Super Bowl Sunday is tough to stomach for Buffalo Bills fans. There’s the bitter reminder of the team’s scorching start to the season, the knowledge that the Buffalo downed the Patriots and narrowly lost to the Giants in the regular season, and the enduring plague of missing the post-season for the 12th straight year.

Watching the last 18 Super Bowls from the perspective of a life-long Bills’ fan hurts—it really does. Even the chicken wings don’t supply the same zest when the Bills are only included because of a mild Tom Brady hotel dig.

I found my eyes glazing over Sunday night—perhaps from indulging too eagerly into my home-made rice, the absurdly over-budgeted theatrics, the near-certainty of Madonna’s lip-syncing and the less-than-inspiring commercials. Trying to make the best of an otherwise bleak situation, I’d shout out obnoxious lines like “That’s how Perry Fewell does!”, “Did you know Victor Cruz was recruited by the UB Bulls?” and “Did you know Fred Astaire offers salsa dancing in Buffalo?”, but they all (fortunately) fell on deaf ears.

How do you survive, Bills fans, without waving your blue-and-red foam finger, yelling “Hey-ey-ey-ey!” and obliterating Bud Lights in your coozy with a pleasant little buffalo on it? Oh, I suppose that’s how you do it. 

At the same time, there’s the realization that Super Bowl XLVI was the final meaningful game of football we’ll see until September—it’s an excruciating seven-month wait that reminds us that any football is better than no football. Until then—thank God there’s no lockout—there’ll be the usual free agent chatter, the bickering draft duo of Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay, and small rays of hope that things will be better next year. Toss in the uncertainty over the stadium lease, the contract issues facing the Bills and Fred Jackson and Stevie Johnson, continuing concerns of Ryan Fitzpatrick as the franchise QB and the adjustment to a new defense, all is not well in Orchard Park.

Bills fans are more than hearty, though. The off-season brings change, and change breeds hope. Already, positives are happening. We’ll dearly miss football, regardless of whether the Bills are gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated or we’re shedding silent tears into our already-salty chicken wing dip. September, you cannot come soon enough.