It is impossible to live in Buffalo, New York for more than a week and not become a fan of football. Buffalo is my hometown in America. It was the place I lived for two years after my arrival in this country in 1992. There was a bit of a dark gloom hanging in the air when I first set foot there because the city’s beloved football team, the Bills, had lost Super Bowl XXVI to the Washington Redskins (now Commanders) less than three months earlier. The mood was particularly sour because the team had suffered defeat in a second straight Super Bowl.

The Buffalo Bills of the early 1990s was a juggernaut of a team. The Bills are the only NFL franchise to appear in four straight Super Bowls. Unfortunately for their diehard fans, the team lost all four finals. Naturally, wherever I went in the city in those initial weeks, football dominated pretty much every conversation. The entire county was always decked out in blue and white, the team’s colors. Before and after game days, people wore Bills jerseys over their suits in offices.

I had spent my entire life up to that point playing and watching soccer. I was completely unfamiliar with football, and did not understand its rules. Nevertheless, I watched the games every Sunday because it was the only show in town. I got hooked on it pretty quickly.

My wife has been in America for nearly twenty-five years. She never lived in Buffalo because I had moved to Indiana by the time she joined me from Ghana. She has never had any interest in football and, like me in my early days in America, has no understanding of the sport. Whenever I am watching games on Sunday afternoons or evenings these days, she finds other stuff to engage herself in.

Despite that total lack of interest, there is one thing about football that always seems to attract her attention. The repeated attempts by running backs (RBs) to run through defensive linemen endlessly baffle her. She thinks it is the dumbest idea. To her, it makes no sense for some of those small RBs to try to run through a group of big men, some of whom weigh more than twice as much as they do. She always sees lots of open spaces elsewhere on the field that, in her mind, would be much better paths for the RBs to take.

I cannot count the number of times I have tried to explain to her that the RBs are looking for seams in the defensive lines, and that it is how they get their big plays. I also tell her that there are always other defensive tacklers waiting to take down the RBs in those seemingly open spaces, and that in fact, going through those big bodies is often the best option. She vehemently disagrees each time. Whenever she sees two consecutive unsuccessful running plays, she walks away in frustration. I always find her exasperated reactions absolutely hilarious.

Obviously, the AFC Championship Game on Sunday between the Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs was of great interest to me. I had extremely high hopes because of how good the Bills had been all season. But once again, they ran into the current NFL juggernaut, the Chiefs.

I forgive the Chiefs for denying my Bills again this year. They are attempting to make history by becoming the NFL’s first three-peat Super Bowl champions. The Philadelphia Eagles, their opponent in the big game on February 9, will certainly have a lot to say about that. Given that I am currently a Pennsylvanian who lives just over an hour’s drive from Philadelphia, I will of course be supporting the Eagles (Go Birds!) but whatever happens, I know that my Bills will surely have another go at the Chiefs next year. The Bills and Chiefs play in the same conference.

I am aware that Andy Reid, coach of the Chiefs, and Patrick Mahomes, the team’s star quarterback, are both God-fearing people. I often see and hear them thanking the Big Man upstairs after their victories. For that reason, I assume they are not overly greedy individuals. The Chiefs will not have as much at stake next year as they do this time, so I am hoping that if and when they meet the Bills in next season’s conference championship game, they will play with a little less intensity to allow my side to have another shot at the Super Bowl. If, during that game, I get any sense that the Chiefs are not making that accommodation, I will swoop into Highmark or Arrowhead, whatever stadium it is being played in, and start tackling Mahomes myself. During my soccer-playing days, I occasionally employed rugby tackling (illegal) as a last resort to stop opponents who were too fast to be neutralized by lawful means. That is why I am confident I could take down Mahomes on a football field if I got mad enough.

Josh Allen, the star quarterback of the Bills who played a phenomenal game on Sunday, had tremendous pain written all over his face at the end of the contest. He has one of the steeliest minds of any athlete I know. As I contemplated how he would approach next season, my wife’s frustration with how RBs play came to mind.

RBs, in my view, are eternal optimists. They get knocked down quite frequently, but they always spring to their feet immediately and ready themselves for the next play. They keep looking for that lucky crease to burst through for the big gain or, even better, a carry all the way to the end zone.

We are constantly told that we shouldn’t let failures stop us from chasing our dreams. The advice is to get up when we fall down. RBs demonstrate that resilience perhaps better than anyone. We can all learn from them.

“It takes a village to raise a child” is a maxim that is familiar to everyone. That adage applies to life generally. No individual can achieve any meaningful success without help from others. The most accomplished people in the world tend to be those who have special abilities to look for and find the right kinds of support at critical junctures along their journeys to their dream destinations. RBs know that the offensive linemen on their teams are constantly working hard to create those precious seams for them to run through, and that is what keeps them going.

We may not be RBs, but each of us have our own offensive linemen who are incessantly trying to open running lanes for us in life. In our case, the big men, and the shields they create for us, are invisible most of the time. But the important thing is to have the mindset that they are constantly present and working on our behalf. We simply need to summon the strength to get off the ground and be ready to burst through the creases as soon as they appear. Anyone who watches football knows how quickly those seams disappear. The key is to be prepared to take advantage in a matter of seconds when one opens up.

Having watched Josh Allen play numerous times, I know full well that he never stays down, regardless of how vicious a hit he takes. My sense is that he is using the pain from Sunday’s loss as fuel to prepare for next season. I have no doubt that he will be on the biggest stage this time next year. In Josh and his amazing teammates I Bill’ieve.