Bills prove even home has a price

[cboy4]

The Dolphins won't have to face the Buffalo chill this time.

Sunday, the Dolphins visit the Bills for a crucial game -- played in a Toronto dome. What's the ripple effect of the Bills' marketing deal?

Posted by ESPN.com's Tim Graham

Some of the details are hazy, but Steve Tasker clearly remembers how he felt walking off the frozen Rich Stadium carpet a loser in mid-December 1989.

The woebegone New Orleans Saints, they of the cozy Superdome and flaccid regular-season finishes, were coming to Orchard Park, N.Y., in December for a game against an organization one year away from four straight Super Bowl appearances.

Tasker, the Bills' special-teams missile, admitted he and his boys essentially had chalked up a victory during pregame exercises. We can't call them warm-ups -- not for that time of year in Western New York.

"There was snow on the field in the first half," Tasker said, "and they beat us. I think that had more to do with us expecting the weather to help us than them being good enough to beat us.

"That team came in and thought it was awesome to play a game outside in the snow in Buffalo. We thought 'They're going to fold their tents up and go home and the weather is going to kill them.' They went out and had fun, played their best game and beat us."

The point Tasker was trying to make is that weather conditions don't always favor the home team.

But that the Bills have allowed the Miami Dolphins to circumvent Ralph Wilson Stadium for Sunday's critical AFC East showdown certainly doesn't bother the road team either.

The Bills technically will be the host team when they play the Miami Dolphins in the Rogers Centre, the comfy, climate-controlled venue formerly known as SkyDome.

Dolphins coach Tony Sparano last week called the indoor game "a lucky draw."

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/afceast/0-4-461/Bills-prove-even-home-has-a-price.html

[cboy4]

1. The Bills have more to worry about if they can't even beat

my 49ers in Orchard Park.

[trumad]

2. I wouldn't call it crucial for the Bills...they're pretty much done for the season...

Now the Phins ---yeah.