Saturday night, my fiance fired up the computer to listen to the Northeastern – Boston College hockey game online on ESPN890. (ESPN890 doesn’t come in well on the North Shore. Scratch that – ESPN890 doesn’t come in well period.) The ESPN890 website has a convenient-in-theory-but-memory-hogging-in-reality sports-ticker on the bottom of its website at all times. As we were waiting for the audio to load, we were discussing how much we expected Northeastern to win that evening to cheat us BU fans out of a possible Hockey East regular season championship. While talking, I glanced over to the ticker on the webpage.
“T.O. signs with Buffalo,” it read.
“What?!” I yelled, interrupting my fiance’s rant on Northeastern coach Greg Cronin and his hobby of throwing sticks onto the ice when incensed. “T.O. is a Buffalo Bill?!”
My fiance laughed, not looking at the screen. “Stop changing the subject. That would never happen.”
“He signed with Buffalo. Look at the screen.”
In the nearly four years we’ve been dating, I have never seen the guy’s big brown eyes bug out of his head as much as they did when he looked at the screen. “What?!” He immediately opened another tab on the browser and typed in ESPN.com. There it was, the main story: Two days after being cut by the Dallas Cowboys, Terrell Owens had been signed by the most improbable team ever, the Buffalo “We Don’t Spend” Bills. The team who spends less money than me at the last week of every month as I try to make my ridiculous Boston rent.
“It’s not April Fools Day,” he said.
A day I never thought I'd see: T.O. with the Bills
I shook my head. “Did Ralph Wilson pass away? How did this happen?”
We set about reading the article. I quickly glanced through it, read enough to realize that yes, this was true, Owens had actually signed a legitimate contract with the Buffalo Bills, a sense of euphoria came upon me.
I looked at my Patriot fan fiance, who was still reading, who probably hadn’t digested the idea of Owens ever playing in his own conference, let alone for my favorite team no less.
“In your face!” I exclaimed. “You try to beat us with your bum-kneeed Brady now!”
As I did a happy circle dance in my place next to him, which involved me hopping around in a circle to a tune I was making up on the spot that had to do with Edwards passing to Owens, TD, AFC East Champions, Super Bowls, and whatever came to mind, I heard him say, “I have to put up with this all off-season now?”
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There is a lot of bad that comes with Terrell Owens – the outlandish statements, the diva behavior, the Sharpies – that immediately turn fans off to his existence. So if he was going to stay in the NFL for his 15th season, it was going to be one of two places. One, with a coach with just as big of an ego or mouth as his own, which seemed to be the most obvious option. Secondly, with a team so down in the dumps, with absolutely no personality, with no voice, and thus no one for Owens to rebel against. But the only team that fell into the second category – Buffalo – was mired in that category because they continually refused to spend money and take chances. So how would Owens ever come about in the royal blue and red of the Bills?
The Bills can handle everything that comes with Owens because it has a big gaping hole in its exsistance. The Bills had become a laughable, meaningless franchise, with nothing to make them memorable. Owens’ history and personality can fill a gorge as large as the Bills’. So he’s going to make outlandish statements here and there, maybe offend an opposing teams’ fan base, probably get in an argument or two with his teammates. If it gives the Bills’ heart or some reason to exist, then I am okay with it.
The negativity could only hurt a franchise that had a good thing going in the first place. When you have a franchise complacent and meaningless, Owens’ negativity is either going to inspire the rest of the team against him, or inspire them to be with them. And either way, it’s inspiration where inspiration didn’t exist previously.
And really, things couldn’t get any worse for the Bills. So even if the grand T.O. experiment blows up completely, it’s not rock bottom, because at least they got out there and took the chance where they hadn’t previously.
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T.O. once played with my favorite QB, and now he'll play for my favorite team. (Photo: Jamd.com)
I’m eager to see the Owens led Bills for not only the excitement factor it is already bringing to the franchise, but because he seems to be bookending his career with my two favorite teams. Owens entered the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers, and was one of The Reason I Like Sports (aka Steve Young)’s favorite receivers in the twilight of his career. And now, in year 15, Owens is heading to the Buffalo Bills, to try to salvage his floundering career.
Many sportswriters – including the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle’s Bob Matthews, who I’ve had a love-hate relationship with since I was ten – have already analyzed the Owens move as one of the most shrewd marketing moves an NFL team has ever made. The timing and execution of the deal was perfect. For one, it was a relatively slow sports weekend, in comparison to the next few weeks of March Madness and the start of the baseball season. Then throw in how quickly they had him available for a press conference, and how quickly my email box was flooded with emails from the Bills Store and the organization themselves, telling me about Owens jersey pre-orders and ticket office hours. And then they give him jersey number 1. If that’s not a good marketing move, or an excellent concession to Owens’ ego, I don’t know what is.
This team had reached rock bottom. It had become irrelevant to the rest of America. It had become meaningless to those in Western New York. And the few fans it had left felt absolutely hopeless. In a matter of hours on Saturday, however, the Bills became relevant again to all parties.
Just call it the Buffalo Bills’ Stimulus Package. No matter how this ends, Bills fans will be talking about this move for years to come.
Two Things… One, ESPN 890 is awful to listen to. I was listening on the way home from Providence Friday night and their audio quality is awful.
Second, I have never seen Greg Cronin throw a stick. That would have been amazing to see.
Last season, at Northeastern, Greg Cronin was angry with a call by the officials, and he threw a stick onto the ice, nearly hitting Boomer Ewing (I think it was him.) He didn’t get into any trouble for it, but my fiance, his friend and I saw it clear as day and just couldn’t believe it. From that point on, we have always made a joke about Cronin throwing sticks.