So during this off-season in the NFL, when the Buffalo Bills decided not to draft a QB in the first round not to overload their team with big salaried free agents or to go after one of the big 5 or 6 free agent coaches that are still available, come on be honest – you thought the same thing the rest of us did…a last place team with another high draft pick in 2012, a long cold football season for you great fans in Buffalo begging the football gods for Jim Kelly, Andre Reed, Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith and Marv Leavy to please come out of retirement and bless Buffalo with some Hall of Fame players.  I’M CORRECT, RIGHT?

Oh, yes I’m correct that’s what we all wanted but we were all wrong. Because Buffalo is winning with names like Stevie Johnson, Donald Jones, Fred Jackson, CJ Spiller and a QB from Harvard by the name of Ryan Fitzpatrick.  And they’re beating playoff teams from the year before like Kansas City and New England and coming from ungodly amounts of points to beat teams like the Patriots and Raiders. And they’re scoring points like 34, 38 and 41 actually kind of sounds like they are the Saints, Patriots or Colts – NOT the BUFFALO BILLS!

Oh I know, I know I didn’t mention any defensive players but that’s ok, I’m an offensive guy – we’ll catch up to the defense another blog this year…I’m focusing on offense! Did you hear me…I said Ryan Fitzpatrick not Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers I didn’t say USC, Ohio State, Stanford or Florida I said Harvard a QB from Harvard. And maybe that’s the very reason we are mentioning him in the same breath as those great schools.  Yes, this Ryan Fitzpatrick has 9 touchdowns in 3 games and other than Tom Brady no QB in the AFC is playing better.

So as we’ve gone through all these names, only a few which you’ve ever heard of, it validates my point that believing in yourself as a team is far bigger and better than the very talent you line up with. Oh don’t misunderstand me – great players win games and Buffalo has some very talented players you don’t score this many points against some good football player unless you have some play-makers. This is a team that’s resilience is second to none in the NFL. And while very few us of believed they were anything other than a last place team in their division its obvious by their performance and their ability to come from behind and keep winning that they truly did and do believe that they are a playoff team not a cellar dweller. And to have a team feeling like that starts with leadership, a coach who believes in his system and players and a QB who knows where to throw it, how to read it and who takes ordinary and makes those extraordinary by his performance and his belief.  

While Harvard doesn’t produce NFL QBs that trend may change with the incredible emergence of the tough minded accurate throwing Fitzpatrick that people keep trying to replace but can’t get out of the lineup. And as a player on the Buffalo Bills when you look around and see how you’ve won these first three games you can’t help but heighten your believability that you take a backseat to no one in this league.  What we all have to realize is these are professional football players they are getting paid like all the other teams in the league. The difference between this team and many other teams is that this team has thicker skin, plays smarter football and believes more about themselves than the rest of the prognosticators did.

Will this undefeated trend continue? No. But on the last Sunday in September the Buffalo Bills are in first place. In my mind you get to 10 wins and you are in the playoffs. And with this fast September start Bills fans stand up and cheer – 7 more wins are not only reachable but also reasonable. As one NFL Hall of Fame QB once told me, “If you can’t dazzle ‘em with brilliance, baffle ‘em with bullshit.” And there is no bullshit with the Buffalo Bills.



Sean Salisbury, former NFL quarterback and NFL analyst for ESPN, covers sports for www.playerpress.com. Follow him on Twitter @SeanUnfiltered and Facebook.com/seansalisburyunfiltered.