every eight years, the bills are guaranteed to play the carolina panthers in charlotte. the last time this happened, we were on the road, the bills were still in their final drought year, josh allen was still in college, and i hadn’t fully completed my indoctrination of the lidkids.
this year though. when the schedule came out, we marked the day in our calendar, dropped waaaaaay too much money on not even very good tickets, and started the countdown.
gameday was beautiful. the weather couldn’t have been better. we piled into the party bus and made our way to charlotte, along with what i assume was every single bills fan within a 200 mile radius.
on the way, i made myself some cool bracelets, thanks to derek’s 3D printed bills logo beads.
we arrived early and parked at a nearby deck and made our way toward the stadium. bills fans were EVERYWHERE. we could not believe it, even after having been warned by my friend with season tickets. i assumed it was just the tailgater thing (bills fans are well known for their pregame antics, panthers fans less so). the closer we got, the more concentrated bills mafia became.
once we were inside, we tried to get a little closer to the field to watch warmups, but unlike in buffalo, they keep a pretty tight lid on that. super bummed to not get a closeup of some of the stars for my super fan kiddos. they were stoked either way.
once we were finally kicked out of the lower levels, we started up the ramps to our nose bleed seats. upon hearing the very first “hey-ey-ey-ey” chant, ike was FIRED UP. there was some sort of military parachute type pregame show. and we were sure to ask some folks behind us to take our official family pic to commemorate the event before the fans filled in the seats and the game started.
so. leading up to the game, the bills had lost two straight and the panthers were riding on a bit of a high, so i was worried it was going to be a dud for us. but. the bills came out like gangbusters and dominated. ike took a few pics of the players with his newer iphone.
the bills ended up winning 40-9. the kids had a fantastic first ever bills game. i cannot complain. well. maybe a little. it would have been nice for the game to be a bit more competitive because it ended up being a snooze fest for half of the third quarter and all of the fourth.
when i tell you that the game was at least 60% or 70% bills fans, i am not exaggerating. the place was way louder for bills plays than. panthers, we were surrounded by bills fans, and looking around it felt like panthers fans were only peppering the blue and red landscape.
we were high fiving strangers around us just like at a home game. it was a great experience.
oh. and. at one point i looked down my row and i was sure i saw my moms neighbor and brother’s good friend greg. sure enough, after texting my bro, it was him, so i went over to say hello. obviously we selfied a pic back to rob. and for the last item of note. at halftime. there was a mascot vs. pop warner kids game. it was amusing. and savannah banana took his job a little too seriously. like. maybe let a ten year old kid score a meaningless touchdown during halftime of an nfl game, right?
anyways. it was the best day.
go bills.