Bills center Mitch Morse has his routines for each game. Some of those are individual, and keep him mellow during the pregame lead up. Other times, he and his fellow linemen are encouraging each other.
Morse played his first four years in Kansas City before joining the Bills in 2019. He’s faced his old team a few times now. Last weekend, the trip was a little different, though, and not just the outcome.
Buffalo News: What was it like outside of football to get back to Kansas City this weekend?
MM: I’m trying to find the right word for it. It was less stressful, and stressful not being the right word. But the newness of it – the anticipation, let's say – the anticipation wasn't quite there, because last year we had done that for the AFC championship game. This time, it felt more like just going home. It’s where we live in the offseason. And serendipitously, my wife (Caitlin) and my daughter (Kennedy) had gone back since we had a stretch of a few away games. … So I got to see my daughter and my wife at the hotel, which was just so big for the psyche. … I'm a weak, weak soul without my girls, so it was really good to see them. And then just walking down the tunnel, coming out of the locker room, going out, seeing all the things on the opposite end of the spectrum on my sideline – the newness of it was less. I felt like we could focus more on the game, and felt a lot more just like a regular away game this year than it did the last.
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BN: I was curious about that, since it wasn’t your first time back there. Sounds more enjoyable than the past visits maybe?
MM: Well, the outcome made it a lot more enjoyable. But we’re so routine-based, and it was hard not to break the routine, even psychologically. And the little nuances that you lose on a regular routine at an away game get lost, whether you run into people you know, which isn’t bad. You have some really fond memories and some really great friendships still there, but you’ve already had those in the last year, with this the third time playing them and all that stuff. So it definitely felt more like a regular away game. I’m not gonna lie, it wasn’t all the way there, but more so than it was in the past.
BN: You mentioned how your pregame routine is pretty set. How has that changed over the years?
MM: Oh it's changed drastically over the years. I think pregame is such an interesting roller coaster of emotions as the day progresses, right? So say you have a 1 o'clock game. They say you don't want to play the game before the game’s played, meaning you don't want to go through and emotionally tax yourself, because emotionally and physically, you can tax yourself, just from being up, up, up. But we’re so schedule-oriented in football, and that's a minute scale of it. … It’s a very interesting thing to see a pregame locker room.
BN: What’s something you realized didn’t work for you over the year?
MM: I think really trying to blast hardcore music, getting way up, getting way out of myself, trying to stimulate myself as much as possible. You tank. … They blast music in the locker room, so sometimes it's just having those noise-canceling headphones. You can still hear it, but very much more mild tone. For me, I start off, I have one song I listened to every (game), it’s “Red, Red Wine,” (by UB40). It's my first song I listen to in the car. And then “Don't Worry, Be Happy” right after that. It's great. And then for some reason, I don't know, it started in 2019, right when I'm getting to the stadium at home or away, I play “Houston, We Got A Problem” by Luke Combs. It’s a very interesting song. I like it. I like the tone of it. I like the speed of it. It’s just the perfect one. And it's fun, even more on an away game, right when I see the away stadium, I play it. I used to play just straight Metallica. Which I love. I love Metallica, but it's just not the vibe anymore.
BN: I feel like "Red, Red Wine" is a song that any time it comes on the radio, I wonder where it's been.
MM: Ooh. Where's it been? Where's it been? It's a beautiful song, and I just love it. And then the "Don't Worry Be Happy" thing always reminds me of when we first had those fish that would turn and sing.
BN: Big Mouth Billy Bass?
MM: Yeah, Big Mouth Billy Bass would always sing "Don't Worry, Be Happy." When you get over that, it's cool. But I love that song.
BN: What’s your favorite thing this O-line group does together?
MM: A locker room is such a cultural melting pot. I think it's unique to football. It's unique to sport, maybe. Let's just say that. But particularly football. Guys are from different parts of country, different backgrounds, different socio-economic backgrounds, schools, different home lives. It's a beautiful thing to come collectively and learn about one another. You might not always agree about certain things, but you always become very good, dear friends with your O-line group. And it's one of those positions in general where you can get kind of harassed by the media, you can kinda get harassed, when bad times are going bad. And then when good times are good, you're doing your job. So I think that kind of creates a callus on most guys, but it also brings us togetherness. And it's a unique position; coach says five guys need to work as one, or you're gonna see there's trouble.
So there's always ebbs and flows in the O-line performance as the season progresses, and even in the game. So we always break down the O-line going after that first play about having each other's back, no matter what. Because the first play might be a bad play, or it might be a great play. Let's have each other's back no matter what. And then when push comes to shove, and especially in a hostile environment, we still got to do our jobs and do the best we can, and the only way we can do that is if we're working together.
