Divine Intervention?

A strange thing happened last weekend during the Pittsburgh Steelers/Buffalo Bills game,

The Bills managed to tie the game and send it into sudden-death overtime. Then, when it appeared that the hapless Bills would finally beat their jinx this season and win the game, a wide receiver named Steve Johnson caught and then dropped a perfectly thrown pass in the end zone.

The Steelers then went on offense and drove down the field, kicking a field goal to win the game.

After the game, Mr. Johnson sent a Twitter message, a tweet. Here is what it said: "I Praise you 24/7!!!!!! And this how you do me!!!!! You expect me to learn from this??? How???!!! I'll never forget this!! Ever!!! Thx tho..."

In case you live on a different planet than I do, or you are a modern day Rip Van Winkle, you’ll already know that the tweet was addressed to none other than GOD. I wasn’t even aware that God had a Twitter account, but apparently Steve Johnson believes he has a direct line to Him.

I didn’t get to watch the game on television, but I read that Steve also dropped 4 other passes in that game. This occurred in a season where he has been a fantasy player and probably the most renowned player on the Buffalo Bills squad. That he blames his dropped pass on God is, I guess, understandable if blasphemous.

Now, some would call me misguided, but I was born and raised in Western New York, and the Buffalo Bills have always been my favorite team. Heck, I even attended their first regular season home game against the Denver Broncos in old War Memorial Stadium, a.k.a. the Mud Bowl.

I moved away from Buffalo in 1976, so I’ve only followed the Buffalo Bills from afar since then. But in a lot of ways I have to agree with Steve Johnson that some of the fortunes of the Buffalo Bills have been guided by divine intervention.

Or maybe it’s the other way around; maybe old Lucifer is the culprit. How else can I explain a team that has accomplished the records the Bills have, and yet they’ve never won a Super Bowl?

The game-losing fumble last Sunday is definitely not the first time that misfortune has struck the Bills. There was the missed chip-shot field goal that cost them the win in Super bowl XXV. There was the sack and fumble by Jim Kelly in Super Bowl XXVII that led to the 52-17 Dallas rout. Then there was that 75-yard kickoff return in the playoff game with the Tennessee Titans that took away the Bills’ chance to go to Super bowl XXXIV.

Oh, I could probably list dozens of strange plays that have plagued the Bills over their entire 50-year history. However, it took a guy named Steve Johnson to actually blame God for the whole mess. I don’t think I’ll go that far, but I sure wish the team would someday prove themselves like they did in 1964-65 in the old AFL.