Buffalo Rumblings
Roderick Morrow was in shock when he heard his quarterback mention his name on national television.
When Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen took the stage last Thursday at the NFL Honors, his MVP acceptance speech was in true Josh Allen form – deflecting the praise from himself and making sure to give credit to everyone who has been a part of his NFL journey. And that included “Slick Rick” in the mailroom.
Roderick Morrow works in the mailroom at One Bills Drive, and he said that he was glued to the television during the FOX broadcast.
“I said I was going to cry if Josh didn’t win the award,” Morrow recounted. “So, when Josh won the award, I was happy, jumping around, overjoyed.”
But what he didn’t expect was to hear the nickname the Bills’ players lovingly gave him announced on national television.
“He went on stage and started mentioning things and he mentioned my name, I started crying,” Morrow said that he broke down in tears. “I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t believe it.”
Having been a “die-hard Bills fan all [his] life,” Morrow said it has been a dream to work in the mailroom at One Bills Drive for the past 15 years, although he admits he has no idea where his nickname came from. According to Morrow the ‘Slick Rick’ nickname has been around for years, dating back to the days when Ryan Fitzpatrick was under center instead of Josh Allen.
But to hear his name on national television, being thanked by the league’s Most Valuable Player, was something he never would have expected. Morrow said that his phone started ringing with friends and family wanting Morrow to know they had heard Allen give him the shoutout.
Morrow insists that he’s just an average person doing his job. A job that is a dream come true or the kid who grew up near the old War Memorial Stadium that once housed his beloved Buffalo Bills. He said that he’s not one who likes a lot of publicity, but having his quarterback feel that he needed to be mentioned on national television, being sure to thank him while receiving the league’s premier award, was something he will never forget.
“I broke down because I’m just an average person, but when he mentioned my name, I was like ‘Oh my god he just mentioned my name on national television,’ so I was just crying.”
Other players, both current and former, jumped in over the past several days to give ‘Slick Rick’ his flowers posting to their social media stories and talking about the culture that began when Marv Levy was the Bills head coach and continues to this day: a culture that instills in the players a sense of family and a sense that it takes every single person in the organization to get the job done.
But, for Slick Rick it’s all just part of the job – a job that has him sorting mail and helping...
