A Fandom Forged In Pain
I kind of love Bills fans. There is a weird sense of community there that doesn’t exist in larger market fandoms like the Giants, or Cowboys, or (insert other NFC east team that takes up too many primetime slots here). The Bills fandom has a distinct flavor. If you look really closely, it’s not actually that unique. Jags fans jump out to me as a very similar lot, but the Bills fandom still remains hilariously cultish in its own way.
It helps that the Bills have spent the better part of their existence punching the fans in the nuts. It creates the kind of carefree nihilism and enjoyment that comes with years of being a pile of shit. Bills fans love their team. They want that team to succeed. But they’ve been hurt enough times to know there’s a high probability it won’t work out, so let’s take in every moment and just enjoy supporting the team while we ride. This might change if the Bills actually win something, in which case they’ll actually get a big head about things and become far less likable. But until that happens, it’s a fun group.
I’ve met a lot of Bills fans in my day and they’ve all had the same general attitude. Go Bills! Fuck Yeah! Party! Lets scream that stupid BILLS MAKE ME WANNA SHOUT song and get blasted so after we lose I won’t care. I respect any fanbase that knows how to take a loss in stride. The Giants fanbase could learn a thing or two, although after a decade of spectacular failure we’re starting to have some of that “fuck it we suck lets goof” attitude creep in on the fringes.
It’s just an attitude I respect and personally strive for. I think sports are better that way. Taking everything personally and lashing out when your team sucks is a miserable way to live. Keep the mafia alive, Bills. It’s good stuff.
Thus ends Bills week. Do not expect a comic on Monday, I’m taking the holiday weekend off.
For all that can be said about most fan bases being the same (as Dave himself has touched on before: https://www.thedrawplay.com/comic/in-defense-of-eagles-fans/) there is definitely a different, even somewhat fun flavor to teams who have suffered near continuous failure for a long time. I’m a member of a fan base that has famously enjoyed a bit of success lately (go Pats), but watching the insufferable smugness of other fans like me is pretty irritating sometimes. But seeing the almost carefree enthusiasm of Bills fans or the “our team is a joke and we’re totally gonna own it” attitude of Jags fans makes me sympathize with their teams and wish for their success as as much as that of my own team. Division rivalries aside, I hope that the Bills and other teams like them will one day achieve success.
Except the Browns. They can stay bad forever.
Interestingly enough I’ve noticed a lot of Patriots fans on my Twitter feed incessantly complaining about Bills fans “being too smug”, because apparently you can’t talk smack if you don’t have a ring.
Like, do they not remember what New England did to them for 20 years?… I’d talk copious amounts of shit too if I were in their shoes. It’s 2 decades of pain and frustration being unloaded right now.
Not to mention the fact that the Pats absolutely deserved to be flexed on after that playoff smackdown by the Bills. Sucks for Pats fans, but our team got destroyed, the flexing is only fair.
Bills fans are absolutely too smug, and easily the most annoying in the league. Even as a WFT fan I would root for the Cowboys against the Bills (plus, how can you hate Dak 😀 ).
@alex Smith: is that you Nick Wright?
But seriously, you must not have met any Patriot fans in the last decade. And you know Cowboys fans, or claim to.
I’m biased as a Bills fan myself, but I don’t see how we are insufferable. Dave’s comic is pretty accurate: we get heaps of pain, get a glimmer of optimism and have repeated this so much that even now I don’t see any large groups of Bills fans insisting they’re going to win the Superbowl.
I live IN BOSTON, trust me I’ve dealt with annoying Pats fans in my life. They take every opportunity to remind me of how good their team is and how bad mine is. I’d still take them over Bills fans.
I see you post here all the time as a Bills hater you clown
happy 4th
I started writing a whole thing about geographical homogeny in upstate NY, how they share garbage plates and the weather, which helps create a more unified community, whereas a team like the Giants has bankers in the city, surfers on the shore, and rubes like me in the backwoods of Connecticut, creating more of a melting pot scenario where it’s harder to find a singular voice in all the noise.
But then I remembered back in 2017, when Andy Dalton beat the Ravens, which sent the Bills into the playoffs for the first time in 17 years. I had to just look up the numbers… they thanked him by donating almost HALF A MILLION dollars to his foundation, and then gave him a standing ovation when he played in their stadium the following year. One reporter saw a guy in Buffalo quietly pay for a family’s dinner when he realized they were from Cincinnati.
Is there any other fandom who put their money where their mouth is like this? I’d imagine it has, but I never heard about it, not in these numbers. I’m sure Green Bay fans would want to pretend this was something they’d do, but they never need help getting into the playoffs, just staying there. BADUM-TISH!
See, a Bills fan wouldn’t have dunked on GB fans like that. They’re too nice. You guys rock.
Not the only time the Bills Mafia have raised thousands of dollars for charity. It has kinda become their thing. In fact they once raised $40k for a visually impaired charity to protest getting screwed by the refs in a loss to Tampa Bay.
When your response to adversity is to party and raise money for charity, you might be the best fanbase in the NFL. We’ll see how that character holds up to any sort of sustained succcess.
This is the most accurate description of Bills fandom I’ve ever seen, except there’s not enough pain. After four straight, then the end of the Kelly era, then the drought and its Toronto flirtations, I feel like I’ve taken more than four shots to the nads.
We pay it forward though. As Big Blueberries comments, Bills fans make serious donations (and unserious donations in serious quantities) to charity, and generally are welcoming to guest fans and teams (except NE fans, who shouldn’t be welcomed anywhere except Hell).
Go Bills!
You said it better than I could. Have had optimism dashed so many times in my lifetime: 4 Superbowl losses, music city ripoff, falling apart at 4-0, the brief Fitz Renaissance, ever present worries about the team moving, and now 13 seconds.
And every year, we get back up and strap in for the ride.
I wish Vikings fans would take a page out of Bills fans’ playbook. Both teams have an incredibly similar history: Streaks of historic greatness that never quite reached the top of the mountain; years of toiling away in a division ruled by dynasty teams; historic blunders that live in infamy. We’re sibling fandoms.
The only problem is while the Bills seem to not only bond through their trauma, but celebrate it. They’ve turned it into a rallying cry. They’re proud of how much they suck and will jump through a table to show just how chill they are with it. They celebrate the team.
Us Vikings fans? We bitch and moan CONSTANTLY when we under-achieve even the slightest bit. “Oh I’ve seen this before” “Here we go again” “Why do I even get excited anymore”. You hear it all the time. If something goes even remotely bad it’s “We need to fire everybody” “What a joke of a franchise” “We shouldn’t even have a team”. When we do well its “What’s the point, we’re just going to choke in the playoffs”. And many people try to justify this nihilism with “I just want to win a Super Bowl before I die” or “It happens all the time, why should this be any different”. If you can’t take losing, don’t watch football.
I would kill for the assured solidarity of celebrating loving a team even when things don’t go our way. I would love to trade in the fatalistic nihilism for the active jubilance of Bills fandom. Because in the face of mediocrity and pain, they raise money for charity, pound a nice cold beer, and elbow drop despair through a table.
I for one appreciate the reference to the decade of spectacular failure.
Man, I love the Bills, and not just because I’m a Chiefs fan. That playoff game was fucking NUTS. And all the crazy shit I hear and see the Bills Mafia get up to is absolutely fantastic. From flying leaps into beer can laden tables to fucking in a parking lot for a Kiko Alonso jersey (lol), they’re like…trashy but fun.
As a Bills fan, a lot of the fan base is talking loud these days. But..the team is finally good. Folks are gonna enjoy it. But most smug in the NFL? New England and Dallas are right there (to be fair to the Pats, they backed it up until Tom Brady left). The self righteousness coming out of Green Bay and Pittsburgh is also far more annoying. And though they are few in number, annoying Dolphins talking smack still exist…
Right in the football.
As a Bills fan, the thing about Bills fans that no one ever seems to bring up is that we don’t take for granted having an NFL team. There is very little remarkable about the city of Buffalo, no one gives a shit about Buffalo, and the northeastern US is crowded with fanbases, so we’re lucky we even have an NHL team let alone an NFL team, the biggest of the big four. Bills fans pack their stadium like sardines no matter how good or bad the team is, and they travel just as well. We love the team because we love HAVING a team.
Write this down: SuperBowl LVII will be between the Buffalo Bills and the Minnesota Vikings. The score will be tied at halftime and the world will end before regulation time expires. It’s the only way for both franchises.