Empty Seats

In 2020, Buffalo's football team was one of the best in the game. They won thirteen games, won their division for the first time in twenty-five years, won two playoff games, and played for the conference championship in Kansas City.

And almost nobody saw it in person. Because of the pandemic, all eight home games were played in an empty stadium. Western New York watched the best season in a generation from its kitchens and living rooms, until a few thousand fans were let back in for January.

Empty Seats tells the season game by game, with chapters on the empty stadium, the trade for a receiver who led the league, a quarterback's breakout year, a last-second loss in the desert, and the $17 donations fans made in memory of the quarterback's grandmother.

Every game chapter has the score, the crowd (or lack of one), the weather and the story, a full-page chart drawn from the box score, and Ray's Take, a few lines of opinion from a lifelong fan from Buffalo's Old First Ward. At the back you'll find fifty bar-trivia questions (four quarters and an overtime) and a complete stats appendix.

A warm, funny, fact-checked holiday gift for anyone who watched that season from home and wished they could have been there.