Many Bills players have tried to be polite about taking “home” games to Toronto.
But center Eric Wood didn’t hold back Wednesday morning on his weekly segment on 97 Rock, calling the series “a joke,” and saying he hoped the contract wasn’t renewed.
“I think that Toronto series has turned into pretty much a joke,” Wood said, via Tim Graham of the Buffalo News. “I think they started it hoping that we’d have a lot of fan support in Toronto. We have none.
“I mean, it’s a crucial third down for them in the first quarter, and they’re running just regular snap count, where I don’t care if we have a half-filed Ralph Wilson Stadium, they don’t do that.”
The Bills were hammered 50-17 by the Seahawks Sunday in a half-filled Rogers Centre, dropping them to 1-4 in their games north of the border.
“You’re making a team from out west travel, and then you give them the comfort of a dome, and you don’t make them play in our stadium,” Wood said. “We have no home-field advantage allowed. We travel, too. I just think it’s a joke.
“And it’s a bad atmosphere for football. I mean, nobody wants to play there. I guess for opposing teams it beats the hell out of going in somebody else’s stadium and dealing with a bunch of crowd noise.
“I don’t think it’s turned out they way we wanted, and I hope we don’t renew it. That sucked.”
Tell us how you really feel, Eric.
Given the tepid support the Bills have gotten (then again, a good team might have drawn a more enthusiastic response), you might expect them to bail. But even though this was the final game of the orginal five-year deal, there have been reports of a five-year extension through 2017.
International growth is also one of the league’s pet projects, so Wood might as well get used to Tim Hortons and accept it.