Did anyone become a Bills fan later on in life or convert from another team?

[Another Fan]

Reading through posts on the couple years I’ve been a member here it seems most were Bills fans since childhood.  They were born into it.

 

Im curious if anybody became a Bills fan later on in life or any converts from other teams.  I mean my opinion on people for one thing has changed over the years.   Same with TV, music, movies, cars, etc....

 

Reasons per say can just be as simple as say I never liked football as a kid.  Or I went to a Bills game and really loved the atmosphere.  
 

Wouldn’t make someone any lesser a fan imo.  

 

 

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

I was born and raised in the NYC area and was a Jet and Giant fan.  Moved to western NY in the mid 70's, still was a fan of Jets in fact rooted for the Jets to beat the Bills in the 1980 playoff game which Buffalo won.  Then both teams went down the drain, hard to follow losing teams particular when not local. Got caught up in all the hype starting around 1986, ever since have been a Bills fan root for them to beat the Jet's whenever they play. 

 

Last 12 years moved to NC, but still follow and root for the Bills.  Think it's much easier to be a fan of a long distance team now with the internet.  Back when I moved from NY as I said without internet and they start losing, hard to follow and/or keep up with.

[Rc2catch]

In my younger years I was an Atlanta Falcons fan. Loved Jeff George and Andre Rison and Jamal Anderson and the “dirty bird” 

I later converted to a Tennessee Titans fan with McNair and Jevon Kearse. I always followed the Bills but I’m one of the few who didn’t actually like the Super Bowl teams. 
I was never a big fan of Thurman or Kelly although I did like some of the other players. 
After the Super Bowl runs ended and the team blew up I became a much more dedicated fan. 

[Chris from Rochester]

I was born into a Bills house but after playing Tecmo Super Bowl as a kid started to love the Eagles because of QB Eagles (Randall Cunningham). While still rooting for the Bills I was a full blown Eagles fan, then as i got into Jr High/HS went back to the Bills. So while I guess I wouldn't say I'm a converted fan, I did stray off the path for a few years

[wppete]

Born and Raised a Buffalo Bills fan from Toronto! My whole family are hardcore Bills fans.

[TigerJ]

I was a Cleveland Browns fan in high school.  Anybody remember Leroy Kelly?  He was the successor to Jim Brown as the Browns running back.  I became a Bills fan when they drafted OJ Simpson.  That was a while ago.

[row_33]

started watching when Juice began to tear up the NFL, no other choice

 

[Stanley Lombardi]

I lived in the area for over 7 years before I  even watched a Bills game.

 

Then one Sunday afternoon in 1960, my Dad turned on our 12-inch black & white TV...

 

 

[BarleyNY]

1 hour ago, TigerJ said:

I was a Cleveland Browns fan in high school.  Anybody remember Leroy Kelly?  He was the successor to Jim Brown as the Browns running back.  I became a Bills fan when they drafted OJ Simpson.  That was a while ago.

Born and raised in Cleveland a Browns fan.  Adopted Bills shortly after I moved here about 8 years ago.  I root for both now. 
 

Funny story.  There used to be a college bar in Berea called The Rampant Lion.  I was in a beer chugging contest with another Browns RB, Leroy Hoard.  We cleared the field on the first chug. Tied again the second.  They gave him the nod on beer three (which neither of us wanted).  Friends told me he was faster, but spilled a little.  One of my friends also informed me of who he was.  (You don’t know who that is, do you?  Nope.  It’s Leroy Hoard.  Ah, that makes sense.)  Hoard was really nice and came over and told me I could have the prize for 1st place.  I was so drunk I forgot to pick it up and went back the next weekend and won the contest then.  You could only win once a month so no big deal.  During that summer I was good for that one win every month.  That dude’s arms might be the biggest I’ve ever seen.  He was huge and all muscle. 

Edited February 27, 2020 by BarleyNY

[BuffaloBills1998]

Started with Tampa Bay, But I was born and raised my first 5 years in Buffalo before moving to LA. I had the privilege of watching the Levy/Kelly Teams and became a huge fan. Became more of a fan when Flutie came to town and so on, stopped being a Tampa fan cause they were so horrible but I loved their original orange creamsicle uniforms with the pirate on the helmet

Edited February 27, 2020 by BuffaloBills1998

[Smitty75]

New fan here, i’m from France so It’s complicated to find a attachement with a specific team.

I started following the NFL in 2011, i watched a ton of different teams but i never found the one who made me want to stick with them.

I’m a Raptors fan in the NBA, the fact that the Bills is the most popular team in Toronto, the Bills Mafia, and the snow bowl are the 3 reasons who made me decided to be a fan. ?

[hondo in seattle]

2 hours ago, TigerJ said:

I was a Cleveland Browns fan in high school.  Anybody remember Leroy Kelly?  He was the successor to Jim Brown as the Browns running back.  I became a Bills fan when they drafted OJ Simpson.  That was a while ago.

 

Similar history...

 

Although I grew up in Cheektowaga, my family were not BIlls fans when I was a kid.  The first NFL game I ever watched on TV was the Cleveland Browns versus the Dallas Cowboys - back when the Browns were in the old Century Division.  The Browns, led by Bill Nelson (QB), Leroy Kelly (RB) and Paul Warfield (WR), were losing badly so of course, being 10, I started rooting for them.  When they came back to win, I was hooked.   I was a bigger Browns fan than Bills fan in my childhood though OJ became my favorite player.  

 

It was only when I went out of state for college that the Bills surpassed the Browns in my heart because they were the hometown team and a way of connecting with my friends and family back in Buffalo.  When the Browns moved to Baltimore, my Brownie fandom ended forever.  

 

Edited February 27, 2020 by hondo in seattle

[hondo in seattle]

5 minutes ago, Smitty75 said:

New fan here, i’m from France so It’s complicated to find a attachement with a specific team.

I started following the NFL in 2011, i watched a ton of different teams but i never found the one who made me want to stick with them.

I’m a Raptors fan in the NBA, the fact that the Bills is the most popular team in Toronto, the Bills Mafia, and the snow bowl are the 3 reasons who made me decided to be a fan. ?

 

My mom was from the Paris area - the suburb of Drancy to be precise.  She met my dad at the conclusion of WWII and moved to Buffalo.  And while she adopted a lot of local customs, I could never convince her to become a Bills fan.  She thought American football was barbaric and only grudgingly let me play.  

The Bills Mafia is a great reason to be a fan!

[H2o]

My first football memory is that of watching the Raiders beat the Redskins in SB XVIII with my grandfather. I was 7. I liked the Raiders after that point. In 1989 they started showing the Bills on TV more around my area. I loved the uniforms and many of the players on the team quickly after watching them a few times. I learned a bit more about the team. I found out Bruce Smith was from VA and played at VT. That was it for me then. I switched teams at 12 and have been a Bills fan ever since. 

[947]

I became a Bills fan during the 1988 playoffs, when I was a young teen. I've lived in the Chicago area my whole life & grew up with the Bears, while that was fun in 85' a few years after, the Bills grew on me & became my team. I've been a Buffalo die-hard since then.  I used to have to order my Bills gear from catalogs back in the day.

 

Ironically, my wife is from Buffalo. I wish I could say that's why I married her, but it's really just a bonus.

Edited February 27, 2020 by 947

[TPS]

Grew up in SoCal a Rams fan. Moved to Buffalo in 1990 (for a job), the start of their Super Bowl run. Easy to become a fan, then Rams moved to St. Louis, so I never looked back. Love the city, the team, and the people. 

[row_33]

1 hour ago, Blue on Blue said:

I lived in the area for over 7 years before I  even watched a Bills game.

 

Then one Sunday afternoon in 1960, my Dad turned on our 12-inch black & white TV...

 

 

 

weren't the Browns on every week?

 

[Don Otreply]

When I was a kid, my Dad was a Cleveland fan James Brown and all, so I was a fan by default, rooted for them when Leroy Kelly was their star RB, with the Bills as the #2 team at our house. Then football faded a bit, then Returned to the Bills, the rest is history...

[Seoulofstone]

The Bills were one of my least favorite teams growing up. As a teenager I followed the teams whose logos i liked which were the Vikings and Seahawks. After I came to America i followed my local team, the Panthers. I still do, though some of the cronyism drives me nuts. I followed McDermott when he left, and learned about the drought and I'm a sucker for an underdog story. When i saw the celebration that New Year it became impossible for me not to want them to do well. Now i follow the goings on in WNY with far more interest than Carolina.

 

I guess as a non-American, i don't carry guilt for my lack of loyalty to one franchise, but I'm not just a glory hunter.

[hondo in seattle]

Weird how many Bills fans are/were Browns fans.

[GunnerBill]

I was 18. But I had never watched an NFL game before I became a Bills fan. 

[row_33]

8 minutes ago, hondo in seattle said:

Weird how many Bills fans are/were Browns fans.

 

Browns were on TV every week before the Bills arrived and were the best team in the NFL, would have been hard to cheer against Jim Brown during that era

 

born in the mid 60s, lots of friends in Southern Ontario were bandwagon Miami fans and have kept with the team through the years

 

 

Edited February 27, 2020 by row_33

[Ned Flanders]

Started as a Raider fan in 1968...they were always on TV, more so than the Bills because of home blackouts, and I was a huge Mad Bomber fan.  Chiefs beat Raiders to go to Super Bowl IV, I rooted hard for the Vikings to beat Chiefs only to see them go down to defeat...feel in love with the Purple Gang after that.

 

And then, on September 30, 1973, went to the first regular season game at Rich...the rest, as they say, is history.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Ned Flanders

[buffalo2218]

Around 1989 was when I started following the Bills, more like became a hardcore fan. I had a friend that was all over Dan Marino’s jock that just got all over my nerves.

 

Enter the Marinobane called the Buffalo Bills. All the fits this team gave him sold me, and from that point on, I couldn’t count how many times my friend ended up cussing this team up and down. Have stayed a fan since then through thick and thin. 

Edited February 27, 2020 by buffalo2218

[Alfredo]

1 hour ago, hondo in seattle said:

Weird how many Bills fans are/were Browns fans.

 

You have to understand that during the 1950's in the Buffalo area we had the Browns on one TV station every Sunday and the Giants on another TV station. So we all became either Browns fans or Giants fans. The arguments were great, by the way. In those days the Giants had a way of bottling up Jim Brown, and we Brown fans suffered through a few bad beatings by Sam Huff, Y. A. Tittle, Frank Gifford and company.

 

Then the Bills and the AFL came along ... but we still rooted for the Browns or the Giants in the NFL.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Alfredo

[C.Biscuit97]

Bunch of bandwagon fans here, huh? 
 

?

[Golden*Wheels]

My wife was completely football neutral until we met.

 

*hitches up pants and snaps suspenders*

 

I fixed that right quick.

 

[BuffaloNavy]

I married into the Bills family 32 years ago. My buddy in the Navy was married to her sister and invited me on a trip where I met her. Six months later we were married. Her Family is Buffalo to the core with a10 siblings. Her dad was an original ticket holder. I never had a team growing up as my Dad just liked to watch the best game on.  I think I am more a Bills fan now than her. Stationed at Gitmo and watching the playoff game against the Houston Oilers, she left to take the kids to the pool after half time while I stuck around. She returned and said "Well, did they win?" I was pretty smug when I said they had.

 

First time contributor, long time reader. This topic brought me out of hiding.

[Another Fan]

28 minutes ago, BuffaloNavy said:

I married into the Bills family 32 years ago. My buddy in the Navy was married to her sister and invited me on a trip where I met her. Six months later we were married. Her Family is Buffalo to the core with a10 siblings. Her dad was an original ticket holder. I never had a team growing up as my Dad just liked to watch the best game on.  I think I am more a Bills fan now than her. Stationed at Gitmo and watching the playoff game against the Houston Oilers, she left to take the kids to the pool after half time while I stuck around. She returned and said "Well, did they win?" I was pretty smug when I said they had.

 

First time contributor, long time reader. This topic brought me out of hiding.

This post alone made this one of my favorite threads I started on this site 

[djp14150]

7 hours ago, Another Fan said:

Reading through posts on the couple years I’ve been a member here it seems most were Bills fans since childhood.  They were born into it.

 

Im curious if anybody became a Bills fan later on in life or any converts from other teams.  I mean my opinion on people for one thing has changed over the years.   Same with TV, music, movies, cars, etc....

 

Reasons per say can just be as simple as say I never liked football as a kid.  Or I went to a Bills game and really loved the atmosphere.  
 

Wouldn’t make someone any lesser a fan imo.  

 

 

 

People who who grew up in buffalo , moved out to another city and got married and had kids there you likely end up fans of both teams while the spouse and kids are fans of the new city team.

 

my brother and his family have lived in Nashville for 25 years.

 

his wife is also from buffalo

 

with football my brother always was a bills fan. Titans second. Same with wife and kids

 

on hockey...his wife was a much bigger sabres fan. My brother didn’t follow hockey closely. How he’s a press fan firstover the sabres. She is plait.  The kids are far preps fans but they know both sides of family are strong sabres fans.

 

 

 

7 hours ago, Another Fan said:

Reading through posts on the couple years I’ve been a member here it seems most were Bills fans since childhood.  They were born into it.

 

Im curious if anybody became a Bills fan later on in life or any converts from other teams.  I mean my opinion on people for one thing has changed over the years.   Same with TV, music, movies, cars, etc....

 

Reasons per say can just be as simple as say I never liked football as a kid.  Or I went to a Bills game and really loved the atmosphere.  
 

Wouldn’t make someone any lesser a fan imo.  

 

 

 

[Buffalo716]

The first pair of clothes I ever put on was a bills headband

 

I got the disease Early and have never looked back

[boater]

Born and raised as a Bills fan.

 

Back in the day, games were usually blacked out from local TV. I ended up learning football by listening and visualizing Van Millers commentary on the radio. Great times. I still find sports over the radio to be very relaxing.

[row_33]

32 minutes ago, boater said:

Born and raised as a Bills fan.

 

Back in the day, games were usually blacked out from local TV. I ended up learning football by listening and visualizing Van Millers commentary on the radio. Great times. I still find sports over the radio to be very relaxing.

 

the local touch for radio broadcasts on the NFL allows for player and formation changes along with knowing the context of their team

 

the national broadcast for TV is extremely lazy and rarely tells me anything i didn't just see with my own eyeballs

 

[Gugny]

9 hours ago, Another Fan said:

Reading through posts on the couple years I’ve been a member here it seems most were Bills fans since childhood.  They were born into it.

 

Im curious if anybody became a Bills fan later on in life or any converts from other teams.  I mean my opinion on people for one thing has changed over the years.   Same with TV, music, movies, cars, etc....

 

Reasons per say can just be as simple as say I never liked football as a kid.  Or I went to a Bills game and really loved the atmosphere.  
 

Wouldn’t make someone any lesser a fan imo.  

 

 

 

I wasn't a real football fan as a kid.  When I was about 10 (1981), I liked the Steelers.  Back then ,where I live, most kids either liked the Steelers or the Cowboys.

 

When I got to high school, my best friend was a big football fan and his team was the Broncos. I loosely latched onto the Browns, just because they were rivals and I was playfully going against my buddy.

 

When the Bills played the Giants in the Super Bowl, I was in the Navy.  I was at a shipmate's house to watch the game.  I figured that was the best time to finally pick a team, since both teams were NY teams (kind of).  I told my friends that I was flipping a quarter - heads, I root for the Bills; tails, I root for the Giants.  And whichever team I ended up with, I'd stay with for the rest of my life.

 

It landed heads.  And here I am decades later.

[Smitty75]

7 hours ago, hondo in seattle said:

 

My mom was from the Paris area - the suburb of Drancy to be precise.  She met my dad at the conclusion of WWII and moved to Buffalo.  And while she adopted a lot of local customs, I could never convince her to become a Bills fan.  She thought American football was barbaric and only grudgingly let me play.  

The Bills Mafia is a great reason to be a fan!

Awesome story man !

Yes, i know this surburb as a Parisian citizen myself. ?

I don’t know how it is in the others countries in Europe, but in France most of the older generation think the same about this sport ahah.

 

Go Bills ??

[Buffalo716]

6 hours ago, BuffaloNavy said:

I married into the Bills family 32 years ago. My buddy in the Navy was married to her sister and invited me on a trip where I met her. Six months later we were married. Her Family is Buffalo to the core with a10 siblings. Her dad was an original ticket holder. I never had a team growing up as my Dad just liked to watch the best game on.  I think I am more a Bills fan now than her. Stationed at Gitmo and watching the playoff game against the Houston Oilers, she left to take the kids to the pool after half time while I stuck around. She returned and said "Well, did they win?" I was pretty smug when I said they had.

 

First time contributor, long time reader. This topic brought me out of hiding.

Awesome man thanks for the story!

 

You are a Buffalonian today and forever

1 hour ago, Gugny said:

 

I wasn't a real football fan as a kid.  When I was about 10 (1981), I liked the Steelers.  Back then ,where I live, most kids either liked the Steelers or the Cowboys.

 

When I got to high school, my best friend was a big football fan and his team was the Broncos. I loosely latched onto the Browns, just because they were rivals and I was playfully going against my buddy.

 

When the Bills played the Giants in the Super Bowl, I was in the Navy.  I was at a shipmate's house to watch the game.  I figured that was the best time to finally pick a team, since both teams were NY teams (kind of).  I told my friends that I was flipping a quarter - heads, I root for the Bills; tails, I root for the Giants.  And whichever team I ended up with, I'd stay with for the rest of my life.

 

It landed heads.  And here I am decades later.

Coin toss?!? You left the Fate of your eternal soul to a flipping coin toss?!? 

 

Thank God the big man had your back that moment

[folz]

Whenever I say I'm a lifelong Bills fan, my family always has to mockingly remind me that I was actually a Pittsburgh Steelers fan first. <sigh> It's true. I grew up in a big Bills family. I remember watching bits and pieces of O.J.'s last couple of seasons, but I was kind of too young to say I was fully paying attention or cared too much about it. Then O.J. got traded, which I remember being a big deal in the family, and as a little tyke with a short attention span, he was really the only thing that made the Bills interesting to me. The next season, 1978, I really started to pay attention to football seriously and the Steelers were the best team at the time, so I just started rooting for them. And as they marched their way to the Super Bowl that year, I went all in. That very cold winter In Rochester, I went to school every day in a Steelers winter hat, scarf, and gloves, and with a Steelers duffel bag hanging at my side. When they won the Super Bowl, I was ecstatic. Man I loved that team.

 

But as winter turned to spring and then spring to summer, something happened. I'm not sure what, just getting a bit older, the influence of family and friends, just wanting to root for the hometown team, but somehow by the start of the 1979 season I was a Bills fan. And even when the Steelers won another Super Bowl at the end of the '79 season, I didn't really care. I'm sure I must have rooted for them over the Rams, but I just wasn't invested in that team anymore. Just like that. I was now walking to school in Bills gear. And if there were any question still remaining, it was completely answered by Joe Cribbs' 1980 rookie season. He brought so much excitement to the Bills.

 

Yes, true confessions, for one glorious season I was a Steelers fan. But it has been all Bills ever since.

 

 

I did also for a couple of years have a second team I rooted for, which wasn't something I normally did. In all sports leagues, I had always had just one team that I rooted for. But after the 1981 AFC Divisional Round Playoff Game, "The Epic in Miami"  between the Chargers and the Dolphins---still to this day the greatest football game I have ever seen---I couldn't help but root for Dan Fouts' Chargers team. In an instant classic, they had beaten the Bills most hated team in an intense overtime playoff game. So, for 2 or 3 seasons after that, a San Diego Chargers pennant hung on my wall, right below my Bills pennant, and I rooted for them whenever they played. But that eventually waned. And by the time Jim Kelly joined the Bills, my fascination with San Diego had disappeared as well.

 

Edited February 28, 2020 by folz

[MJS]

21 hours ago, Rc2catch said:

In my younger years I was an Atlanta Falcons fan. Loved Jeff George and Andre Rison and Jamal Anderson and the “dirty bird” 

I later converted to a Tennessee Titans fan with McNair and Jevon Kearse. I always followed the Bills but I’m one of the few who didn’t actually like the Super Bowl teams. 
I was never a big fan of Thurman or Kelly although I did like some of the other players. 
After the Super Bowl runs ended and the team blew up I became a much more dedicated fan. 

Interesting. That's pretty surprising.

[Happy]

21 hours ago, Rc2catch said:

In my younger years I was an Atlanta Falcons fan. Loved Jeff George and Andre Rison and Jamal Anderson and the “dirty bird” 

I later converted to a Tennessee Titans fan with McNair and Jevon Kearse. I always followed the Bills but I’m one of the few who didn’t actually like the Super Bowl teams. 
I was never a big fan of Thurman or Kelly although I did like some of the other players. 
After the Super Bowl runs ended and the team blew up I became a much more dedicated fan. 

 

This is interesting.  Most people ran away from the Bills when the team collapsed and started wandering through the desert in the 2000's.  In fact, the younger to mid aged people I have met over the past several years, who have hailed from upstate NY, are typically Patriot fans.

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

Is 13 ‘later’?