By TIM O'SHEI
Business First

Tim Russert's "Go Bills!" sign-off on NBC's "Meet the Press" became a lighthearted trademark of his otherwise hardnosed news show. But for several years, Russert's fist-pumping cheers were underscored behind closed doors by his high-level advocacy for the team's future in Buffalo.

Russert's efforts focused on two questions that have long challenged both the city and the franchise:

• How can the team remain viable in Buffalo, one of the NFL's three smallest markets?

• What will happen to the team when owner Ralph Wilson, who is now 89, dies?

Russert first started promoting Buffalo's place in the NFL in the mid-1990s, when he met then-Commissioner Paul Tagliabue. Around 2002, Buffalo News Publisher Stanford Lipsey convened a series of hushed talks about the future of the franchise. Included in those meetings, at various points, were Tagliabue, Sen. Charles Schumer, and former Cabinet member and Congressman Jack Kemp. Russert, too, was an active participant. But unlike the others, who had vested interests either financial (Lipsey, whose News covers the Bills extensively), political (Schumer) or historical (former Bills quarterback Kemp considers Wilson a longtime friend), Russert was purely a fan. A famous and highly connected fan, but an NFL outsider nonetheless.

"I think when he walks into a meeting with his smile, his gregariousness, his knowledge of issues and politics and his love of football," Kemp said earlier this week, still speaking of Russert in the present tense," it just lends instant credibility to whatever we're trying to do."

Lipsey's meetings ended in 2005 with no clear resolution. A year later, when Wilson was one of two NFL owners to vote against a new collective-bargaining agreement, Russert got involved again - this time, publicly. During a Sunday afternoon press conference in April 2006, Schumer, with Wilson at his side, promised to push the NFL to create a revenue-sharing formula that would be friendly to small markets like Buffalo. Schumer promised to enlist the help of Russert - but he hadn't called him yet.

When Russert's home phone rang that evening, it was his father, also named Tim - or "Big Russ" - who said, "I just saw the news that you're buying the Bills!"

"That's not the story, Dad," said the younger Russert, who later admitted, "I didn't know what the hell had happened."

Russert was on the phone with Schumer the next morning, and later that week he was in Schumer's D.C. office when Tagliabue arrived for a meeting.

"I was a little surprised," Tagliabue, now senior counsel with Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, D.C., admitted. "I say a little surprised because he was so passionate about the Bills and Buffalo fans that it was not a big surprise to see him there."

After that meeting, Tagliabue, Schumer and Russert announced that the Bills would have a seat on the eight-team committee that would create the revenue-sharing formula.

Russert was asked that week about his comfort level with joining Schumer - a pol of the variety he grilled each Sunday on "Meet the Press" - to lobby Tagliabue.

"I'm not lobbying anybody," Russert shot back, noting he had no financial interest.

"I think the most important thing now is to inform and educate," Russert said. "Dallas doesn't need the Cowboys the way Buffalo needs the Bills. Sometimes I think it's appropriate to point that out."

After Tagliabue retired in September 2006, replaced by Roger Goodell, a Western New York native, Russert, Schumer and Kemp continued their push with Goodell.

Schumer's last conversation with Russert happened a few weeks ago, when the senator called to ask him to take part in a meeting with team owner Ralph Wilson and Goodell.

"You tell me the day and I'll be there," Russert told Schumer.

"There is nobody who personifies Buffalo and the Bills like Tim, and yet he is a man of huge national stature," Schumer said this week. "It said to the league and it said to the world, ‘Keep the Bills in Buffalo. Some very important people care about it.' "