Archives for December 2008

‘”(The win) is great. I think the fact I got to come back to Toronto is just a bonus. The team is playing well. I’ve had a good time. I’m glad I came back.”‘

‘J.P. Losman’s passes were so high, he must have thought Yao Ming was one of his wideouts. Did Marshawn Lynch even make it through customs?’

‘”Look at these cops here,” Kapovich said, motioning to a sea of uniformed officers monitoring the busy crowd in the hours before kickoff. “They look like they want to bust my head in if I cracked open one of these beers.”‘

‘”This is a very good NFL market, but not a Bills market yet,” Brandon said. “But it’s something we’re focused on developing over the next five years.”‘

‘The Bills established that they can lose as well (or badly) up here as they can, and do, down there. Both constituencies might be saying today, “You can have ’em.”‘

‘Tickets were available at both the box office and online. (You could buy up to 10 together Saturday, according to a couple of online investigators.)’

‘”It’s not bad for a first try, but as far as real tailgates go, you have a long way to go,” Buffalo resident Tyler Runnings, 21, said.’

‘CBS cameras then zoomed in on the Toronto Argonauts’ Grey Cup banners. Mercifully, no mention was made of the past season, though someone might have noted that the presence of the Bills meant that the Argos weren’t the only bad football team to host a game at the Rogers Centre in 2008.’

‘”It’s frustrating because we know we have the talent, the want-to and the work ethic and for some reason we have to find a way to win,” said Losman, who completed 13 of 27 throws for 123 yards, but was sacked four times. “Guys are at a loss for words.”‘

‘Note to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell: Can we please pick another team? Seriously. As it is, we’re chock full of teams that don’t make the playoffs.’

‘Even after nearly three hours of football, it was still a bit hard to say. As predicted, there weren’t a whole lot of hard-core Buffalo fans in attendance, the Western New York set having been scared away from one of their team’s great rivalry games by the ticket prices. That became obvious when, after the Bills’ only score of the game, a first-quarter field goal, they played the team’s traditional celebration song – Shout – and it seemed as if only a couple of hundred people understood how to respond.’

‘”Here, it’s a little more controlled – and that may not be a bad thing,” he said. “There can be a lot of hassles in Buffalo in the parking lot, especially after games, a lot of fighting and that sort of thing. The garbage cans all get set on fire.”‘

‘But most of the Canadian content was applied to the game. Analyst Rich Gannon felt the Rogers Centre presented an advantage to the warm-weather Dolphins, who normally would have been shivering outside at Ralph Wilson Stadium, the Bills’ home.’

‘For all that money, Toronto got to witness the big-league sight of Buffalo centre Duke Preston snapping a ball to his own buttocks, which would have been fine had quarterback J. P. Losman not been in the shotgun, five yards behind him, rather than under centre. For all that cash, Toronto got to see a second-quarter play in which Losman had the ball knocked out of his hand, recovered it, rolled out and threw a ball to Marshawn Lynch that Lynch bobbled, dropped and kicked out of bounds. You just don’t forget sporting moments like that.’

‘The Bills were not just stagnant on offence; they were frozen, even though the dome was closed and the elements were kept safely outside. The Dolphins scored a touchdown, but in the end all they needed were the three field goals from kicker Dan Carpenter.’