A storm is brewing in Buffalo as Super Bowl-starved Bills fans brace for Chiefs
- Share via
BUFFALO, N.Y. — People here are accustomed to this week’s weather, in which the roads are like bunny slopes and the flake-filled skies occasionally are illuminated by a flash of lightning followed by an ominous roll of thunder. There’s a name for it: thundersnow, and sometimes the visibility is so poor you can see only a couple of car lengths in front of you.
But Buffalo Bills fans, they can see all the way to New Orleans.
All it requires is winning at Kansas City on Sunday in the AFC championship game at Arrowhead Stadium. Although they have beaten the Patrick Mahomes-led Chiefs four times in the regular season, the Bills are 0-3 against them in the playoffs.
To Buffalo fans, the Super Bowl seems so close, even though a good portion of them weren’t born, or old enough, to remember when their team last played on the NFL’s biggest stage.
It was a historic run. Four consecutive Super Bowl appearances from 1990 through ’93, and four consecutive heartbreaking defeats. The first ended on a moment so scarring it’s known simply as “Wide Right,” when Scott Norwood’s final field goal attempt just missed its target from 47 yards and the Bills lost to the New York Giants 20-19.
“I was sitting on the floor watching that kick,” said diehard Bills fan Ashleigh Dopp, who was in grade school at the time. “I was so confused. I remember looking at my mom and asking, ‘What happened?’ And her face was just buried in her hands.”
Even in a snowstorm, it’s easy to pick Dopp out of a crowd. She stays warm in a faux fur coat she dyed in the colors of her team — red, white and blue — and turned that into a business, designing and selling similar coats for fans of lots of teams.
L.A. Times NFL writer Sam Farmer analyzes the conference championships between the Eagles-Commanders in the NFC and Bills-Chiefs in the AFC.
“They’re fashion-forward and super warm,” she said. “We’ve done Pittsburgh, Syracuse orange, Carolina, I’m working on a Green Bay, and Dallas Cowboys.”
She politely smiled through gritted teeth recently when a Chiefs fan asked for one.
Bills fans are used to heartache. They’ve learned to deal with it. What Tennessee Titans fans call the “Music City Miracle,” a game-clinching, cross-field pass on a kick return that led to a 75-yard touchdown and a playoff victory over Buffalo, the Bills faithful call “The Immaculate Deception” and argue it was an illegal forward pass as opposed to a legal backward lateral.
Then there’s “13 seconds,” a back-and-forth divisional playoff game against the Chiefs in 2021, when Mahomes orchestrated a drive for the tying field goal with 13 seconds remaining. That forced overtime, and Kansas City won the coin toss, received the kick and assembled a winning touchdown drive. The Bills never got to touch the ball in the extra period, and that prompted the NFL to change overtime rules in the playoffs so, regardless of what happens, each team gets a possession.
A leg injury to Eagles QB Jalen Hurts could prove costly against the Commanders, and the Bills appear poised to break their playoff stigma against the Chiefs.
Despite the bitter cold, despite the string of spirit-sapping losses, Buffalo fans are as bonded and passionate — and resiliently optimistic — as any in sports.
“The younger generation, they’re so amped up,” said Mike Shatzel, who was born and raised in Buffalo and owns multiple bars in the city. “I think the older Buffalonians, they’re really excited but we’ve also got that skepticism that comes with those four Super Bowl losses and that 17-year playoff drought [from 2000 through 2016].
“I think we’ll beat K.C. It’s Mahomes. You never know. But I think this is the year we’re most positive in thinking we’re going to beat K.C. I think it’s our year.”
Funny, the Buffalo season didn’t start that way. This season looked as if it would be a soft reset for the franchise, which had parted ways with lots of key players, among them receiver Stefon Diggs, No. 2 receiver Gabe Davis, stalwart center Mitch Morse, starting safeties Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer, and onetime lock-down corner Tre’Davious White.
What the Bills have is a premier quarterback in Josh Allen, this generation’s Jim Kelly. Allen is beloved, and there are tributes to him all around town, from the life-size cardboard cutout of him behind the lobby desk when you check into a hotel to the mural of him on the brick wall of a building on Hertel Avenue.
In the original version of that mural, he’s standing beside Diggs. They’re both in their Bills uniforms and both have opaque helmet visors covering their eyes. When the Bills traded Diggs to Houston last spring, that mural needed to be changed. It turned out to be an easy fix.
Rory Allen, who created it, put a bright-yellow, puffy coat on the receiver, whose face was completely covered. It’s the distinctive jacket worn by rookie Keon Coleman, so voila … the first-year receiver suddenly co-stars in a prominent mural alongside the star quarterback.
Rory Allen, no relation to the quarterback, has a graphic-design business and generated a lot of buzz in Buffalo by creating lawn signs that looked identical to political ones but read “Allen Diggs ’20.”
“During COVID, the Bills signs really took off,” he said. “People wanted to go to games but they couldn’t, so they were looking for things to spend their money on to celebrate the Bills. They were all over.”
One of the stranger traditions at Bills tailgate parties involves fans leaping from considerable heights — say the roof of an SUV — and doing a belly-flop onto a folding table that doesn’t stand a chance. In a way, these people sacrifice their bodies for their team.
Their hearts too.
“When the Bills lose for the last time, there’s just that sense of the snow feels heavier, the sun goes away for longer, the wing prices somehow mysteriously go up a couple bucks an order,” Shatzel said. “People really get depressed.”
For Dopp, hope springs eternal. She booked her plane tickets to New Orleans in May and she’s weighing a trip to Kansas City for Sunday’s game, even though it’s really expensive on short notice.
But she’s realistic as well.
“It’s high anxiety, excitement,” she said, assessing the pulse of the city. “I’ve got to call my doctor for blood-pressure meds.”
