Every time I visit my hometown, I am on the hunt for Buffalo Bills merchandise that I wouldn’t be able to find online or even in the most overarching of Massachusetts sports stores. I found the perfect item on the last day of my vacation at In The Zone, a sports collectable store in the Mall at Greece Ridge in Rochester, NY.

Yes, that is a Buffalo Bills purse.

It’s actually one of the most practical purses I’ve ever bought. It is made from heavy duty fabric, has several pockets, and is roomy enough for me to use on the commute to and from work. It also has studs on the bottom corners to prevent the bag from getting ruined.

Not a Bills fan, or not in Rochester? Don’t worry. The purse is created by Charm 14 New York, and they have an entire line of classy and practical sports handbags available online. Look at this one for the Boston Red Sox fans among us:

And this one, which immediately made me think of my friend Sara:

Charm 14′s sport handbags are between $17.95 for a wrislet and $35.95 for the tote (though I did get my tote for less at In The Zone – pricing in stores seem to vary.) They also have wholesale packs for sale, perfect for if I ever open the SportsGirlKat gift shoppe. (And if you want to give me some kind of funding or location towards the SportsGirlKat gift shoppe, you know how to contact me.)

“Look what I found,” he said eagerly, handing me the calendar.

“The Buffalo Bills, a year in futility,” I smirked. “Sure, let’s get it.”

I didn’t look closely at the calendar until I got back to our apartment. I hold onto my mother’s old superstition that you are not to open a calendar until New Year’s Day, so I wasn’t about to tear off the plastic. Instead, I took a more careful look at the back, which previews every month’s cover athlete.

Hey, it’s Marshawn Lynch! And Bill Belichick’s favorite, Josh Reed! (In case you missed it, check out that link for Belichick’s Reed gaffe from last week.) There’s Shawn Nelson and Roscoe Parrish!

Four of the twelve months of my 2011 Buffalo Bills calendar are absolutely pointless. Lynch, Reed, and Nelson are no longer Bills, and Parrish is on the injured reserve (something no calendar designer could have foreseen, I know.) Two of the others, Lee Evans and Donte Whitner, most likely will not be Bills beyond the first week of 2011.

So half of my Bills calendar could be rendered obsolete by the second week of 2011.

But I don’t blame the calendar’s manufacturer, Turner Licensing. The life of a calendar creator must be difficult these days; your chosen product is consistently threatened by Microsoft Outlook, iCal, Blackberry Calendar, whatever those crazy Droid’s use, and the fact that you can Google “January 2011 calendar” and print out a calendar grid on the office printer for free. Your calendar pages must be prepared months in advance in order to be printed in time for Christmas gift-giving – fine when you’re selling the “Cute Kittens in Teacups” calendar, but a liability when you’re in the sports calendar business. Players get traded, hurt, jailed or, in the case of a one Brett Favre, decide to come out of retirement a week before the season begins.

Thus, I’m not blaming the calendar maker. The have a job not unlike the newspaper journalist, working in a print medium in an internet age. Print prematures the aging of news, and in this case, calendars. Much like newspapers are evolving, maybe the calendar maker needs to change their business model as well.

Here’s my idea for the calendar industry. Either focus on game highlight photos from the previous season or all-time best games so you don’t have the departed athlete issue to begin with, or let us register our calendars online and send us replacement photos via email or mail.

As for me, I’ll just print out Ryan Fitzpatrick and Stevie Johnson photos to tape over the months with Lynch and Reed. Because being a Bills fan seems to be all about improvising at times.

Photo: BuffaloBills.com

A quick note to wish the only recent Buffalo Bills quarterback not to give the fan base heartburn a good retirement. Late last week, Gibran Hamdan, former Bills third string quarterback, announced his retirement from football at the grand ol’ age of 29. Hamdan had been released by the Bills midway through last season, having taken only two NFL snaps. He had signed with the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts in March, and had been competing against Cleo Lemon and Ken Dorsey – two quarterbacks with NFL experience – in training camp.

I wish Hamdan had been given a chance to take a few snaps with the Bills (his two NFL snaps were with Washington). He had shown his worth in NFL Europe (where he was a league MVP in 2006), and had a few inches on Ryan Fitzpatrick and a bit more sturdiness than Trent Edwards. All things considered, Hamdan was the only Bills quarterback of the past two years not to evoke any ire in the fanbase (because he didn’t play, but still.)

WGR 550 reports that Hamdan aspires towards a broadcasting career – not surprising, given that ESPN football writer Tim Graham once remarked that Hamdan was one of the “more passionate and insightful interviews” he had done on the beat. Happy trails, Gibran Hamdan. Best of luck in your future endevors.

twoeightnine's "Franchise Quarterbacks - Buffalo Bills" shirt. (Photo: TwoEIghtNine)

Featured several times on Yahoo Sports’ Puck Daddy (the pantheon of hockey blogs, if you will), twoeightnine Design’s t-shirts have become a hot commodity for hockey fans all over. With shirts featuring those always present allegations of diving towards Sidney Crosby, and an Shepard Fairey-esque salute to the single man who turned around Washington (hockey, that is), the online shirt shop struck a chord with fans that wanted witty and intelligent fan t-shirts.

Of course, once I found out Matt Johnson, the founder of twoeightnine, was running his business out of Western New York, and that he features the following “Franchise Quarterbacks – Buffalo Bills” shirt in his store, I had to feature him on the blog. Besides talking t-shirts, I of course had to ask Matt’s thoughts on the always depressing state of the Buffalo Bills.

Kat: How long have you been designing shirts? How did you get start up twoeightnine?

Matt: I think I’m at 2.5 years now? Maybe three? The last few years have been a strange trip for me and I really have no sense of time anymore. I got my start designing a t-shirt for Deadspin. It was back when the site was still “underground” but starting to make a name for itself. There was a small loyal group of commenters who joked about the start of a revolution. I took a sketch I did of Will Leitch as Che Guevera down to my neighbor in Philly who was a screen printer and twoeightnine was born.

Kat: Your designs run the gamut of sports, teams, and regions. Do you come up with all of the design ideas, or are some ideas submitted by fans of that particular sports or team?

Matt: They’re all mine. I tend to gravitate towards the Sabres and Bills because those are my teams and I prefer to work on ideas that I’ll enjoy working on. I’m in the process of expanding from that while killing some older designs at the same time. Right now I know I have limited periods where I do most of my sales. Mainly NFL training camp and Christmas. Plus most of my sales come from the Upstate NY region. It’s something that I want to break away from.

I’m always open to anyone’s ideas but the fact of the matter is that 99% of the time they suck. It’s a very inside joke or something that has no staying power past a week or two. As much as I love designing shirts at the end of the day I have to sell them too in order to make it worth my time. Something that only sells a handful of shirts isn’t going to do that.

Kat: What has been your best selling design?

Matt: The Beast Mode shirt for Marshawn Lynch, hands down. It’s not even close. Even with the suspension and the down year people were still buying it. Unfortunately I still haven’t sold enough to make a dent in those “lovely” I ♥ Buffalo sports shirt. If you’re a guy and you wear one of those please check your balls at the door.

Kat: As a Bills fan, I thought the Bills Franchise Quarterbacks design was depressing…until I saw the new Browns Franchise Quarterbacks one. Then I felt just a twinge better. Personally, which franchise do you think has a better chance of escaping their QB woes sooner?

Matt: Can I vote for neither? I guess if I had to choose I’d pick the Browns. I trust Holmgren and Co. more than I trust Ralphy and his crew. I’m not sure what happened this season in particular as opposed to the last ten but the switch finally flipped for me. My diet is now koolaid free. I need results before I get any sense of hope up. Unfortunately those results this year look like they’ll be even more losses.

twoeightnine's "Beast Mode" homage to Marshawn Lynch

Kat: Marshawn Lynch (subject of your Beast Mode shirt): lost cause or a risk to continue taking by the Bills organization?

Matt: The second one, by far. I don’t understand the “cut or trade him now before he screws up again people” at all. Nothing he’d bring back in a trade is worth it; he’s still a talent on a team seriously lacking it. And frankly anyone who says cut him is an idiot. I’m not sure what the real risk is. If you cut him now you don’t have him, if he gets suspended you don’t have him. But if he doesn’t get suspended you have a pretty good one two punch with Jackson and Lynch. It’s not like if he gets his third strike the Bills are going to have to forfeit the rest of the season or people are going to think that they’re a poorly run franchise that only has a future in Toronto and is one of the laughingstocks of the league.

twoeightnine’s shirts are available for sale on their website, and Matt is also active on Twitter.

Luke Popko in the 2009 Hockey East Championship Game (InsideHockey.com)

While livetweeting the Beanpot for BU Today last week, I remarked how much I enjoyed watching BU senior forward Luke Popko on the penalty kill. He may be diminutive, but he is one of the most effective penalty killers I have ever seen. He is especially effective when BU is two men down. He also doesn’t shy away from blocking a shot, and stays out there and gets peppered, often barely limping off the ice after taking several shots to his body. He truly plays like a second goalie, just without the extra padding.

During the Beanpot championship game this Monday (which BU lost 4-3), I was watching Popko on the penalty kill for the seemingly millionth time in the past four years when it finally hit me. Popko is a short, extremely effective, and fearless special teamer.

He is, by analogy, the Steve Tasker of the Boston University Terriers.

For those of you who think Tasker was just the sideline reporter for Sunday’s Super Bowl (who had the un-enviable task of interviewing Indianapolis Colts head coach Jim Caldwell post-game), au contraire. Tasker, as much as Doug Flutie, is every short Western New Yorker male’s inspiration for living. (Just ask my 5-6 tall father.) He was a member of the Buffalo Bills for 13 years, playing from 1985-1997.

Tasker is considered by many football journalists, football players and the like to be the greatest special teams player to play football in the modern era. He was tiny – listed as 5-9, but that must have been when he was wearing the Buffaloian uniform of five layers of socks, huge snow boots, and standing on a snow drift – but was fearless, throwing himself at punters and kickers, tackling kick returners twice his size by the ankles, and speeding down the field like a stolen Ferrari at 3am on kick returns.

He got kicked in the head, he got flattened by men double his size, and yet he yearned for more playing time. He rarely got looks at wide receiver (much like Popko is mired on the fourth line), but when he did, he made the most of them. Quarterback Jim Kelly begged head coach Marv Levy to insert him as a receiver because Kelly could count on Tasker’s athleticism to make a difference on the down. You could rely on Tasker to make key special teams plays in every game, much like you can count on Popko to be one of your most consistent penalty killers (considered special teams in hockey) no matter how many of his teammates are hanging out in the penalty box.

Much like Tasker never makes it to Canton (he has made it to the list of semi-finalists several times, but the voting committee is loathe to give a spot to special teamers because they only play a “third of the game”), Popko is never going to be Player of the Week, Player of the Month, or under Hobey Baker consideration.  But heck, you don’t want to be on the penalty kill or kickoff without one of them.

(For those of you who did not grow up with a father who promoted the legend of Steve Tasker at every single meal, here is a good summary from the NFL Network.)

So given all that has happened to me sports-wise in the past year, I have nearly too much fodder for a “What I’m Thankful” for post. I’ve whittled it down to some of the most amusing or important points – I apologize if I’ve left out anything or anyone.

Thank you, Rian Lindell (#9). (Photo: BuffaloBills.com)

- Like last year, I am thankful for Rian Lindell. He is the only consistent part of the Buffalo Bills. I still do not understand why more baby boys born in the Western New York area are not named Rian. He’s made 90% of his field goals this season, and is a perfect 100% on point after touchdowns. He’s trick play savvy, and may actually be a better quarterback than any other quarterback currently on the Bills roster (just kidding…I think.)

- I am thankful for the Penn Quarter Sports Tavern, located in Washington, DC. This tavern became our home base while in DC for the Frozen Four. The bartenders were accommodating, hysterical, and can handle large crowds of somewhat rowdy college hockey fans extremely well. When I was back in DC for some work travel in August, I went inside and the bartender – who is known to wear either a UNH hockey jersey or a Normar green Red Sox jersey when he tends bar – remembered me and got excited because another New Englander was at the bar. Penn Quarter, hands down, is my favorite sports bar of all time. Thank you for taking good care of us college hockey fans.

- Thank you to Curt Styres and the Rochester Amerks for making AHL hockey relevant again in my hometown of Rochester, NY. I attended an Amerks game at Christmas time last year, and while it was the one of the highest attendances of the year, it was anemic compared to the crowds of my youth.

This season, the Amerks have turned it around. After owner Styres contracted Ted Nolan to work for the franchise over the summer, forked over thousands of his own wealth for player salaries, and seemingly convinced Florida (their parent) that it was important to grow quality players in Rochester, the team has gone 15-2-1. 15 wins, including 11 consective wins. This is Amerks hockey, folks – they’re back, and the rest of the AHL needs to get used to it.

- I’m thankful that I can listen to WHTK, Rochester’s young sports radio station, online. It’s important that I perform my Boston-sports-blogger penance and listen to WEEI and The Sports Hub on a regular basis, but listening to anything more than the bare minimum of both stations leave one screaming at their radio dial and lamenting the downfall of society. To reaffirm my faith in human sports-fan kind, I’ll turn on WHTK online. It doesn’t always work, but when it does and I get the opportunity to listen to the John DiTullio Show, I am a happy camper. People talking about sports – all kinds of sport, all teams, all genders, with a understanding of sports history thrown in – in an intelligent, civilized, indoor-voice manner is wonderful.

- Thank you to the Food Network for keeping me company while I was recently dignosed with H1N1. Your channel was the only one I could watch in my fever induced dizziness. I am especially thankful for Sandra Lee, whose programming may be funnier than anything on Comedy Central. (I’m a lazy cook, don’t get me wrong, but Lee takes it to new levels of laziness.)

- Thank you to the 2008-09 Boston University men’s hockey team. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Their season not only gave me awesome blog fodder, but convinced me that there is no better sport in this country than college hockey.

- Thank you to every blogger, Twitterer, writer, journalist and editor that I have worked with or who has promoted my work in my first full year of actively pursuing freelance sportswriting as a large hobby/second job. Thank you for giving me venues to share my writing. I may not be the world’s best writer, but regardless, I’ve been given so many opportunities to contribute.

- Thank you to the bloggers and journalists out there who I am not huge fans of. Just because I don’t like their work doesn’t mean I don’t respect it. Additionally, many of them have much larger audiences than I have, meaning they have to be doing something right.  As someone still working up the ladder, I can learn from every single one of them, even if I do not agree with them.

- Lastly, thank you to my fiance and my cat. They put up with me writing lacrosse stories until 2am after coming home from my full-time job at 8pm. I have no idea why they let me do what I do, but I am thankful they do so.

The NFL Snuggie. The horrors.

I never truly believed the apocalypse was near until I saw this.

To celebrate the beginning of the NFL pre-season, HSN has been selling the NFL Huddler (aka an NFL Snuggie) all day. To demonstrate its use, they are continuously showing a group of male and female models sitting on the back of a pickup truck eating with various teams’ Huddlers on.

Oh, because the people tailgating in Orchard Park, Pittsburgh, Philly, or Oakland aren’t going to beat you up for wearing a massive piece of team printed felt with arms while grilling and kicking back beers in their vicinity.

Sports fans, if you fear being cold while watching a game, I would like to introduce you to this nifty invention called a jacket. Last I checked, they worked really well for most of human kind.

As any early reader of this blog might have discerned, I may have been a giant Bills fan as a youngster, but in addition, I was a giant Steve Young fan. After Young won Super Bowl XXIX in 1995, thirteen year-old me asked my father if he thought Young would make the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “Maybe. It really depends what else he does,” said my father.

“Well, if he does, can we go to Canton to see the ceremony?” I asked.

My father, knowing that this was several years down the road at that point, if it happened at all, nodded. “Sure. Why not?”

I’m sure he thought I had forgotten his promise, until I called him on a Monday morning in February of 2005 – ten years later – to tell him I had four tickets to the Enshrinement Ceremony, and that we were going to see Steve Young get inducted.

Being in Canton during Enshrinement Weekend was one of my favorite experiences as a sports fan. It is a true celebration of the sport of football, one that even the most marginal of football fans will appreciate. To read about our trip to Canton in 2005 – the first family vacation my immediate family had ever taken – read the following blog post: “Earning the Fabiola.”

I plan on returning to Canton at some point – hopefully for a 2010 induction of Jerry Rice and Steve Tasker? Rice is next year’s shoo-in, and as evidenced by both Wilson’s and Smith’s speeches this evening, Tasker greatly deserves the honor, but he’s been overlooked by voters for a few years now. Maybe his continued broadcasting career will help him in securing spots in the voters’ minds. All I know is that if I was choked up watching Smith’s induction speech on NFL Network tonight, I would just bawl through Tasker’s.

“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?”

**********

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.

***********

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.

A sad Dolph-fan after Sunday's game. (Photo from Yahoo Sports)

After a few minutes of him telling me about a play in the third quarter that had gone awry, one that could have definitely changed the tempo of the game, he paused, looking for an encouraging word.  I didn’t know what to tell him.  I’ve been there before – as a Steve Young fan in the late 1990s, there were many early playoff exits that I just wasn’t okay with, and nothing anyone tried to console me with in the days following would make me better.  I usually didn’t recover until I would go on my self-imposed Steve Young hiatus for Lent in mid-February.  (This did include me thumb-tacking a sheet over my bedroom wall shrine to Young.  To adolescent me, this was more of a sacrifice than giving up anything else – giving up my lust of a Mormon quarterback to fulfill my Catholic religious obligations.)

So what was I going to tell the Dolph-fan? “Give up Chad Pennington for Lent?” The Dolphins shouldn’t be hanging their heads. They went from finishing the 2007 season 1-15 to winning the AFC East the next. Sure, having Bill Parcells on your side never hurts – I’m convinced that he could lead a Pop Warner team to beat an NFL team in the Super Bowl just merely by being involved.  But Dolph-fans shouldn’t stay crushed and depressed. So much progress was made, and if they hadn’t suffered some very key injuries at wide-out the last half of the season, I am sure we would have seen a different result this past Sunday.

Thus, there was only one point of solace I could share that would somewhat console the Dolph-fan.

“Look, it could be worse. It’ll be okay. At least you’re not a Bills fan.”

And with that, I think the Dolph-fan finally put things in perspective.

See, it’s after receiving emails like this from your local Bills Backers group that you feel like you’ve reached the lowest depths. There is no place worse than this state of mind in fandom. Even Detroit fans may have more hope than the overall sentiment put forth in the following message.

From the Bills Backers of Boston season wrap-up email, received January 2:

Hi everyone,

A season that started with so much promise ended in yet another disappointing finish.  And to top it off, Bills fans everywhere were insulted by the team that they love with the word that Mister Mediocrity, Dick Jauron, will be returning to coach the Bills in 2009.  With one simple press release, the 2009 season has been ruined even before the 2008 season has ended.

We all sympathize with Tony Bogyo, a member of our chapter since the good-ol days, when he said, “I have truly never felt so low as a Bills fan. I know what next season holds, and it isn’t pretty – it’s the same as what we’ve seen the past 3 seasons.” (Read his entire article on Bills Daily, here: http://www.billsdaily.com/articles/bogyo/2008/jauron.shtml).  No matter what happens in the offseason, the Bills will still be buried in the AFC East basement, their weak and spiritless coach defining their personality.

The Bills Backers of Boston will certainly be back next season, but will the fans?  Time will tell.

Well, don’t we all feel like jumping for joy after that missive.

Despite my initial reaction that this message was a tad on the melodramatic side, after more thought, I understood their point. How can you be a fan of a team that seems to be most interested in exploring depths of depression and incompetence unseen by any other professional sports teams in the history of professional sports teams? I think fans of the Washington Generals carry more hope in their hearts than those that the Bills’ collective fanbase now possesses. We have a quarterback of the future who shows a troubling propensity to injuries. We have a star wide receiver who admittedly only likes playing for the washed up backup quarterback.  Our offensive and defensive line corps are dropping like files. Our owner is elderly, a miser, and might think the year is 1969, not 2009.  His family has already stated that they want nothing to do with the team after he passes on.  We tried to showcase the team to Toronto, who rightfully turned their nose at the inferior product.

At least Lions fans get to scrap it all and start over. While I’m not ready to lay all of the blame on Dick Jauron, I would have been okay with the Bills firing the man my mom affectionately refers to as “Sketlator.” I think getting rid of him, along with Turk Schonert (despite his funny name), would have begun an overall shakeup of the team that may be needed.  As my father kept saying during my sojourn back to Western New York for the holidays, the players only like Jauron because Jauron doesn’t work them hard, doesn’t demand much of them, and was okay with their late season lack of hustle. I think the Bills needed to make an overall statement and send a message that, “The way that this season imploded was not okay.” And the best way this could have been done right away was by firing Jauron.

The Bills could still send this message.  They could make a splash in free agency and move for a big name quarterback, wide receiver or running back.  I love Edwards and Lynch, and don’t mind the wide receivers, but they aren’t the best in the NFL, so the Bills can justify bringing a big name in any of those positions on board. That might announce to the rest of the league that the Bills don’t want to be the next Detroit Lions.  That they’re sick of losing to the likes of the New England Patriots 5000 to 6. But my sneaking suspicion is that such a big deal is just not going to happen.

Let’s be frank about the whole Bills situation. The Bills can’t sign big name players without revenue, and the revenue is no longer there. The Bills are a small-market team without any money who  haven’t won in a long time. They don’t have many, if any, star players.  They can’t win their division. Their owner is a laughing stock because of his age.  The team lacks the keys to make money, and lack the leadership to make needed changes to the franchise. They are not taken seriously.  Thus, merchandise isn’t going to sell, season tickets aren’t going to sell, training camp activities aren’t going to sell, jerseys aren’t going to sell, individual game tickets aren’t going to sell, parking at the Ralph isn’t going to sell – this team will continue to make no money. As a franchise, what do you do when you have this scenario on your hands?

The sports marketing tendency when you have a mess of a team like this on your hands is to gimmick the heck of of the games. Let’s give out Governor Rod Blagojevich bobble-heads. Let’s offer to pay a lucky fan’s mortgage. Everyone bring your disco records and let’s blow them up.  Sometimes, these gimmicks work.  You’re looking at the girl who attended a North Shore Spirit minor league baseball game to get a Doug Flutie bobblehead (it was for my father, I swear.)

But after a while, your intended audience wisens up, no matter what they may have initially fell for. To be blunt, if you are putting out garbage on the field, ice, or court, there’s only so many ways you can pretty it up and spray perfume on it before people notice that it’s garbage. The marketers around the Bills are going to start having to gimmick around the team to make them somewhat viable.

Thus, I fully expect to get all of these coupon deals and buy one-ticket-get-one-ticket free offers from the Buffalo Bills braintrust next season.  I expect Rian Lindell to greet my unsuspecting mother at many a Tops.  And you know what? We’re not going to fall for it.

We’re the Buffalo Bills. We’re led by Dick Jauron. We’re quarterbacked by Trent Edwards. Our owner is Ralph Wilson. And that’s the football equivalent of my mom telling my grandma while bouncing baby me on her knee back in 1982, “We bought a house. But it has no closets, no yard, no driveway, bad plumbing, and only one bedroom.”

So Dolph-fans, put your chin up. You’re a million times better off than us.