Jerry Hughes won a football game, and in the process, also canceled a yearly tradition of his.
First it should be known, he’s dealing with it pretty well.
On Saturday, the Bills topped the Ravens 17-3 in the AFC Divisional round. Hughes had two sacks in the game and an all-around strong effort.
That victory sends the Bills on a path leading to the Chiefs in the AFC title game next weekend. It’ll be the first time Hughes, the longest-tenured member of the Bills, plays in that game. Considering that, Hughes usually hosts a party and invites teammates over to watch the game each year for Championship Sunday.
Kind of hard to do that when he’s literally going to be at the game playing in it… a very welcomed change of pace for him.
“I was telling the guys, finally I don’t have to host the AFC Championship at my house. People can actually sit back and they gotta watch me,” Hughes said via video conference. “The text messages are flying on my phone right now, ‘What do we do?!’… For 11 years they’ve been coming over. So now? Man, this is a great feeling. The guys in our locker room, it’s something that we talked about back in April.”
It doesn’t sound like his teammates are too upset, either.
“Jerry is just one of those vets that does his job. We respect him. He’s one of those guys that you just love having on your squad,” quarterback Josh Allen said on his video conference, reflecting on Hughes’ two-sack outing. “For him to go out there and play the way he did… the way our defense stopped the run, the game plan was executed to perfection.”
Jokes aside about the party or lack thereof, Bills head coach Sean McDermott also put things into perspective for his team on Monday. The party was canceled on a moments notice, but the path to doing so was a long one.
“That’s what you work for all season, to get here, where we are right now. We have a mature, professional, group of players. They’re well aware of what the next step could be. But if you don’t focus on this step, you won’t get to the next step, and I think our players understand that,” McDermott said.
Now it’s time for Hughes to make canceling his party worthwhile.
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