The Buffalo Bills this year.
I’ve been here before. That is the situation the Bills face in 2025 having never won a Super Bowl and having a team seemingly good enough to do it but somehow each year falling short.
For me, it was as a member of the front office with the Oakland Raiders in the 1970s. Before I joined the team in 1973, the Raiders had played in one Super Bowl, losing to Vince Lombardi and his Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl II while coached by John Rauch. Rauch also led the Raiders to the American Football League Championship Game in 1968, losing to the New York Jets before Joe Namath and company downed the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
John Madden was the head coach of the Silver and Black when they looked to gain their third victory of the season over Hank Stram and his Kansas City Chiefs in 1969. The Chiefs upset the Raiders and went on to beat the Minnesota Vikings in the final year before the American and National football leagues merged.
In Madden’s second season, the Raiders again advanced to the playoffs and lost to eventual Super Bowl Champion Baltimore. In 1972, the Raiders lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers in a game forever remembered for the Immaculate Reception. A year later, the Raiders advanced to the AFC Championship Game after beating the Steelers in the playoffs but lost on the road to the eventual Super Bowl Champion Miami Dolphins.
Madden lost two more AFC Championship Games to the Steelers in 1974 and 1975, years in which Pittsburgh went on to win their first two Super Bowls. Finally, in 1976, the Raiders beat the Steelers in the AFC Championship Game two weeks before Madden won his only Super Bowl as head coach of the Raiders. Oakland downed the Vikings in Super Bowl XI, 32-14.
Like the Raiders of the 70’s, the Buffalo Bills have been on the doorstep of a Super Bowl only to be beaten by the team that has gone on and won the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The Bills did play in four straight Super Bowls beginning in 1990, but missed a would-be win over the New York Giants when Scott Norwood’s game-ending field goal sailed wide right and began a streak of losses for Jim Kelly and company in every opportunity to win a Super Bowl ring.
In recent years, it is Josh Allen who is playing the position Kelly manned so well for years behind center in Buffalo. Like Kelly, Allen is as bright off the field as he is on. His personality and character have him among the most beloved athletes in Buffalo sports lore … but, like Kelly, he is still looking for his first Super Bowl win.
In fact, Kelly falls more into the Madden pattern of losing in the playoffs to the team that goes on and wins it all. For the Raiders of the 70’s the teams that seemed a notch better each year were the Dolphins and Steelers. For Allen and the Bills in recent seasons, the team that has ended their Super Bowl dreams in the playoffs has been the Kansas City Chiefs.
Yet, Buffalo stinging losses is not limited to the Chiefs. In his first playoff action, Allen staked his Bills to a 16-0 third quarter lead only to have Houston Texans Quarterback Deshaun Watson lead a comeback that resulted in an overtime win, 22-19, for the home team. The next season, the Chiefs pinned the Bills with the first of four times Patrick Mahomes would outduel Allen in the postseason. The Buffalo losses to the Chiefs have been as strikingly painful as the Raiders losing to the Franco Harris heroics in 1972.
In the 2021 season, Allen connected on a touchdown pass with 13 seconds left in the game to stake his Bills to a three-point lead over Mahomes and company. The game had four lead changes and 25 points scored in the final two minutes of regulation and it wasn’t over after Allen threw the TD that seemed to give the Bills the victory with only seconds left on the clock.
Mahomes was able to lead the Chiefs on a 44-yard drive in those final 13 seconds and set up the Chiefs for a tying field goal to force overtime. The Chiefs won the coin toss, and the prolific KC QB led the Chiefs to a game clinching touchdown.
The last time Allen was on the field that season was when he completed a likely game winning TD pass. The fact that he didn’t get back on the field while the Chiefs scored the final nine points for the victory resulted in the NFL redrawing overtime rules to allow both teams at least one possession in the overtime period.
The Bills lost to the Chiefs again in 2023 before Kansas City went on to beat the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LVIII. Last year, a controversial call that didn’t allow a ‘might have been first down’ that could have clinched the game for the Bills at Arrowhead Stadium resulted in the Chiefs getting the ball back on downs and driving for the winning score to send the Bills home and Andy Reid’s team to Super Bowl LIX.
The close call on this fourth down play again sent the NFL competition committee into meetings to better determine first downs. Thus, this year, we have seen during the preseason the advent of the Sonny Hawk-Eye virtual measurement technology.
Seems the league adjusts rules once the Bills are victimized.
Is this their year? Is this the year the Bills win their first Super Bowl ever?
It was a question asked around the Raiders for years until they had their breakthrough campaign in 1976. The Raiders had first the Dolphins and then the Steelers to overcome. The Bills had first the Chiefs and now, uh oh, the Baltimore Ravens to overcome.
How they fare against their toughest opposition in 2025 is going to get an early test. The NFL schedule makers have treated us to a first weekend Sunday night contest in Buffalo with the visitors being John Harbaugh and his talented Ravens.
If you don’t love this stuff, you are emotionally dead.