? Most of them just start stammering, to which I calmly point out that the average grandmother in WNY can not only name the Bills' offensive line, but the newest guy signed to Bills' practice squad. Perhaps that's cold comfort, sour grapes, etc. given the usual annual 2-game beat-down. But I am sure about one thing: when we beat those SOBs, it will be SO much sweeter!

LOL ... well Kelly, I don't think modern science has addressed that question yet. Maybe we're all a little blind for sticking with the Bills as long as we have. On the other hand, Monday (or Friday) mornings still feel great after a win! Now let's just get that great feeling next Tuesday morning, shall we?

Hi all, I've enjoyed the discussion about color vision here, but maybe I could clarify a few things (not to play the professor, but ... well, I am a professor ). If you don't enjoy a little science talk, please ignore this post! Watching the game, I also was surprised that the NFL didn't realize that red-green colorblind people would have trouble sorting out the two uniforms. About 2% of males (not 13%; not sure where that number came from) have red-green color blindness, caused by mutations in either the long- (L or "red") or middle-wavelength (M or "green") cone photopigments in the retina. I'm pretty sure the 2% number is accurate, because every year I ask my medical school class of ~70 students if anyone is colorblind, and invariably no more than one student or rarely two (always male) raise their hands. The L and M photoreceptors work together to allow us to discriminate red and green hues. Basically, our retinas and brains "compare" the relative absorption of photons by the L- and M-cones to assign hue on the red-green side of the rainbow of light wavelengths. People with red-green cone mutations are not color "blind", because they also have short-wavelength sensitive (S) cones, which can be compared to the spared, un-mutated red- or green- cones to discriminate blues and yellows. L- and M- cone photopigments are proteins which are made from genes on the X-chromosome. Females have two X chromosomes, but males only one; the mutation is recessive, so that females are generally fine with one functioning gene out of the two, but males are out of luck. By definition, red-green colorblind fathers pass their X chromosome -- and therefore the mutation -- to their daughters , but the daughters are only carriers; I am not aware that they have any measurable deficit in color vision, and they certainly do not have enhanced color sensitivity. Also, while there is evidence that there can occasionally be functioning anomalous mutated photopigments that still function, vision scientists have to work pretty hard to demonstrate even subtle differences in color sensitivity in these people. I have also heard reports about rare individuals with four photopigments, but I (and many other scientists) are skeptical that these individuals have "enhanced" color vision, because the output of the cone photoreceptors is combined in the retina and the brain in complicated neural circuits, and it is unlikely that brain circuits would be able to “handle” a fourth cone input. Red-green perception could be slightly altered in these people, but I doubt it would be enhanced in any meaningful way -- notwithstanding claims about tetrachromic artists! A last thought – a simple thing the NFL could have done to help out beleaguered colorblind fans would have been to make the uniforms a different overall brightness or luminance. This is easy to distinguish. For example, at night people with red—green color blindness can distinguish red and green traffic lights based on overall luminance differences (although the LED-based traffic signals make that harder for many of them now). Anyhow, enough science blather. Enjoy your Sunday and GO BILLS!!! Please, oh PLEEEASE kick the Patriots a$$ next week ... so if nothing else I can shut up my Patriots-bandwagon students for one week ...

I'll be wearing my Bills gear all week here in Boston. For sure my students will be decked out in their Pats jerseys, hats, etc. -- and the little pissants will be squawking. Should be fun ... But they are dead wrong on the physics; fairly elementary thermodynamics ... I already explained it to some of them. Come to think of it, maybe I'll put that as a question on the mid-term. Then we'll see where their loyalties lie.

I will miss Fred as much as anyone. The guy personified Buffalo's Rocky-Balboa-lift-yourself-off-the-mat ethos, and it's sad that he will not be on the roster if (when!) we make the playoffs this year. However -- not to knock any other posters -- I find very odd the comments that Fred was waived to keep Bryce Brown on the roster so that Doug Whaley can "save face". Whaley strikes me as a guy earnestly trying to improve the roster. But more to the point, the Bills traded their 2015 4th round pick for Brown. Lost in the tumult of the last two days is that the Bills also waived Ross Cockrell. Cockrell was a 4th round pick in 2014 -- i.e., he cost the Bills the same as Bryce Brown. If Whaley was trying to save face over a 4th round pick, shouldn't he also have clung to Cockrell? Anyhow, I hope Fred has a good season with whomever he ends up. And I hope nobody on the Bills wears #22 for a while ...

Hey CBF, I was also a big Henry Jones fan -- but I have got to go with my man Robert James, 3-time pro-bowler and the original shut-down corner. Too bad they couldn't fix knees back in the mid-70s like they do now. Joe Cribbs deserves mention as well. Come to think of it, #20 has been pretty damn good to the Bills ...

Who is this John Eisenberg whippersnapper -- does he think that football only started in Baltimore with the Ravens? What about Earl Morrall -- not once, but twice: he subbed for Johnny Unitas in guiding the Colts to an NFL championship in 1968 (en route to SB III), and then did it again for the 1972 Dolphins. I recall Morrall won 10 or 11 games subbing for Bob Griese in '72, including in the playoffs.

Hey Jimmy, for a Jets fan, the proper conjugation of your thread title should be, "I seen you guys IS practicing".

Hey klos, take it easy man; we're just having a little fun with another fan base. However, there is a little method to our madness. I moved to Boston from Buffalo in 1985, so I know the area pretty well. The Boston area is full of transplants, many of whom "adopt" the Patriots as their team. For example, every fall I see my transplant students coming to class wearing Pats jerseys, hats, etc. more and more as the semester wears on. There's nothing wrong with that -- but it also doesn't mean I can't have a little fun with them and make a good-natured crack about the Pats now and then. On the other hand, for twenty years I've started the semester by asking "anybody from Buffalo?", and one or two gals or guys will raise their hand -- and then invariably signal me a subtle fist pump or something. And for sure, after class they will come up and we'll talk about home ... and the Bills. And for the rest of the fall, every morning after a Bills game, we'll either be high-fiving -- or dragging ourselves around. Let's face it -- Buffalo has not attracted a lot of transplants recently (although I'm happy to hear that's changing a bit), and we've had less to cheer about back home for the last century or so. But we nonetheless have an intangible cord that binds us together; we are, as the Italians say, "compaesani", literally "inhabitants of the same country", but expressing a more profound connection between people who, perhaps hardened by tough luck and tough weather, deeply miss a place and a different time. Maybe it's just a giant chip on our collective Buffalonian shoulder, but it's OUR chip. Maybe Bostonians find us pathetic; I don't know -- and I really don't care. But I do know that when I'm at The Harp bar in Boston for the Bills game, with 200 fellow WNYers screaming our lungs out (including the time I brought my twin 5-year old boys in their little Bills jerseys, and the whole place was clapping me on the back and telling me, "You're raising 'em right buddy!"), we do get some very bewildered stares from the tiny contingent of Pats fans sipping their foofy craft beers at the bar. It's different. It's just different ...

I've lived on and off in Boston for 30 years now, and I can tell you that Pats "fans" are THE most fake in all of professional football, and it's not even close. Most Pats fan can't even name the team's starting offensive line -- while your average grandmother in Buffalo can not only name the Bills practice squad pick-up last week, they also know his body-fat index and 40-time at the combo 3 years ago ...

For #5, I think you meant Bill Brooks instead of Bucky Brooks. Bucky Brooks was a 2nd round pick in '94 who never panned out. BIll Brooks was a FA pickup in '93 or '94 who had an incredible year when he broke the Bills' record for touchdowns in a season by a WR, with 11 or 12. He was the Bills' last receiver left standing that year after Andre Reed blew out his hamstring ...

Guys, thanks for the memories. Yeah, "Bowling for Dollars" was great (for a minute there, I remembered it was hosted by Van Miller instead of Ed Kilgore, but that was "That's Academic"). For some reason, our favorite part was the guest bowlers who would pull out a small list of people to greet (" ... 'n my neighbor Tony, 'n the guys from the Chevy drivetrain nightshift, 'n the St. Mary's Knights of Columbus, 'n ..."), and just when you thought they were done, the list would suddenly unfurl, 3-feet long, and they would continue reading ("... 'n my mother-in-law, 'n Stash and Ronnie from my bowlin' team, 'n ..."). The audience would laugh, and my brothers and I would crack up at home. My sister's 6th-grade teacher appeared one time, and he whole neighborhood tuned in (he missed the spare and took home 9 bucks). And Clip Smith! Who wrote his stuff? One of our all-time favorites: "And Michigan knocked Art Schlichter on his keeshter" ...

ugh ... painful memory. That was the first time my Italian girlfriend had observed me watching a Bills game (during the regular season I had wisely chosen to watch the games without her at the Bills Fan Club at The Harp bar in Boston). I don't think she had ever seen an "Amereecan" football game before -- and let's just say I did not put on a very good show for her at the bloody end. Luckily she still married me later. Now we live in Italy, 6 hours ahead of EST, so I have to keep my ritual post-game cursing to myself to avoid waking the kids … But I choose to remember the good aspects of that Tennessee game. In particular, the Bills D (god, I loved that '99 defense!) completely dominated McNair. Also, I'll never forget Antowain Smith ripping off that savage long run at the start of the second half, just dragging guys along. I always thought Wade Philips gave up too soon on Smith, who then had a couple of good years in NE. As for Rob Johnson ... &$#@!!

Interesting ... I live in Italy, and I've had no problems (well, except with the wife) listening to all the games this year on wgr550.com website, and hitting the "listen live" button on the home page. Presumably the NFL regulations don't apply in Europe? Here's an idea: if you can find a European-based Virtual Private network (VPN) server you might fool them that you're in Europe. I use a US-based VPN server all the time for content that I can't access in Europe; the reverse is likely also true. VPN is usually very easy to use: you just log on and then access all content via your normal browser. I just browsed around a bit and found a bunch of "free" or "cheap" commercial European VPN offers, but I can't vouch for them. But if you know somebody who works at or attends a European university, that's a good way to go. Most universities here (as well as US) have VPN servers for free use of associates.

Wow jboyst, I don't post much, but I have to stand up here for John Holocek. Are you maybe confusing him with someone else? Also "worse unit"? -- that '99 defense was one of the best Bills D ever, and Holocek was damn tough in the middle along with Sam Cowart and Sam Rogers in the outside. Wasn't it Holocek who strip sacked Dan Marino on MNF, and Gabe Northern (the only weak link at LB) ran it back for a TD? But Holocek's problem was his knees ... Holocek did have some bad blood with Thurman though. I remember Thurman calling him out during that nightmarish last season he played for Miami.

I live in Italy, so it's all soccer all the time -- but at least that beats watching the &%$# Patriots, which is all I ever got in Boston ... However, it turns out there is a Bills Backers bar in Venice (the real "Venezia"), started by a crazed Venetian Bills fan who used to date a woman from Rochester. I'm going to try to take my kids there on the train this Sunday to watch the game. With the +6-hour timezone difference, it's going to be a little late for a school night, but you know ... you just gotta raise 'em right.

I don't post much here, but man is it good to see you guys fired up about this. I haven't lived in Buffalo for 30 years -- but change teams? CHANGE TEAMS?? I might as well decide to fly. Or maybe I will decide to breathe nitrogen instead of oxygen. Look OP, we just don't have a choice. We root for the Bills because ... they are our Alamo. The only way out is feet-first.

Thanks for the write-up Fader; that was really great. That game is indelibly etched in my mind. I was living in Houston, and I watched the game by myself in my miserable apartment near the old Astrodome (this was pre-internet days, before I discovered the Bills Fan Club at Sam Sansone’s bar in West Oaks). For some odd reason, my sister had given me a blues-harp harmonica for Xmas when I was home in Buffalo the week before. As the game got completely out of hand with the Bubba Mcdowell pick, I slumped into my living room couch and started idly blowing some notes on the harp. Sure enough, the Bills go right down the field and score. Hmm … a few more notes and they get the ball back and score again. What the … ?? I’m playing that thing like crazy now, and Henry Jones picks off Moon!! Pretty soon, I am rolling on the floor, wailing on that harp; I was like Howlin’ Wolf and Elwood Blues combined … Bills come all the way back and win. In a frenzy, I tried to call home, but all the lines to Buffalo were JAMMED! I thought that only happened in the 1930s. Tell me, what other town could jam all the phone lines over a football game? So I went out on my rickety apartment balcony with my Bills sweatshirt and hat on, and just start screaming abuse at Houston -- everything I could think of. Of course this was Houston, where nobody ever goes outside, but it still felt good. As for that blues harp, goddamn thing failed me against Dallas a few weeks later …

Ciao Fratellino mio, I knew you'd surface ... My latest Bills-frustration-related hand injury is fine. I just keep forgetting that Italian walls are made of concrete, not sheetrock ... But we won last week, so anything less than a mortal wound is quickly forgotten. Moreover, this hand injury pales in comparison to that of "Home Run Forward Lateral", "No Goal", "Just Give It To Them", etc. -- not to mention Jerry “No Fumble” Bergman. (I wonder how many of the other TBD old timers will remember that cheatin’ SOB? This must be apocryphal, but I recall that the Buffalo Evening News published his home address the day after that Miami game.) Anyhow, someday it WILL happen, bro. We will win it all, and just like that, time will stand on its head. We’ll be 16 again slinging the ball around in the backyard with C on a perfect September afternoon, with Van making the call in the background. The electric lights will come on again over Buffalo for the first time, and even William McKinley will duck when Leon Czolgosz pulls out that revolver …

Ah, thanks for that one Kearney ... I'll never forget that game. The snow and wind kicked up like the wrath of God, and the crowd went beserk. You could just sense the life draining out of the Fish; they were done, reduced to staggering around the field, stammering, "WTF is wrong with these people??". A thing of beauty.

Yeah … Roland Hooks ; thanks for that reminiscence, RJ. Indeed, Van was agonizingly slow in making winning calls. You’d hear the home crowd go nuts for a second or two before he would confirm. My brothers and I would always crack up over that (after we recovered). So many other favorites … Last game of the year in ‘73 vs. Jets; watching the game with my brothers in the basement on an ancient B&W TV that I think my dad had garbage-picked. The vertical refresh would go haywire every few minutes and we’d have to turn our heads sideways to see what was going on. Our favorite moment was not in fact OJ topping the rushing record, but rather Bill Cahill busting back a punt for a TD, effectively putting the game out of reach. Truth is, we cared more about winning the game than about that damn rushing record. Home game against the powerful Raiders in ‘80. Fergie deftly feints left, then swings it out right to wide open rookie Joe Cribbs, who waltzes untouched into the end zone, both arms extended horizontally. To our astonishment, the Bills are 4-0, and after a decade of youthful futility as Bills fans, we sense we could actually win it all. Crushing the Fish 27-0 in ’87, with Jimbo revealing after the game that the Bills were especially fired up after Fish Linebacker Jackie Shipp commented before the game that he had been “embarrassed” to lose to the Bills earlier in the season. You could just feel the power in that Bills squad about to burst forth … … and burst it does: Bills at Browns as Municipal Stadium in 1990 (42-0 payback only 10 months after the Ronnie Harmon playoff drop). Jamie Mueller leads Thurmon left on a toss sweep. Some hapless Browns safety flashes into the backfield, and Mueller … lays … him … out. I mean thundering, limbs-splayed, flat-on-his-back OUT; hitting the ground so ferociously you could barely follow it live. The slow-mo in my mind still shows Mueller’s lips curling into a vicious snarl an instant before he lays the wood .… Watching the game alone in my crappy apartment in Houston in ’93. Trying in a frenzy to call home after Steve Christie kicked the comeback winner – and all the lines to Buffalo were jammed. The freaking lines were JAMMED. God, how I loved my tough little hometown at that moment. I went out on my balcony with my Bills sweatshirt and hat on and screamed every abuse I could think of at Houston for about 15 minutes (until I thought the better of it; lots of guns in Houston). Last Sunday night. Sitting on the edge of our living room couch here in Italy, clinging to hope, headphones connected to my laptop, following John Murphy’s call on GR online; trying desperately not to wake up my wife and kids. Punching the wall when EJ throws the pick-that-came-back (goddamn hand is still sore as I type this a week later). Doing the silent scream when Stevie hauls in the winner. My teenage daughter staggers blinkingly into the living room: “Papi, what was that weird squealing sound?” I swear I don’t know. The kid of course informs on me in the AM, and my wife calls me a “deficiente” (exactly as it sounds). Honestly, I don’t blame her. But you guys all understand.

Yup, San Jose is right; it was "Hound Dog" Kelly squaring off with Dudley. I just YouTubed that fight for the first time since we saw it live 37(!) years ago. Almost as good as the first time -- although this time I didn't have you guys screaming, "Kill 'em Duds!! KILL 'em!!!" in my ears. (Or maybe back then it was mom doing the screaming ... )

"But you all understand exactly what I mean." Haha ... QED little brother, QED. See you soon. The kids can't wait to see Uncle A. P.S. Wasn't that Battleship Kelly getting his snot pounded out by Rick Dudley? Bobby Clarke was watching the brawl off to the side, toothless grin on his face, probably after instigating the whole thing ...

I’ve been enjoying this site for a few years without posting, but you guys have really inspired me today. There’s been some disputation about Buffalo weather in this thread. Well, here’s my take: A “Four Seasons Tribute” to my beloved hometown. Winter: Getting up with my brother at 5:30 to deliver our newspapers -- pitch darkness and hellish weather be damned -- and never missing a day in 3 years (even that first morning in ’77, when our main goal was to prevent our eyeballs from getting lashed from our faces). Simple and unsaid rule: our dad went out to work in the worst winter weather, and so the hell did we. Spring: That ONE day, when you would stumble out of school into the brightness, throw off your jacket, roll up your sleeves for the first time since September, and then just stand there – silent, slack-jawed, blinking with disbelief; feeling that indescribably sweet warmth on your skin. No one could ever experience that feeling without first living through a Buffalo winter. Summer: Dull roar of kids playing outside mixed with the dawn-to-dusk blare of lawnmowers and 97 Rock. 10-cent afternoon swims at the public pool, Lions-PAL baseball at Delaware Park, Chevy Tonawanda UAW softball games, evening basketball and touch football after the church parking-lot asphalt cooled down a bit. Jostling with my brothers to grab the sports page when the BEN arrived, eager to check out the Bills’ training-camp news (some rookie named Lucious Sanford hitting everything that moves …). Fall: In the backyard on an exquisitely beautiful late-September Sunday afternoon. Tossing around a football with my brothers while Van Miller calls out the play-by-play from our parents’ 1950s-vintage radio, perched in the open dining-room window. Rookie Jerry Butler scores FOUR touchdowns, Bills beat the hated Jets – and the very first leaves are starting to tinge red and gold on the maple trees. I adore my non-Buffalonian wife, but if I told her that September afternoon with my brothers was probably one of the 5 happiest days of my life, she would look at me with disbelief -- and I honestly couldn’t blame her. The damn thing is, I don’t know any of you guys here on TBD, but you all understand exactly what I mean. THAT is why I love Buffalo …