Bobby Deese left his Orlando home to reach South Florida a few days early, before this weekend’s big game. He wanted to take in the streets he walked almost 50 years ago, when he moved there as a young guy from Buffalo.
It gave him a chance to reflect on what’s changed and what hasn’t, and more than anything, to say out loud what so many of us from the same Western New York generation as Deese will always feel in our guts:
“For me,” he said, “the rivalry IS the Dolphins.”
Tonight, the 10-6 Buffalo Bills take on 11-5 Miami, with the entire season potentially at stake. If the Bills win, they’re division champions and the No. 2 seed in the AFC playoffs, with a chance to play at least two home playoff games.
If they lose? Not only do the Dolphins receive those sweet rewards, but the Bills could be totally gone from the playoffs – unless they get some help from Baltimore or Tennessee.
That’s enough to turn the game into a potentially unforgettable episode in a storied history. The emotion comes in great part from the football obvious: The Dolphins are a top divisional opponent with a lightning attack that can get the ball into the end zone, really fast.
Deese, a retired air traffic controller who makes it to at least five or six Bills games a year, can’t separate this showdown from his life. At 70, he has his own legend within Bills fandom, routinely traveling to such fabled destinations as the Eiffel Tower or Stonehenge or the Leaning Tower of Pisa to post photos of himself holding up a Bills flag.
He also concedes that Buffalo’s most intense conference rivalry these days is undoubtedly with Kansas City, showdowns that offer heavyweight matchups between generational quarterbacks Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes. And he understands why any victory over the Patriots – so dominant for that oh-so-eternal Brady-Belichick era – will feel particularly good to the team’s faithful for a long, long time.
I called…
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