The Arrival

In 2019, Buffalo's football team handed the keys to a second-year quarterback from a cotton farm in California, and nobody knew quite what they had.

He ran over linebackers, threw it a mile and, game by game, became the quarterback the whole city would build around. A rebuilt offense found its feet. A defense that allowed the second-fewest points in pro football kept every game close. The team won on Thanksgiving in Dallas and on a Sunday night in Pittsburgh, won ten games and went back to the playoffs.

The Arrival tells the 2019 season game by game, from a 16-0 comeback in the opener to overtime in Houston. Along the way: the free-agent shopping spree, a rookie running back called Motor, a 36-year-old who passed a legend on the all-time rushing list, and the fans who jump through folding tables in the parking lot.

Every game chapter has the score, the crowd, 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 remembers the fall of 2019, or the moment they knew the new era was real.