I think I fall between optimist and Pessimist…and therein lies the only option you missed….the Realist

but heres how i feel about the Bills and why I’m an optimist:

Losing stinks, I hate it. I love this teams and when we make the playoffs after such a long drought I will be overwhelmed with joy. That said, I’ll never not watch game, I’ll never stop cheering for the team, and I’ll never hope for better draft position. Maybe its selfish but when the Bills win my week is just better. I feel good immediately after the game and I have an extra spring in my step. Every day that week is awesome. I’m smiling all the time and thinking about my favorite plays. When the team loses my week stinks. The week goes slow because I’m waiting for next Sunday for a chance to win like watching a pot when your waiting for it to boil – time slows down , work is depressing , and I’m generally a bit down.

I also love our players. I love watching them play. No matter how bad the team is I enjoy keeping an eye on Brad Butler or Keith Ellison or Terrence McGee all game long. They are donning the red white and blue and their our guys and I enjoy watching them – how they read plays, their attitude after big plays or big mistakes, their communication, technique, everything. I love football, its the greatest game on Earth and I love the Bills, the greatest team on Earth. I’m just happy watching the team play – to me no matter how bad we are its the best football.

Go Bills!

However, I feel that I am perhaps some sort of combination of all of these fans. I’ve always thought that Bills fans are in some way masochistic. Why else do we put ourselves through this team’s agonizing defeats every week/season?
This year, since I have realized over the course of the last decade of Bills football that anything can happen, I have taken a much more “week to week” approach. Hoping that things would work themselves out and just enjoying each game, one at a time. For as we all know, it’s not how you start or how you finish the season, it’s the season as a whole that counts. So in that way, I’ve tried to not get too high after a win, or too low after a defeat, and simply try to enjoy the games as they come.
Unfortunately, I am the eternal optimist in too many ways. After a crushing loss I say, look at the schedule ahead. We have some wins coming. There is just nothing better than a win, and hoping for losses is just ridiculous.
At times however, with this team that appears itself to be masochistic at times, it is hard not to be pessimistic sometimes. Honestly, who loses so many games in such a heart-breakingly brutal fashion? I say no one.
And finally, when the season ends, I become the GM in training. Critiqueing (spelling?) the front offices every move that led us astray over the last season. Pondering moves for the future, if I were in charge.
So maybe, I am the Bills themselves. I have no real identity, except that I am a Bills fan. My optimism, like the Bills special teams, is always high, but even that can sometimes be torn down over a stretch of games…..

I’m part GM-type, because I ALWAYS have opinions on free agents and the draft and the like. But once decisions are made, I take a “wait and see” approach. During games, I’d call myself the “exasperated” fan – I don’t yell and stomp at people or in general when they suck, and I’m only cautiously optimistic in-game when things are going well. I tend to get much more excited/depressed during the week than I do on Sundays. I’m optimistic by nature, but not to the point of delusion.

You got a category for all that? :)

Please place a choice for all of the above and I’ll choose that.

Because Im always optimistic going into the year (not counting this year though the first time ever!)

But when my team sucks……I recognize it and accept it……but I will always hold out hope that I will be proven wrong.

I’ve been a loyal fan for 50 years as has my brother. He said about 5 years ago that the Bills will not escape mediocrity until the team has a new owner. I agree. The NFL is the most management intensive of all professional sports. It starts with smart ownership and you all know the rest.
We realists aren’t bandwagon types. We have not put Byrd in the H of F yet. We recognize that the current management can not evaluate talent and the current coaches can’t improve a player. We are in awe of Bill Polian. We admire the Patriots. We know Bill Parcells knows football players and that Phillips can’t win anything. We don’t ignore those nasty little things called facts.

New owner must move the stadium to where the population is, which is in the Niagara Falls area (“Toronto”). Why the current stadium is located south of the City is only because Ralph went with “cheap.” Typical.
The Bills will never get beyond mediocrity until the team has a new owner. This is the ultimate truth to the realist.

I fit under the wanna-be GM category. I’m not the most critical of guys on draft picks and FA moves, but I take those kinds of decisions far too seriously.

The GM in training is highly opinionated and normally views things at the macro level, choosing to view the season as a whole and look 2-3 years down the road. This type of fan is normally more concerned with the ability to go all the way than the winning of any individual game, building a team that could win the superbowl is more important than winning from week to week.

Yeah, that is definitely me. I do think I know best, but I’m not too critical of individual mistakes because they are going to happen and I know how hard it is to make the perfect move.

Wow, there’s only two other eternal pessimists here?

I’m shocked!

I am optimistic that the worst will happen.

A part of me is an eternal optimist, because obviously the ultimate fantasy is the situation where the Bills win the superbowl. But because of what they have done to the fanbase I think there is an element of masochism in continuing to root for them. Lets face it for the last several years there is little return for your emotional investment in the team.

Because of this, I’ve recently taken sort of an absurdist’s view towards the team, because I find the team itself and its antics to be absurd and nonsensical. They win when they should lose, and lose when they should win, unlike any other team that may occasionally do one or the other. The Bills offense is like firing a shotgun in the air and hoping you’ll hit a bird flying overhead. When you hear soft thud on the ground you find yourself wondering how it happened.
It’s to the point where your shocked when the team scores a touchdown offensively. When you compare what we have now to the K-Gun, one of the most prolific offenses to ever set foot onto the field, you can either laugh or cry. I choose to laugh in the same way that I imagine many of the St. Louis Rams fans laugh at their team.

Oh Yeah!

Kool-Aid is delicious, refreshing and good for the brain and pain. I think that things could get worse and that will bring about massive change this off season. That’s not a bad thing. I hope the new coaching staff/GM(please!) hold on to the players that really have serious potential when a team is built.

I never want them to lose though, even if it means a high draft pick.