A team on the cusp of greatness now seems farther away than they have been in years. After yet another heart breaking loss, the Bills seem to have finally completely fallen apart. There was tears in the locker room, tears at the press conference and interviews and then a meltdown of a press conference. How did the Bills get here? Oh, I’ll tell you.

First of all, lets be honest, the Bills have been the lovable losers for years. After not doing much in the 70s or early 80s, the Bills rose from the ashes to become competitive. Lead by all time greats like Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, James Lofton, Bruce Smith, Cornelius Bennett and Darryl Talley they began to compete and make the playoffs. Then in the season of 1990 the broke through and made their first ever super bowl. They were competitive in that game and had a shot to win it at the end. But as we all know, that kick went wide right. That didn’t keep the Bills from being competitive but in some ways they were never the same. While they found ways to get to the Super Bowl the next 3 years, they could never quite get over the hump. In fact, it felt like each Super Bowl got worse than the last. For whatever reason, the Bills just couldn’t break through.

Fast forward to 2017 when Sean McDermott shows up. He takes a down on their luck team and makes them a playoff contender. Joined by Josh Allen they seem to improve every year. In the 2019 season they make the playoffs. In 2020, the make the AFC championship. The get beat soundly by the Chiefs but that’s okay, everything is moving in the right direction. Next year will be there year. Then 2021 came. They showed up to Arrowhead ready to play. Josh and Pat played arguably the best quarterbacked game I’ve ever seen. Josh led his team to the game winning score with just 13 seconds left. Unfortunately there was 13 seconds left. Pat, Tyreek and Travis worked their magic, Butker kicked the game tying field goal and then the Chiefs won the coin toss and drove down the field for the game winning td. This was the first of the whining to change the rules. With complaints from Bills Mafia and everyone else who was sick of the Chiefs, the rule was changed to both teams getting the ball.

The following year in 2022, they had the very scary Damar Hamlin injury. They just never recovered from that and despite winning the wild card game, got beat soundly by the Bengals at home. The next year, the Bills had a better record than the Chiefs. So KC would have to come to them in the divisional round. That will make the difference they thought. It did not. Josh had a chance to lead the team to take the lead with a td. He missed a couple of open receivers and so they had to settle for a fg and you guessed it, it went wide right.

In 2024, the Bills were good once again. Beat the Chiefs in the regular season again. In fact they were the only team to beat the Chiefs in the regular season besides when the Broncos beat the Chiefs back ups in week 18. The Bills headed to Arrowhead to compete and compete they did. But they once again fell short and the whining continued as all of Bills mafia is 100% sure they got the first down on one of their many failed tush pushes. This led to another rule change, breaking out the utterly useless virtual measurement.

And here we are in the 2025 season. Surely this is the year for the Bills. The Chiefs are out of the playoffs. This is their year. But they couldn’t even win their own division. Instead they go on the road and win in Wild Card Weekend. Then head to Denver and guess what, lose in some heartbreaking way. This time an interception that is obviously a catch if you look at it from one angle and not the other 4 angles that show that it is not a catch. Bills mafia is everyone whining about this play so I am sure there will be some rule change next year to try and help the Bills win.

The 1990s Bills kept hitting a wall and just could not break through and finally it was just too much. They began to miss the playoffs and eventually went back to NFL purgatory. I’m afraid the Josh Allen Bills may suffer the same fate. Perhaps the 13 second game is this version’s wide right. You can only suffer so many defeats and keep rolling out there with the same energy trying to win. It takes an emotional toll, one that has obviously boiled over.

Now lets be fair, I understand firing Sean McDermott. While a very good coach, he has obviously struggled in the playoffs. Especially being a defensive minded coach, his teams have given up a lot of points in these playoff games. So he certainly deserves some blame. He has also made some odd decisions including kicking it to the end zone so no time went off in the 13 second game. I think most Bills fans were fine with McDermott getting the boot. After all, his defenses have not been able to get stops at the end of these losses when they need them most.

But how he got fired, that’s a whole other story. We will get to that in a minute. But first lets talk about Josh. I like Josh as a person and a player. I think he is great. He is a top 5 even a top 3 quarterback every year. The last 2 years I would say he has been better that Patrick. But the media obsession with Josh is getting out of control. Everyone acts and calls him Superman. Well the only way he would be Superman is if Superman never defeated the villain. Josh has never led the league in a passing statistic in any given year. Josh has never made a Super Bowl. Josh has never obviously won a super bowl. So why is he better than everyone? All the media pundits say the same thing. He just is. He has to carry his sad little team every year. This years sad little team included the #1 passing defense, the leagues leading rusher and a top 5 offensive line. People talk about him as this elite playoff quarterback. But most of his wins and stats came from the wild card weekend and the 13 second game. 6 of his 8 wins came in the first round, a round Pat and Tom Brady hardly ever played in. He is 2-4 in the divisional round and 0-2 in the Championship game. The 13 second game is not on him. But 2023 season, he had the ball with a chance to take the lead with a few minutes to go. Came up short. Last season, he had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead with a few minutes to go, and didn’t cross midfield. This year, had the ball with a chance to take an 8 or 9 point lead and he skipped a ball to Shakir that might have been a td. Settled for a fg. Then down 3, he did drive his team down the field, but missed Knox for what likely would have been the game winning touchdown. They settled for a fg. Then the Bills D did get a stop in overtime. Josh got the ball back and started to drive down the field before throwing a pass a little short to Brandin Cooks and the rest is history.

Josh was in tears after the game because unlike the rest of the world, he knew he blew the game. That is 3 years in a row that Superman could have came through but instead he was just Clark Kent. But I give Josh credit because he keeps rolling out there and having very good seasons and gives them a shot in the playoffs every year. You don’t win solely because of your quarterback but if you don’t have a good one, you aren’t making it very far. But I’m concerned that this thing may just be too much of a mess for him to do that anymore.

After the game, there were tears everywhere. And apparently those tears got Sean McDermott fired. The owner did a press conference which turned out to be a terrible idea. The owner basically admitted that he hadn’t planned on firing McDermott until he walked into the locker room and saw that all the players were sad. That seems like sound logic. I find it best to always make emotional decisions. Especially when they are big decisions. Then he decided to promote the GM who every Bills fan and sports pundit thinks is doing a terrible job at getting Josh enough help. Terry Pegula even defended the GM about one particular player, Keon Coleman. Pegula said the GM didn’t want to draft Keon and that the coaches pushed for that and Beane was just being a team player. So basically the only one who wants Keon just got fired. But hey, can’t wait to see you at OTA’s, Keon! Pegula then stated that the players gave everything they had. He also said that it was a catch and the only reason they came up short was because of a bad call. Speaking of bad calls, the refs missed an obvious hold in the end zone prior to that “bad call” which would have lost the Bills the game, and would have saved us all from the constant whining about the “catch” and the “bad PI calls” that shouldn’t have been called because it was a crucial moment. The first PI call was correct but kind of weak. But there was a roughing the passer call anyway, so what did they gain, like 5 or 10 extra yards? The second one would make a highlight reel of most obvious PI calls this season. But again, listen to the logic here. The Bills only lost because of a bad call but the coach is fired because he can’t get it done. Again, firing McDermott had to be on the board. But promoting the GM and only firing him because the players were sad, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Now they are moving on from this disastrous press conference by interviewing other coaches on the staff, former coaches from the staff and Phillip Rivers. And no, I am not joking about that last one. I’m not one to throw shade at Phillip Rivers. I didn’t think he could come back and play quarterback but he sure did. I mean he didn’t win any games but he looked alright. What’s even funnier than the Bills interviewing him is all the normal reporter guys like Ian Rappaport acting like this is a normal thing. He was basically the offensive coordinator on his team the last several years he played they say. He knows a lot of people in the league. And he even coached some high school football. Of course so did I. Maybe I should send the Bills my resume. But honestly, I think this is a great move. No one knows having good regular seasons and then falling short in the playoffs like Phillip Rivers.

To make things more interesting, apparently Josh Allen is sitting in on all the interviews. I get wanting your QB to interact with potential coaches a little bit and even asking them what they think. But sitting in during interviews? That’s absurd. Can the owner and the GM who is now the president of everything or whatever, not make their own decisions. “Josh, we figure if you are going to keep losing in heartbreaking ways, it might as well be with someone you really like.” Not to mention, how does the rest of the team feel about it? Are they like, do I get a vote? Hell, maybe the prospective coaches could do an interview with each player. It could be like speed dating and each player could fill out little cards and whichever potential new coach gets the highest total score is the guy you hire. I wouldn’t put it past Beane and Pegula.

Look, maybe this all turns out okay for them. Maybe this change is just what they need and they will get over the hump and make a super bowl next year. But how it has and is being handled is ridiculous and silly. And to me it has disaster written all over. I’m not cheering for that though. I like the Bills. I like Josh Allen. The only thing I don’t like is everyone as the kids say “glazing” him all the time. We should take a step back before we join dummies like Colin Cowherd who said he was better than Elway and Marino and more talented than Patrick. Those guys have a combined 5 rings, 11 Super Bowl appearances and 4 MVPs. Not to mention they all also at some point led the league in a passing stat. But I hope he achieves statistical and team success. Like I said, I like the guy.

I don’t know where this thing is headed. Maybe it will be great. Maybe it will be a dumpster fire. My guess is something in between. But regardless, the journey is wildly entertaining…unless of course you are a Bills fan then this thing has already gone on 13 seconds too long.