Bills Mafia's Conquest of LA Is Complete. And It Is Utterly Glorious.

Jeffrey T Barnes. Shutterstock Images.

We saw this coming. A road trip for the ages. A stadium takeover the likes of which you may never see again in this lifetime. (Exceeding even the time New England traveled to Cleveland for Tom Brady's first game back from suspension in 2016.) One that parties in two North American nations prepared for:

And now it is upon us. Suffice to say, Bills Mafia has not disappointed:

Good God. It's like a drunken, pasty, blue and red tsunami came ashore in Southern California. And you can't help but gaze in wide wonder at what these intrepid people have succeeded in accomplishing. A continent away from home. Their supply lines stretched a good 2,500 miles. And yet they've conquered a city several orders of magnitude larger than they are. 

I believe the last time I checked, Buffalo was the 47th biggest media market in the United States. I'm certain that Los Angeles is still second largest. And yet this could be the largest disparity in enthusiasm possible in the entire league. These great unwashed hordes from Western New York, this wretched refuse, these huddled masses yearning to drink free, live for this. At the risk of stereotyping, they live for inebriated, football adjacent hijinks. The people of Los Angeles live for pleasant weather, sunsets and maybe the middle five innings of Dodgers games. For Bills fans, a table is a disposable, flammable, tailgate accessory. To Rams "fans," a table is something you're able to reserve at French Laundry to demonstrate your social status to the Au Pair who's about to break up your third marriage. And we all know which tribal group America loves more. 

There is no other story quite like a small, plucky group of misfits triumphing despite being hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed. Winning through asymmetrical warfare and better esprit de corps.  The 300 Spartans at Thermoplyae. The Bad News Bears against the Yankees. Average Joe's vs. Globo Gym. Pete Davidson's sex life. And now the Bills Mafia conquers a city state a hundred times their size, just by wanting it more. 

I'd say shame on LA for allowing it to happen, but in order to prevent it, they'd have to care. When the Bills went to their first playoff game in almost 20 years, the city of Jacksonville advised local stores not to sell or rent them folding tables. When the Patriots were going to Denver for the AFC championship game in 2015, the Broncos stopped selling tickets out of state. But Los Angeles, a city run by people who love regulating everyone and every thing, never noticed the shipments of beer or the sea of Josh Allen jerseys, much less did anything about it. As a Patriots guy, it's very much in my best interest to have the Rams silence these immigrants and win this game. As a human being, it's going to be impossible not to hope Bills Mafia has something to celebrate. They deserve it.