It’s understandable members of the Buffalo Bills are mentally sapped following a unique season they may not wish to relive for several reasons.
“I mean, it was emotionally draining for obvious reasons, you guys all saw that,” Buffalo guard Rodger Saffold remarked about the 2022 season that ended for the Bills with a 27-10 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, per Alaina Getzenberg of ESPN. “I just kind of feel like we were tired. You know, guys were exhausted during the week and our coaches did the best they could to try to modify the week to get us back to snuff. But it was just uncharacteristic things that were kind of happening. So I have to kind of put that into a factor, not as an excuse. Just, you know, this team has been fighting for so long and fighting through all this adversity, you run out of gas at some point.”
Back in May, a mass shooting in a predominantly Black neighborhood located in the Buffalo area killed 10 people. As Getzenberg mentioned in a different piece, Bills players and the franchise helped raise funds to support the community and victims of the tragedy ahead of training camp.
In November, a game between the Bills and Cleveland Browns had to be relocated from Buffalo to Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions, due to a paralyzing winter storm. Then in December, a blizzard led to the deaths of at least 47 people in Erie and Niagara counties, according to Stephen T. Watson of The Buffalo News,
On Jan. 2, Bills safety Damar Hamlin nearly lost his life when he went into cardiac arrest during a “Monday Night Football” game at the Bengals.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of a team that has had to deal with so much on and off the football field, whether it’s injuries or natural disasters, weather — I’ve never been a part of a team that had to deal with so much, and we handled that,” said veteran pass-rusher Von Miller, who joined the Bills last offseason but went down with a campaign-ending knee injury well before the start of the playoffs.
None of this is meant to take away from a Bengals team that also witnessed Hamlin’s medical emergency up close. With that said, some within the Bills’ locker room sound ready to embrace a rest now that they don’t have to worry about football until the next round of organized workouts.
