"ESPN has become the Fox News of Sports, and Skip Bayless is their Bill O'Reilly"
--Charles Roberts
First Patrick Kane's infamous "Cabbie Incident" then T.O.'s innocuous comments, followed by McKelvin's front lawn and now Dante Whitner is missing $400,000 in jewelry... For a city with so much good going on the national media focuses on our stereotypes and isolated incidents to make us look so bad.
Anytime you hear about Buffalo inevitably, topics brought up include: chicken wings (yes CHICKEN WINGS not BUFFALO WINGS), our massive lake effect snow, the four lost Super Bowls or Niagara Falls (which is NOT in Buffalo, it's in NIAGARA FALLS!)...
Buffalo is made out to be a city full of low brow, middle class blue collar hicks who play hockey all year. Now I have to hear about how "dangerous"Buffalo is for an athlete to live in? Why? Because two dumb ass 16 year old kids spray painted McKelvin's lawn (which is NOT in Buffalo, it's in Hamburg) or because Dante Whitner's house was broken into and $400,000 worth of jewelery is stolen?
Who leaves $400,000 dollars of jewelery laying around? BUY A SAFE! I don't leave my $15 earrings laying around anywhere! The other comments have been about Leodis McKelvin pressing charges on the kids who spray painted his lawn. McKelvin didn't. the District Attorney did. So ESPN can stop with those comments as well.
And Regardless if McKelvin pressed charges or not, who cares? They defaced his property and were trespassing. They should be taught an important lesson early in life before they do something even more stupid. Like, I don't know? Stealing $400,000 worth of jewelry from Dante Whitner's home?
Now let's focus on T.O.'s innocuous comments from the end of the Monday Night Season Opener at Gillette. T.O. said in a nut shell
"There were some opportunities that we missed, and those are some of the things you’re talking about," Owens said. "It's always a work in progress, and Trent has to better assess what he’s seeing out there and take some shots down the field.
"We're going to do that, and by no means was that the reason that we lost the game. There were some opportunities and until the last five minutes, we had the game in the bag. That really wasn’t that case.
"Obviously, we didn’t utilize myself and Lee as much as we would like, but we still had the game won."
These were sentiments echoed by Buffalo's Quarterback Trent Edwards, Wide Receiver Lee Evans and Offensive Coordinator Alex Van Pelt.
Yet somehow everybody's agreement (including the national media and the Buffalo fans) on this statement is neglected by ESPN Mullet Enthusiast of the year Skip Bayless. He targeted T.O. and insisted that it was a return to the old days of Terrell Owens causing upheaval in the locker room.
Did I mention our Quarterback, other main Receiver and Coaching staff all agreed with Owens? If ESPN is the Fox News of sports, Skip Bayless is the Bill O'Reilly of the network, then Terrell Owens is the Democratic Party of the National Football League.
Now let's not forget the 75,000 or so screaming fans which stream to the stadium weekly to enjoy watching their local sports team, in good weather or our famous torrential weather, win, loss or draw. The hard working citizens of a small city who spend their "blue collar" money on one of the smallest markets in the league. The same people looking for a couple of hours of entertainment on a Sunday before they have to return to their jobs on Monday.
Seems like any other city to me? But like Always Buffalo is stereotyped as a city of losers. Isn't it about time the citizens of the area start to object? Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling T.O. a saint, but let's save the attacks on Owen's character for if and when it is actually appropriate.
John Lennon asked us all in 1969 to "Give peace a chance." I am asking fourty years later to "Give Buffalo some respect."
Until next time Buffalo... Don't drink anything I wouldn't...
Mac The Bartender
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