Buffalo Bills

The Buffalo Bills were born in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League, the upstart rival to the established NFL. Ralph Wilson Jr., a Detroit insurance magnate, put up the money and chose Buffalo — a blue-collar city on the Canadian border that NFL owners had passed over — because he believed working-class towns made for the best football towns. He was right.

The early years were rocky, but by 1964 the Bills had become the class of the AFL. Under head coach Lou Saban, with quarterback Jack Kemp directing the offense and a fearsome defense anchored by Tom Sestak and Mike Stratton, Buffalo won back-to-back AFL Championships in 1964 and 1965. Stratton's devastating hit on San Diego's Keith Lincoln in the 1964 title game — forever known as "The Hit Heard 'Round the AFL" — remains one of the most iconic plays in professional football history.

The late 1960s brought decline as the merger with the NFL loomed. But the AFL years established something permanent: Buffalo was a football city, and the Bills were its heartbeat. The franchise had proven that a small-market team with the right mix of talent, toughness, and community support could compete with anyone.

The AFL-NFL merger placed the Bills in the AFC East beginning in 1970, and the early post-merger years were defined by one electrifying player: O.J. Simpson. Drafted first overall in 1969 out of USC, Simpson was the most dynamic running back in football — fast, powerful, and capable of making an entire stadium hold its breath on every carry. In 1973, he became the first player in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards in a season, finishing with 2,003 behind an offensive line that called itself "The Electric Company" because they turned on The Juice.

But Simpson's brilliance couldn't mask the franchise's broader struggles. The Bills made the playoffs just once during his tenure (1974) and cycled through coaches without finding sustained success. Simpson was eventually traded to San Francisco in 1978, and the Bills sank into one of the darkest stretches in franchise history, bottoming out with a 2-14 record in 1984 and 1985.

The lean years of the late 1970s and early 1980s were painful for Buffalo fans, but they set the stage for what was coming. The franchise's futility earned it high draft picks and, more importantly, taught the front office what not to do. The foundation for a dynasty was being laid, even if nobody knew it yet.

In 1986, general manager Bill Polian hired Marv Levy as head coach, and the Bills began assembling one of the most talented rosters in NFL history. Quarterback Jim Kelly, initially reluctant to play in Buffalo after being drafted in 1983, arrived from the USFL in 1986. Running back Thurman Thomas came in the 1988 draft. Wide receiver Andre Reed was already developing into one of the best in the game. And defensive end Bruce Smith, drafted first overall in 1985, was becoming the most dominant pass rusher of his generation.

What Levy, offensive coordinator Ted Marchibroda, and this collection of talent built was the K-Gun offense — a revolutionary no-huddle attack that pushed the tempo to a speed the league had never seen. The K-Gun didn't just move the ball; it exhausted defenses, forced opponents to simplify their schemes, and turned Rich Stadium into a place of genuine terror for visiting teams.

From 1990 through 1993, the Bills reached four consecutive Super Bowls — a feat no other franchise has accomplished before or since. And they lost all four. Super Bowl XXV to the Giants on Scott Norwood's missed field goal wide right. Super Bowl XXVI to the Redskins in a blowout. Super Bowl XXVII and XXVIII to the Cowboys in back-to-back routs. Each loss was painful in its own way, but the cumulative weight of four consecutive championship defeats created a unique kind of sporting trauma that defined the franchise for a generation. The Bills of the early 1990s were simultaneously one of the greatest teams ever assembled and the most heartbreaking.

After the Super Bowl era ended and the core aged out, the Bills entered a playoff drought that would stretch an almost incomprehensible seventeen seasons — from 1999 to 2017, the longest active drought in the four major North American sports. The franchise cycled through quarterbacks, coaches, and general managers with a regularity that bordered on the absurd. Doug Flutie, Rob Johnson, Drew Bledsoe, J.P. Losman, Trent Edwards, Ryan Fitzpatrick, EJ Manuel, Tyrod Taylor — each was supposed to be the answer, and none were.

Ralph Wilson, the founding owner who had kept the team in Buffalo through thick and thin, passed away in March 2014 at age 95. His death raised fears that the franchise might relocate — fears that were put to rest when Terry and Kim Pegula purchased the Bills for $1.4 billion in October 2014, at the time the highest price ever paid for an NFL franchise.

The Pegula era brought new energy and investment, but results on the field remained elusive. Rex Ryan's two seasons (2015-2016) brought personality but not wins. The drought had become so long that an entire generation of Buffalo fans had grown up without knowing what a playoff game felt like.