Lindsay Czarniak is a sideline reporter for Fox Sports who worked the Bills game the other day. She loved her weekend in Western New York.
“I feel like Buffalo is just so warm, even when it’s freezing,” she says. “The people are so warm, and that trickles down to the team, too, in a strange way. It’s just an awesome place to be, one of those cold-weather environments that I actually look forward to.”
As it happens, Czarniak also loves jokes – the corny kind that appeal to her kids, who are 7 and 5. She uses poster board to tell the gags on the field before or after games. (The jokes don’t appear on air; these are for her social-media followers). The photos in this story are from Highmark Stadium after Sunday’s game:
“What did the buffalo say when he dropped his son off at school?”
She flips over the posterboard to reveal the punchline:
People are also reading…
“Bison!”
Rimshot, please.
“Have to pull this one out when you’re in Buffalo!” she wrote to her 224,000 followers on Facebook and 171,000 on Instagram. “Also have to pull out all you can for warmth, including heated socks (and this wasn’t cold by Buffalonian standards.) Important win for the Bills as the playoffs inch closer.”
The jokes began as a way to entertain her kids when they were stuck at home during the pandemic. Then, when she posted some of the gags online, they morphed into something more. Now she is a sort of sideline Jim Gaffigan. Here’s the one she told on the field in Charlotte a couple of weeks ago when the Carolina Panthers played the Atlanta Falcons:
“What do centers wear on their feet?”
She got down in a three-point stance: “Hiking shoes!”
Corny? Well, sure. But remember, these are kids’ jokes. They might not work if she told them out loud, but on poster board, they do. She sells them with a knowing smile that says she is not only telling the joke, but she’s in on it.
Full disclosure: I follow Lindsay’s career closely because her father, Chet Czarniak, was my dear colleague for decades at USA Today.
“Truly, he is someone who is always a touchstone for me,” she says, “for professional questions and navigating scenarios. I really rely on him a lot.”
Lindsay and I talked by phone the other day about her experiences in Buffalo last weekend, and visiting Niagara Falls for the first time.
“I think Buffalo is such a tremendous city,” she says. “It’s feels like a friendly, familiar place, even if you’re not from there. It reminds me, in a way, of Pittsburgh, where I spent so much time growing up. That’s where our extended relatives live.”
Lindsay grew up in Northern Virginia, but her father’s and mother’s families are from Western Pennsylvania – which, as we know, bears a striking resemblance to Western New York.
She finds that Highmark Stadium, when packed by the Bills Mafia, is unlike anywhere else in the NFL.
“Honestly, it feels different to be on the field there,” Lindsay says. “There’s just a different energy about it.”
Before Sunday’s game, she asked Panthers cornerback Stephon Gilmore, the ex-Bill, about that difference.
“He was super pumped and happy to be back,” she says. “And he said, ‘This is different football right here. It feels more like college.’ And I agree. It does feel like college.”
Lindsay came to understand this some years ago when she was working a Bills game for ESPN. “It was 16 degrees that day, and it was me and Ron Jaworski out front of the stadium doing our pregame hits. And it was just an awesome atmosphere.”
Jaworski, of course, grew up in Lackawanna, and his family had Bills tickets long before the Polish Rifle played quarterback in the NFL.
“We could barely go two feet without him getting stopped,” Lindsay says. “There is so much history and lore in Buffalo, and you can just tell there is so much respect for the game. And for me, it’s hard to put a finger on, but I think that’s what it comes down to: It is a fan base that truly just respects and lives and breathes their team. That’s why I love it.”
Lindsay joined her producer, Fran Morison, and play-by-play voice, Kenny Albert, for a trip to Niagara Falls on Saturday.
“Wow. Just wow,” she wrote on social media.
“I didn’t realize how close it is to downtown,” she says. “That was just spectacular. Gorgeous. Amazing. I loved it. I can’t wait to come back and check out the Canadian side.”
Lindsay and her husband of 10 years, Craig Melvin, met when they worked together at the NBC affiliate in Washington. Now he is a news anchor on “Today.” A few years ago, at the Super Bowl, NBC ran a feature on the two of them competing at the NFL Experience, throwing footballs and running an obstacle course. (Guess who won.)
“It’s fun when our worlds intersect,” she says.
Lindsay interviewed Bills quarterback Josh Allen on the field after Sunday’s game and asked him about his foot, which he hurt the week before.
“It didn’t bother me at all,” Allen said. “If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
If that sounds like a punchline, it’s only because it is.
“Age is strictly a case of mind over matter,” comedian Jack Benny said on his 80th birthday. “If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
So it turns out Lindsay wasn’t the only one offering gag lines on Sunday. And that brings us to the joke she posted online a couple of days before the Bills-Panthers game.
“How do you wash your hands over the holidays?”
“Santa-tizer.”
