(Note: This is probably one of the stranger “What ifs?” I’ve covered, but I thought it was worth exploring.)
The set-up: Anyone between the ages of 30-50 can recite to you a 90’s Bills story. No, I’m not talking about the Greatest Comeback Game, the Dolphins/Bills blizzard playoff game, the “No Punt game,” and 51-3. I’m talking about bar stories. I’m not going to sit here and tell you about some of the rumors I’ve heard, but all I know is that I’ve read like five Bills books and each one references the wild parties that occurred at Jim Kelly’s house. The Bills worked hard and they played even harder off the field. Now, during that era, you heard the stories/rumors, but nothing was really put out there in public. It was a far cry from what it is like today.
In today’s sports world, if Tiger Woods is having an affair it’s front page news. If Braylon fricken Edwards gets a DWI, ESPN sends Roger Cossack to NYC to cover the court steps. Big Ben? Well, you are going to have Bob Ley host a 60-minute edition of Outside the Lines. This day and age, it goes beyond the field and into the personal lives of players. In the early 90s it wasn’t like that at all. No one really cared. To me, mainstream media didn’t start caring until the OJ Simpson trial. By then, the Bills weren’t a Super Bowl team anymore and became more of an afterthought with the national media.
What went down: Just so we are clear, when I’m talking about social media I’m talking about Deadspin, twitter, message boards and cell phone cameras. Obviously, none of that existed during the Bills heydays. Here’s a story that I came up with that puts the difference in media coverage to the test:
I remember during the week leading to Super Bowl XXVII, there was a rumor that Darryl Talley and Magic Johnson’s bodyguard had gotten into an altercation. No one really said much about. Marv Levy was asked about it the next day — but he yelled at the media and said it wasn’t true. It was kind of swept under the rug and no one cared. Recently, I read Jeff Pearlman’s book on the Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl teams. He revisited the Talley vs bodyguard story. Um, yeah, it wasn’t exactly Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard. Here’s the excerpt:
In storming their way through LA, the Cowboys somehow managed to avoid the gossip columns. This was due in large part to Bills linebacker Darryl Talley, who on that first Sunday night accompanied his teammates to a club on Sunset Strip and found himself face-to-face with Magic Johnson’s body guard. According to witnesses, Talley and Jim Kelly drank excessively and teased Johnson- Who was HIV positive- about his party ways. The ribbing went too far. Johnson’s body guard warned Bruce Smith to tell his teammate to “Cool it down.” When Talley didnt, the bodyguard punched him in the face, flipped him to the floor and said “Lets stop it here.” Talley was bloodied, humiliated and laid on the dance room floor.
Um, you think that story would have made Deadspin? You think ESPN would have interviewed the bartenders at the bar? You think TMZ would have been there? I sure as hell would think so. Hell, I’d go as far to say that it would have been 3rd on Talley’s all-time resume: 1) Leader. 2) Pro bowler. 3) Magic Johnson’s bodyguard kicked his ass. It would have been a huge distraction during Super Bowl week. Again, rumors are rumors, but the party habits for Bills players were legendary. It put the new ESPN book to shame.
What if the social media existed during the 90s? I’ve always said I don’t care what an NFL player does in his spare time. As long as they show up on Sundays, all is fine in my world. However, I think in Buffalo and other cities, that’s not always the case. Guys like Marshawn Lynch, Travis Henry and Willis McGahee got a lot of crap for what they said and what they did off the field. As a society, sports fans have grown to become bigger cynics and are looking for reasons to dislike a player. If the fans aren’t portraying this, I think the media would definitely pick up the slack. Maybe the combination of social media and the press core have become the perfect media storm for this coverage. I think if that storm existed during the 90s, the Bills party habits would have easily made the front page of the sports section for TBN.
I remember growing up, there was always a select group of fans, especially women, who would want Frank Reich to play over Jim Kelly. I think a lot of it had to do with the rumors about Kelly’s party habits. Outside of the walls of Rich Stadium, a lot of fans thought Kelly was a di#$. However, these were only rumors. Only the fans who went to bars and saw the players in action would know the deal. Maybe if the media spun these stories then, like they do now, fans wouldn’t have been so in love with these players. Hell, people give Derek Roy crap because he parties it up on Chippewa Street. I assure you, Derek Roy is a choir boy in comparison to those guys.
Yes, winning cures a lot of things, but if the media coverage for the Bills resembled that of the off the field exploits of the Bengals or Big Ben and Tiger Woods being male whores, you can’t tell me that fans wouldn’t think differently about their team. Now, if the Bills nightlife habits were covered, maybe, the Bills don’t party as much or maybe, some of them get suspended or get into trouble.
What if the watchdog approach worked in the Bills favor? I’ve been in a number of Buffalo News chats where Jerry Sullivan has said that he thought the Bills party habits during the week leading to Super Bowl XXV affected their performance. Sully thought the players went at it too hard during that week. What if the Social Media was around then? Maybe the team doesn’t party as much because they would have been scared about being caught or having bodyguards throw down on them. Maybe they would have stayed more focused on the Giants. No one back then was going to blow the whistle on the team.
On a sidenote: Can you imagine if some of the players were on Twitter? We’d be getting tweets about how Destiny was about to appear on stage at the Sundowner.
Bottom line: You always hear about how athletes are living in a whole new world now because of social media and the way the mainstream media portrays athletes. I think the Super Bowl teams lucked out in missing this era. Maybe nothing would have changed if the social media was around. I know that some fans only care about winning and not what players do off the field (Me included).
However, the scrutiny that those teams would have received because of their party habits might have been unbearable.
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