Bye Week Gives The Bills (And Me) Time To Think If They're For Real

For me, a Buffalo Bills fan, analysis, power rankings, and the general opinion of the sports media never mattered.

They never gave us enough credit or attention, and I loved it.

Marshall Faulk on the NFL Network called for us to go 7-9 again this year. As a fan, someone who had paid attention to the moves and changes we made, I knew better.

However, during our 4-0 run this year, I got sucked in to listening what these guys had to say because they were actually praising my team for once.

I heard people calling Dick Jauron to be Coach of the Year and even Trent Edwards to be MVP. That should never had happened.

I was watching the games, two close games against two terrible teams, I should have known better. I was blinded by praise. I should have known the team was primed for a collapse like the one that happened against the Arizona Cardinals, but I didn't. That loss was devastating for me. What it did, though, was pull me and the Bills out of the clouds and back to reality. A reality filled with being ignored or underestimated by the press. That is where we succeed—we feed on it.

We live for times like the first week of this year. The media calls for us to lose to a bad Seattle Seahawks team that was badly banged up, but we know better.

We know that Marcus Stroud is going to be a huge impact run-stopping tackle. We know that Angelo Crowell, Paul Posluszny, and Kawika Mitchell are one of the very best all around line backing corps in the league.

We know that Marshawn Lynch, Freddy Jackson, Josh Reed, Lee Evans, and Roscoe Parrish are primed to throw a hugely diverse number of looks to every place on the field.  I know that Trent Edwards is a promising young field general with poise and maturity. And we were right—it was a great feeling.

The same thing happened when they played the Jaguars, and then the media Bills bandwagon began. It's been downhill ever since. But not this week—the bandwagon has evaporated and what remains is a prime atmosphere for us to beat the ailing San Diego Chargers. We go on to face our division, and can only hope that the press has learned its lesson and leaves us the hell alone. 

A young team on the rise is going to have to learn to deal with attention, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's just take it week by quietly ignored and hated-upon week.