Week 5: Buffalo at Arizona

This Buffalo Bills thing is starting to get complicated for your author. It’s obviously an enjoyably uncomplicated moment for the long- and broadly-suffering fans of Buffalo, who can now take Sundays off – from either picking for bits of scrap to sell among the ruins of a collapsed industrial economy or staying at home and drinking with the lights off – to enjoy some very good football. But last year, when we made the Bills an emblem of all that we liked about the NFL, it was mostly because of their absurd, irrational pluck. Almost everyone on the defense was very badly injured last year, and we nearly blew out our carpal tunnels making the same jokes every week about how the team was starting two recliners on the defensive line, a neighborhood bouncer at safety and trying to bring back a 50-year old Darryl Talley to play middle linebacker.

Those weren’t even very good jokes the first time, but as the Bills went on hanging in there against healthier, more-talented teams we came to admire them simply for continuing to fight as hard as they did. Last year was defined by the fuming dominance of the Patriots, and the Bills are surely not devoid of narcissistic goons constantly settling outlandish scores with imaginary haters. But because the Bills were playing in a broken-down city with a broken-down roster while, somehow, refusing to break down they became symbolic for us of something noble. (Just what it was changed from week to week) Losing is painful, in sports as in regular life, but there was a grace to the fearlessness with which the Bills faced defeat every week; much more grace, certainly, than the Pats displayed in stomping joylessly to victory after victory. And now…

Well, and now the Bills are one of two 4-0 teams in the NFL. Their schedule hasn’t been terribly hard yet, and won’t get too much harder, but they’ve managed to ring up convincing wins with a team that’s essentially a healthy, more experienced version of last year’s roster, with a few additions on the offensive line and defensive front. Losing may build character, but going 7-9 apparently turned the Bills into a winner and your author into something of a front-runner.

Whether last week’s brutal 56-35 loss to the Jets helps the Cardinals build character or not remains to be seen, but it was undeniably a bafflingly bad showing from a team we generally think is pretty good. This franchise, of course, has long focused on building character through losing all the freaking time, but the Cardinals roster is fairly deep and fairly talented and the team has been engaged and focused under Coach Ken Whisenhunt.

Last week’s capitulation was total, and totally terrible, but besides the scary loss of WR Anquan Boldin – who is apparently recovering from a vicious helmet-to-helmet hit as one can ever recover from a vicious helmet-to-helmet hit – the totality of its awfulness may make it easier for the team to brush it off. It will depend, of course, on whether or not the team buys what the coaches are almost certainly selling – that they’re a proud bunch of very excellent athletes with many wins in their future – or what history tells them, which is that the Cardinals are always terrible, and the checks clear win or lose. (Note: it will also depend on whether or not their defense can establish itself against a not-so-explosive Bills offense) (Because if it can, then the Cardinals offense can be the balanced, effective unit it was in the first two weeks instead of the heave-crazy come-from-behind spazz-out squad it was in its two back-to-back losses)

To be clear, we believe this “character” stuff and we don’t. That is, we believe that the fighting spirit one has or doesn’t have – in sports, but also in everyday life – is what keeps life vital or doesn’t; makes accomplishments and joys feel good, or just like things crossed off on a list. What we thought we imagined last year from the Bills – that some stubborn dignity was what kept them from cashing their checks and bailing on the season – was apparently not imaginary; they are for real, and there is clearly some emotional alchemical thing that has happened in their locker room. We’ll see where the Cardinals land over the next few weeks, as their schedule gets significantly tougher. They could lose now – we think, this week, that they will – and win later. They could win now and win later. They could go back to being the Cardinals and lose and lose and lose.

That outcome will not, although the announcers say so, depend on how much they “want it.” Dignity is something one has, not something one earns. The Cardinals will display it or they won’t. Losing close this week, as we think they will, won’t necessarily make them losers. It may, as it has for the Bills, eventually help them become a rather admirable type of winner.

BILLS BY 2