Bills fans don’t need convincing to love you. They’re already leaning forward, waiting for a reason. DJ Moore just figured that out before he’s played a single snap in Buffalo, and it’s the smartest thing a new Bill can do.
Moore, acquired this offseason in a trade from the Bears, was shopping at a Buffalo-area mall when he spotted a rack of shirts with his own name and number on them. He didn’t announce himself. He just bought all 27 of them, for $1,200, and told the store to give them away free to any fan who came looking.
The assistant manager at Tee Shirt University didn’t even know who he was talking to.
“He goes, ‘OK, I’m buying it.’ I’m like, ‘What? Do you know the guy or work for him?’ and he’s like, ‘Yeah, I work for him,’” the manager, Scot Marshall, told WKBW. “So he buys them, he goes, ‘I’m going to leave them all here, if anybody comes and they want one, just tell them, DJ Moore bought it for them.’ And then he walks out the door, and he pokes his head back in and goes, ‘Yeah, it’s me.’”
The store didn’t even market it. Just a $0.00 price tag and a handwritten note: “This shirt was paid for by DJ Moore!”
This is the part front offices and PR departments can’t manufacture. Buffalo is arguably the best fanbase in the league specifically because it doesn’t ask for much. It asks for effort, and it asks for guys who actually want to be here. Every new Bill gets a small window to show which one he is before the fans decide for him. Moore used his on 27 t-shirts and a joke at a mall kiosk, and it worked better than any press conference soundbite could have.
“It shows he cares. He’s loving the community so far,” Marshall said. “That’s the kind of athlete we usually get in the city.”
That’s the real headline. Not the jersey giveaway itself, but the fact that Moore clearly did his homework on what this city actually values. Buffalo doesn’t need stars to perform generosity. It needs them to mean it. A $1,200 gesture that costs an NFL receiver nothing financially just told an entire fanbase everything it needed to hear before Week 1 even arrives.
Welcome to Buffalo, DJ. You’re off to a better start than most.
