A dramatic ending to long Bills drought
Happy New Year? You have no idea. Long-suffering Buffalo Bills fans lost their minds on New Year’s Eve when their hard- luck, longstruggling NFL team beat t he odds and ended its 17- year playoff drought — the longest in major pro sports — thanks to a 22-16 win at Miami coupled, minutes later, with an unlikely upset win by Cincinnati at Baltimore on a 4th- and-12, 49- yard touchdown- pass prayer with 44 seconds left.
Buffalo ( 9-7) thus snared the sixth and final AFC playoff berth, as that conference’s second wild card. The Bills play this coming Sunday at the No. 3 seed Jacksonville Jaguars.
If the Jags win they’ll play the following weekend at the No. 2 seed Pittsburgh Steelers. If the Bills win they’ll play at the No. 1 seed New England Patriots.
The Bills hadn’t reached the post-season since 1999.
“Our goal has never been to go to the playoffs, lose, then go home,” said 12th-year defensive tackle Kyle Williams, the longest- serving and thus longest-denied Bills player.
What a day it was for Williams. Midway through the third quarter, he surprisingly took a handoff as a fullback from the Miami oneyard line, and plunged into the end zone to put Buffalo ahead 19- 0 — his first touchdown since high school. Teammates engulfed him on the sideline in celebration, as this might have been the 34-year-old’s last regular-season game.
“This isn’t the finish but the start, so that’s what we’re excited about,” Williams told NFL Network.
Ecstatic, hoarse, emotionally spent and even crying Bills fans called Buffalo sports- radio station WGR 550-AM for hours afterward, most in pent-up exultation.
After Buffalo finished off Miami, it all came down to the dramatic ending of the Bengals- Ravens game. Baltimore grabbed its first lead, 27-24, with 8: 48 remaining. The Bengals got eventually ball back at their 10-yard line with 2: 43 left. QB Andy Dalton piloted the Bengals to Baltimore’s 49- yard line, before this OMFG lightning bolt struck for the Bengals and Bills: Dalton hit receiver Tyler Boyd sprinting deep, and Boyd weaved into the Baltimore end zone for the deciding score, in a 31-27 win.
“Remarkable!” shouted play- by- play announcer Ian Eagle. “The Cincinnati Bengals have stunned this crowd!”
Of many unforgettable Bills-fan videos posted to so- cial media, one showed hundreds of Bills fans gathered in a concourse at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, still hanging around to watch on widescreen TVs hung above food counters. They all went stark raving bananas when Boyd scored.
So did Bills players, watchi ng in their l ocker- room nearby, according to cellphone videos some posted to social media.
That this was the year, and this was the day, the Bills franchise shook the gorilla off its back was fitting for a number of reasons.
First, if this team had finished with the worst record of any Bills teams this century — rather than tied for the best, at 9-7 — few would have been surprised. Yet Buffalo’s first- year duo of head coach Sean McDermott and GM Brandon Beane had insisted all summer long, and well into the season, that despite getting rid of several key performers and recent face- of- the- franchise high draft picks — such as receiver Sammy Watkins, cornerback Ronald Darby and, in October, defensive tackle Marcell Dareus — they had no intention of tanking for a high 2018 draft pick, no matter how convinced fans and media had become.
“These guys, they play as a team. From Day 1 nobody gave us a chance,” McDermott said. “People thought we were tanking.
“We’re nowhere near where we need to be, but we are very grateful for this opportunity. ( There are) a lot of happy guys in that lockerroom, a lot of emotions running pretty wild.”
Also fitting is that the Dreaded Drought ended on New Year’s Eve — a day of ignominy this century for the Bills, one that too often bitterly underscored how far the franchise’s fortunes had fallen.
Indeed, Buffalo ended the drought: ❚ 20 years to the day after Marv Levy stepped down as head coach; ❚ 10 years to the day after Levy retired for good after a disappointing two-year stint as GM; ❚ Nine years to the day after owner Ralph Wilson announced he would bring back failing head coach Dick Jauron for a fourth season (whom Wilson would fire 11 months later); ❚ Eight years to the day after Wilson promoted Russ Brandon to CEO and hired Buddy Nix as GM; ❚ Five years to the day after (1) the Bills fired Chan Gailey as head coach after three losing seasons, and ( 2) Wilson delegated all Bills decisionmaking responsibility to Brandon, whom Wilson promoted to club president.