When you come from Buffalo, two things are embedded in your DNA – the Bills, and heartbreak.
Buffalo, in January, is a cold, dark city.
Snow cascades in blinding, howling storms off the frigid shores of Lake Erie.
Buffalonians spend winter days swaddling themselves in coats and boots like Eskimo mummies. They cover ears, toes, legs and hands so they can shovel sidewalks, dig out cars, scrape off windows and slip-slide along icy highways.
Ah, but there is one thing that makes winter – and life — tolerable for frostbitten Western New Yorkers: the Buffalo Bills.
In Buffalo, the Bills are not just a football team, but also an identity and a raison d’etre.
We are our football team. In the Bills, we find a sense of community and purpose that makes putting up with the miserable winter weather worthwhile.
The Bills are us.
We are them.
On Sundays, for a few brief hours, we can forget about the cold, the ice, the snow and the grey skies.
On Sundays, we find light and warmth on television screens and invest our hearts and souls into watching the Bills.
Buffalo has for too long been burdened with the stereotype of a blue-collar, rust belt town filled with decaying past industrial glories. Today’s Western New York is a vibrant community filled with burgeoning medical and technology corridors, and research hubs at universities and colleges.
But the world only knows us for chicken wings.
And the Buffalo Bills.
The bond between Buffalonians and the Bills stretches back to 1960, when the American Football League was born.
It is a history filled with loyalty, love and, as noted before – heartbreak.
“Even when they win, they break your heart,” famed late literary critic Leslie Fieldler, once told me about the Bills
The Jim Kelly Bills won a ton of games and went to four consecutive Super Bowls, from 1991-94. They lost each time.
The Bills can hurt you when they win, and they can virtually kill you when they lose.
Which brings us to the Bills’ epic and catastrophic overtime loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. The scoreboard read Kansas City 42, Buffalo 36.
But numbers do not do justice for the shattered nerves and fractured psyches of Bills’ fans.
If one game could capture the history and frustrations of 62 years of Buffalo Bills football, this was it
This game, and its cast of characters, lived up to the Bills’ history of Shakespearian tragedy, including the two main attractions:
The tragic hero: Josh Allen.
The villainous grim reaper: Pat Mahomes.
It all came down to the final two minutes and these two quarterbacks put on a frantic display of desperate brilliance that led to 25 points scored in that time.
1:54 left: Allen hit Gabriel Davis with a 27-yard touchdown pass, gives the Bills a 29-26 lead.
1:02 left: Mahomes finds Tyreek Hill with a 64 yard TD pass, Chiefs lead, 33-29.
0:13 left: Allen drives the Bills 75 yards and hits Davis again with a TD pass. Bills lead, 36-33.
OK, I’m pacing around my television set. This has got to be it, I’m thinking. But in my memory banks are memories of other Bills’ losses, and I just can’t stop worrying.
What really bothers me is that number: 13. It’s not a lucky number for the Bills.
Buffalo kicks off and the Chiefs down it for a touchback.
C’mon now, the Bills had the No. 1 defense in the NFL. Surely they can stop a team in 13 seconds. Right?
Wrong.
Mahomes finds Hill for 19 yards. Then, incredibly, tight end Travis Kelce looks wide open and goes 25 yards before calling time out. Kicker Harrison Butker boots a 49 yard field goal and we’re tied, 36-36. Overtime.
I can’t believe this has happened.
No, I’m having a nightmare. I’m having Buffalo Bills PTSD, I’m in Florida, there’s no snow anywhere and I feel like I’m stuck in a blizzard with no way out.
But wait, we still have the coin flip.
Surely the football Gods will finally smile down on the beleaguered Buffalo Bills. Josh Allen, who has thrown 9 touchdown passes in two playoff games, and plays like a cross between Jim Kelly and O.J. Simpson, will make the right call at the coin flip.
I can see it now. Josh wins the tip. And drives the Bills 75 yards to win the game to send the Bills to the AFC championship game in Buffalo next week.
“Tails,” Josh says with confidence.
I hold my breath.
I close my eyes.
“Heads,” the referee says.
Oh no, I’m thinking, I’ve seen this movie before, so many times. It can’t be happening again. I try, once more, to have faith in the Bills defense.
Well, you know the rest.
“When it’s grim, be the Grim Reaper,” Chiefs Coach Andy Reid said he told Mahomes. “And go get it.”
And he did.
Mahomes drove the Chiefs 75 yards in 8 plays. He found Kelce for an 8-yard touchdown pass to end the game.
“They made one more play than we did,” Allen said after the game. “That’s what it came down to.”
Despite the loss, fans turned out in the cold to welcome the Bills back to Buffalo.
https://youtu.be/xrFn65QPk50
It’s a funny thing about losing. Even for the Bills, this loss is a valuable lesson and building block.
Josh Allen played the greatest game I’ve ever seen by a Bills quarterback. Mahomes was just as good, and, maybe, just a little bit better.
One play can win a game, but it can’t break a team’s spirit or its bond with the people of Buffalo.
As we say in Buffalo, maybe next year.
Tony Violanti is a resident of The Villages and is from Buffalo, N.Y.
