Can Investing in my Team Jade my Reality?

For this week’s newsletter, I’m responding to my readers’ emails. Hopefully I can play armchair psychologist without going off on a tangent, but these were fun questions to answer. If you have questions about your personal experience or the general experience of being a sports fan, please email me at [email protected] .

I recently made a new friend who’s a die-hard Bills fan. I asked him about what it’s like to be a Bills fan over these last few years and he told me that he’d rather his team go 6-11 than keep making the playoffs just to lose to the Chiefs. I wasn’t expecting to hear that. I’m a Broncos fan and we haven’t been in the playoffs since our Super Bowl in 2015. I miss those game days when Denver was electric and I think even if you lose in the playoffs, that’s much more enjoyable than being lousy all the time. Should I take his reaction seriously?

Kyle M. 

Shine Time (ST): This seems like your friend is grappling with the classic “Is it better to love and lose than never love at all?” 

I’m going to analyze your friend’s comment in two parts: 

1. How he emphasizes losing specifically to the Chiefs

2. How he would prefer regular season losing over postseason losing

Number one: It is brutal that the Bills’ playoff losses are predominantly to the Chiefs. In three out of the last four years, it’s not just that the Bills fail to win the Super Bowl, it’s that their otherwise straightforward path has has been thwarted by an obstacle they can’t overcome. 

For 20 years, the Bills had Tom Brady in their division, but that was era when the Bills stunk. Brady departed and the Bills got good, which felt like the timing was finally right. But in a cruel twist of fate, the Bills now have to deal with Patrick Mahomes. 

This can be so distressing for a fanbase to constantly have one roadblock - a type of hurdle we’ve seen in other star-driven sports. 

Mahomes is to Josh Allen as Michael Jordan was to Patrick Ewing. In the 90s, Ewing’s Knicks had the second most Eastern Conference wins behind the Bulls, but went 0-4 against MJ in the postseason. If not for Jordan, Ewing might have a different legacy, winning a title and being immortalized in New York City.

In the last five seasons, the Bills have the second most AFC wins behind the Chiefs. Although Josh Allen is young and one of the most durable quarterbacks, the same can be said for Mahomes.

So when losing to the Chiefs on the way to the Super Bowl, your Bills friend might be channelling that Tom Petty lyric “God it’s so painful that something that’s so close is still so far out of reach”. Either that or Ludacris’ “move b$tch get out the way.”

Number two: The idea your friend prefers having a bad team over a good team that ultimately loses in the postseason. 

At first this feels like a slight to fans of teams that suck, like when billionaires tell us money doesn’t make them happy.

As a Jets fan, me and you (the Broncos fan) have football’s two longest postseason droughts so I understand why the Bills fan’s situation would seem enviable. I would be jealous of a team that has made the postseason five years in a row. 

But try to put yourself in your friend's shoes. Let’s say both our teams finally found a franchise QB, became a perennial #2 seed, but lost every postseason before even making the Super Bowl. Perhaps the novelty of winning the AFC East would habituate, leaving us demanding more.  

Also think about the different ways the Bills have lost postseason games in recent years. Given they blew a lead with 13 seconds left and missed a game-tying 41 yard field goal, these heartbreaking losses add up in the psyche of a sports fan. You mentioned the Broncos winning the Super Bowl in 2015. Remember how three years prior, you lost because of a fluke Hail Mary. Now imagine experiencing that year after year. 

I don’t know how tongue-in-cheek his “6-11 instead of playoffs” quip was, but with the pain evoked in these Bills losses, your friend is alluding to his emotional investment. His wanting the Bills to stink highlights apathy can sometimes be healthier than enduring highs and lows - especially if the lows are more vivid than the highs. 

After all, how many times are we going to see the same image of a stunned Josh Allen sitting on the bench after a postseason loss? 

I’d be curious to know how old your friend is. Did he experience the four straight Super Bowl losses? How was that pain different from the stretch of 17 straight seasons missing the postseason? The older you are, the more baggage you might have, but then again being a forever fan of a team comes with the collective unconsciousness of past generations. 

The Bills having never won the Super Bowl might add to his existential pain. Every Bills playoff loss adds to the mystique of them being ”cursed”. It can wear on your identity and self-worth. 

These bleak January losses are as emblematic to Buffalonians souls as their gray Western New York winters. (I have this theory that only cold weather teams get the label “cursed”, but that’s a topic for another day.) 

Overall, I think your friend is being serious. He’s admitting that while the Bills being good once again was nice, the identity of still being a “loser” lingers true. With the postseason being on a larger national stage, Bills loserdom has perhaps become even more exacerbated and embarrassing.