The game: Bills at Patriots
The beer: Newburyport Melt Away India Pale Ale
The result: Loss, 16–0; Bengals win, 22–7
The commentary: It’s another outtake from week one, just like two years ago after the shellacking in Kansas City. No Pink Floyd talk this time though. No playlist modification either! That surely fucked us all.

“Oh, Bills.” Drag. My confidence level eclipsed even Rex Ryan’s in the wake of his team’s win over the Cardinals, whose loss knocked six more out of my pool. After a must-win effort his feet weren’t touching the ground and the odds were good he’d forget there was another game to prepare for. And then? And then! “Rex, another thing you say a lot is you refer to yourself as an above-average coach but, you know, you look at Bill Belichick’s winning percentage against everybody else and against you and it’s– it’s higher against you. Can those two things make sense to you, that you’re an above-average coach but, you know, the record doesn’t really say that?” Ptooff! My man Paul Perillo, “the Sultan of Soda” according to Mr. Lif (though I always thought it was “the Salt in the Soda,” which works even better), had poked the fat bear. Ryan responded with “Yeah, well, I don’t know, I guess that’s the way it is… you guys would know better than me” and littered the phrase “above average” throughout the rest of his interview with New England media. Would the bitterness set in?

Fast forward to Sunday. With an afternoon birthday party a half hour away I was prepared (and OK with) recording the game and watching it later on. I’m used to it anyway and actually prefer this when a media blackout is possible—skipping through Peyton Manning commercials, etc. I had the pregame on before leaving the house and witnessed the fracas between Malcolm Mitchell and every punk-ass bitch on the Bills, which equates to ninety percent of the team. Any doubt I had over the outcome was fully eliminated at that point—if Ryan emphasized chippiness over schemes then the blowout was already in effect. I couldn’t wait to watch that night.

Alas, we arrive at the party and the game is on the big screen. Oh well. But… what?? Bills up thirteen over the scoreless Patriots? This must be one of those onscreen typos. After all, the Patriots Football Weekly television show has been labeled Weeekly since last season. But no! The godforsaken Bills came to play. And the Pats’ defense is even worse than I feared. At least the hosts demonstrated good taste in offering a couple of Newburyport Brewing selections. The pale ale was already covered awhile ago alongside a public television tongue-lashing, so the Melt Away became the official beer of the week. Session beer is an adult attendee’s best friend at any underage party.

Jacoby Brissett seemed to do OK, excepting the baaad fumble that, along with special-teamer-running-offensive-routes-for-some-reason Brandon Bolden’s horrible drop, really sealed the game. Tyrod Taylor, LeSean McCoy and Robert Woods were impressive even though they only scored sixteen points—a good team would have scored more on this day. That’s why I think the Bills remain destined to win eight games, make no major changes during the offseason and then win six games next year. But hey, at least they shut out an injured third-string rookie quarterback. Around the NFL’s Dan Hanzus, who knows a thing or two as a suffering Jets fan, put it best this week: “After two amazing wins [against the Cardinals and the Patriots], the Bills are gonna show up flat and get beat by a Rams team that isn’t even that good.” He lacks the poetry of Marc Sessler but his scorned wisdom is evident.

Here’s a funny story. Walking to work the other morning, among the pushers and the urinators under Haymarket garage, I heard “Calvin’s on a Bummer,” a fine collaboration by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Calvin Johnson’s Dub Narcotic Sound System. Up ahead, a typical undesirable—sweatpants, large Dunkins, pronounced limp, general filth—was wearing a number eighty-one Lions jersey for some reason. “Who is eighty-one?” I wondered before answering my own question and confirming it when the man turned around: JOHNSON. Retired NFL superstar Calvin Johnson! The difference between Megatron and the Olympia Croaker is simple: one smothered all comers with jaw-dropping statistics, admirable durability and oppressive skill; the other scored a shitload of touchdowns.

Up next: Tom Brady, Michigan. Cheers!