An Open Letter to the Buffalo Bills: You say you’re a family, and

Dear Buffalo Bills,

Specifically, this year’s team. The 2024-25 team. The one that “experts” said was supposed to take a step back but is doing the literal opposite of it. The one that had “no weapons” for Josh Allen, according to those same “experts.” I cannot explain to you all how much Bills Mafia loves you. You’re underappreciated, underrated, written off: everything Buffalo and Western New York is and has been… and you’re making every hater eat their words. It’s beautiful. It’s what we all aspire to do as members of this community, and we live vicariously through you to do it for us.

This team exemplifies what we are proud of being here. It’s super talented but always comes with an undeserved asterisk. It plays in an old, rusty stadium that the weather punishes people in, just like the entire Niagara region. Each player is a unique and interesting character, which you’ll find in every burb of Buffalo. Despite a quirky nature, we find a way to come together and keep fighting, even when the “experts” say there’s nothing worth fighting for.

When you beat the Chiefs, there has been a lot of talk about how this team is truly one. It’s a family like no other pro team most of you have been involved in. Just check out Amari Cooper’s comments…

And then there’s Dion Dawkins talking about how close you all are and how you embrace each other’s quirks…

This is everything we are, or want to be, in Western New York. Again, it’s beautiful, and it’s how all things should be. It’s everything this country NEEDS to be, to go even further with the metaphors.

That’s why you have to win it all.

This has to be the year, guys. Not next year. THIS YEAR.

Because the haters have to be silenced permanently. Because no fan base deserves it more. Because no team deserves it more. Becasue we are all so divided, and you are the one thing everyone can agree on. Because you're the good guys, and the bad guys seem to win too often.

If you don’t win it all, then this talk of being a team, a family, being the versions of yourselves you want to be, and being one means literally nothing. If you don’t win, it means all that feel-good positivity and good culture is usless.

Everyone says they want a good culture in their lives and workplaces, but it is constantly taken away in favor of cold, “analytic” spreadsheets that they tell us are more streamlined, profitable, and best for the shareholders. Winning has nothing to do with family, culture, or these things you all are so thrilled to have. It's all about the bottom line: doing what you're told and being anything but who you want to be.

For once, can you prove them all wrong? Can the good guys just win?

Prove to us, your fans, the mafia, that believing together and being one rises above the rest. We need need. America needs it. You all need it, too.

Do it. Win it all. Now is the time.

And if none of this for you, the reader, makes sense or seems dumb that's fine. Win it because that's your job, and this team is yet to do it's job and win it all.

Go Bills.

Hear Pat McMahon on weekdays from 10 am to 3 pm on 92,9 WBUF, Buffao's Real Rock.