Their fans show up in -10 degree weather half naked with their bodies painted in blue and red to resemble the players' uniforms. They, like the city of Atlanta at the time, has never experienced a world championship in any sport. They're so new to that stuff they think the greatest joy will be in the early days after they win it. No. It's like intercourse. Before you experience it, you only think it's the moment and immediately afterwards where you feel the rush. No. The joy comes whenever you're sitting behind your cubicle at work, or your desk at school, when bullies are coming at you, this is when your team winning it all really comes into play. You need to make work fun in order to do it when you're a young boy, and most of work unfortunately is being bored and just putting in the time. And thus, you think of your playoff heroes. And the city of Buffalo really wanted to know what this was all like. Since the Naked Gun movies and his various other acting appearences at the time, Buffalo alpha males were getting sick of telling their kids about god dang O.J. Simpson whenever they needed a good sports story. It was almost like they could feel the time was coming when talking about their town's only ever true superstar was about to make them look ridiculous, even heartless and backward. They probably never believed how true that was. The Buffalo Bills of the early 90s would be hard at work to give the city an even better and more family-friendly legend to tell the younger kids.

The Bills stormed through the 1990 season to finish 13-3, hurt folks in the divisional playoffs, and went to their first AFC Championship game. The Raiders with quarterback Jay Shreoder would be torched. They went down 41-0 to Buffalo before the half and lost 51-3. It was glorious. Dick Enberg on NBC couldn't believe it and told us so. And O.J. Simpson was right there with Bob Costas in earmuffs.

AFC CHAMPIONS!!! The Bills back then had Leon Seals who was like the Fridge but with Hugh Douglas's attitude. Remember Hugh Douglas from the early 2000s Philadelphia Eagles? The one who ripped Jim Miller's arm out of his tender socket in the Division Playoffs and Chicago blew it? Well back to Leon Seals. He would only appear in one Super Bowl with the Bills and this was it. And there's probably never been any individual player so missed in the history of pro sports. Even the Bulls were able to do just fine without Michael Jordan.

Later that day, the world would gather around CBS and watch the 1990 NFC Championship Game to see who would face this incredible Buffalo Bills team. The contenders were the two-time defending world champion San Francisco 49ers with Joe Montana, Roger Craig, Jerry Rice, John Taylor, Tom Rathman, Barton, all those linemen, and then a defense with Ronnie Lott, Tim McDonald, Charles Haley and whoever the hell else. These were the mothersuckers. These were the guys that nobody wanted to face. The Bills best hope was what they did -- kill the Raiders on nationwide television and hope the 49ers saw it and got intimidated. Man you do not want to mess with the 49ers. You don't poke them, talk smack to them, nothing. If you did you'd see Jerry Rice dart past you and catch a perfect spiral without so much as lifting his arms. Just give Jerry Rice some inspiration.

San Francisco's opponents are the New York Giants who lost both the brilliant running back Joe Morris and quarterback Phil Simms for the season. Their back ups are running back Ottis Anderson and quarterback Jeff Hostetler. And midway through the game, Leonard Marshall? would knock Joe Montana old flat. His hand was broken, his face was messed up. Nonetheless San Francisco leads 13-12 and has the ball with four minutes left. It doesn't look good for New York. It seems they've done everything they could, but the 49ers are about to head to a third straight SuperBowl. They get in the red zone, and then within the five. Handoff Steve Young to Roger Craig. He tries to jump through a pile and has the ball jarred out. He gets stampeded over as he dives backwards to try to recover it. The Giants get the ball. They get down to the San Francisco 29? Matt Bahr has three seconds. He kicks....

IT'S GOOD!!!! THE BILLS DON'T HAVE TO PLAY THE 49ERS!!!! THE BILLS DON'T HAVE TO PLAY THE 49ERS!!!

But pro football players believe in curses. During Superbowl XXV in Tampa, Whitney Houston sung the national anthem at halftime so powerfully and crafty, but right in the direction of the Giants' bench. She had her back turned to the Bills. And even if you're an athiest you'll take whatever you can get. Having religious teammates is a wonderful blessing, speaking as someone who played a little bit in high school but sucked. There's alot of reason to imagine you're going to bleed internally, maybe have a broken bone if not a damaged image. Girls could be watching and if you're a scrub then you could find yourself getting injured from trying to dodge these hits or give ones that are crushing. And having teammates who come from religion plays a big part in giving you confidence to sustain it and perform at a decent level. But there's also that element of the hex. The curse. And the Bills completely broke down in the second half. The Bills defense let the Giants hold the ball for 40 of the 60 minutes in Superbowl XXV. Their saving grace was Thurman Thomas. He was otherworldly and would send all Hostetler and Dave Meggett and Ottis Anderson's work down the drain within seconds with an 80-yard touchdown to begin the fourth quarter. But the Giants would score and it was 20-19 with about two minutes left. Once again, Thurman Thomas is great and he gets the Bills to the 29. Scott Norwood, as everyone knows, misses the field goal just within inches of the right post. Giants win the Super Bowl and Thurman Thomas, with 185 all-purpose yards, gets denied the game MVP. The Bills fans cried, threw things, sat stunned, but there was wonderous optimism because this was still their first. They were young, they were good, and they were famous like the Cubs are for their pretty blue uniforms. They made the covers of all the magazines, and were big stars going into the 1991 season. Nobody in the world would have believed that their one and only chance to win the Super Bowl had come and gone. And even if you told people this, none of them would believe that the 49ers would fail to be one of the teams that smoked them.

Norwood would become the all-time Bills leader in points scored however and win a huge game for AFC supremacy against the Raiders with a kick to tie in the final seconds of regulation, and a long one in overtime. And during the 91 season the Bills would go 13-3 and end up in an AFC Championship game at home against the Denver Broncos. We'll get to them in another blog because they have a happy ending and had the record at that point for Super Bowl embarrassment. They were about to be beaten by the Bills in THAT department as well. But first lets get to this stupid game.

0-0 at the half, the Broncos have this kicker that misses FOUR STRAIGHT FIELD GOALS. And then my man Carlton Bailey #54 at linebacker jumps up and steals the ball from Elway to RUN IN FOR A TOUCHDOWN!!! IT WAS AWESOME!!! 7-0 and the Broncos can't do crap against us and it's late in the third!!!

And then Scott Norwood kicks a field goal to put us up 10-0 with 2:19 left. John Elway got battered really bad in that game, not as bad as Montana, but ended up with a deep enough thigh bruise that he couldn't play. So Dan Reeves the Broncos coach sends in Gary Kubiak who turns into the game's leading passer. He get the Broncos a touchdown. It's 10-7. And the BRONCOS GET THE ONSIDE KICK!!!!! THE BRONCOS GET THE ONSIDE KICK!!! Here they come! The Broncos can win if Gary Kubiak can drive them downfield...

So here we go. Broncos for the AFC championship...a handoff to Steve Sewell and he's stripped and loses it!!! The Bills are going back to the SUPERBOWL!!! THE BILLS GO BACK TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!

The foolishness, the absolute unprofessional foolishness of the Bills leading up to Super Bowl XXVI was crazy. It was impossible to have sympathy for Thurman Thomas or Jim Kelly when they started arguing over who was the "Michael Jordan" of that team. Why would Kelly say that to start trouble? He didn't think trouble would begin? And the whole team gets divided, saving their beefs for when the coaches aren't looking, and the coaches were warning them not to be divided which made them more hostile and willing to divide.

Thurman Thomas can't find his helmet two plays into the game. Meanwhile the Redskins go up 17 in the first half, and then 24-0 before the Bills get a field goal. It's soon 37-10 and I'm getting a ride back home from my friend Daniel's house. I didn't even care that the Bills lost by the time this was done. I was so pissed at them.

They also got rid of Norwood after this season. That was sad.

But then the next year, the Bills went 11-5 and got beaten by Houston on the last game of the season 35-3. The reason we lost was because we got a whole mess of injuries in that very game in Houston. Jim Kelly went down. Thurman Thomas. Bruce Smith was out there with cracked ribs. Cornelius Bennett had a leg contusion. And so the wildcard game would be hosted by Buffalo, and their opponent were these same Houston Oilers. Frank Reich started in place of Kelly, Kenneth Davis in for Thomas, and they went down 35-3 once again. They were in the third with about 9 minutes left, and that's when the most amazing thing ever witnessed in NFL history took place right before our eyes.

Things were so dismal at that point that the lights came out and nobody bothered to fix them. And Frank Reich didn't think there was much else he could do but make it look respectable. So he doesn't quit, he drives down field, and Kenneth Davis runs in for a touchdown. It's 35-10. Then there's an onside kick. What is this? And the Bills get it back? Awesome. And so Reich has the ball and he sees that there's nobody guarding little Northwestern alum Don Beebe. He throws to Beebe and he scuttles in for the touchdown against the right sideline completely unharmed. 35-17. Then Warren Moon throws an interception on a tip ball to Carlton Bailey!!! Rich Stadium is rocking. And Reich throws downfield to Andre Reed TOUCHDOWN!!! 35-24. And only three minutes have gone by. Reed would catch two more touchdowns and they'd take the lead with about 4 minutes to go in the game. But Warren Moon took the Oilers down and Al Del Greco makes the kick to send it to the overtime. The Oilers win the tip, but Warren Moon THROWS AN INTERCEPTION to the Bills Nate Odomes!!! It's going nuts!!! And the Bills get down to about the 25, new kicker Steve Christie from Tampa Bay gets ready to kick...he does...IT'S GOOD!!! AND THE BILLS WIN!!! THE GREATEST COMEBACK IN NFL HISTORY FOR THE TWO-TIME DEFENDING AFC CHAMPIONS!!!

And so the Bills would go into Pittsburgh arrogantly and win 24-3, and then into Miami and kill them 29-10. The Bills were heading to their third straight Super Bowl. They got the Dallas Cowboys.

Let me make this clear. Nobody in the city of Buffalo thought Dallas was going to do a thing to the Bills. Nobody knew who the hell they were!

Ha. The Bills lost 52-17.

By now it's become a joke. The Bills are being called the Billls (that's no typo).

But in the 1993 season, they finish 12-4 and win the wildcard game at home against the Raiders that was famous for it's 30 inches of snow and zero visibility and -40 windchills. I love how NFL games continue to be played even if it's so cold it's dangerous. I think they beat the Colts after that, and then they drew Joe Montana in the AFC Championship Game. He was then on the Kansas City Chiefs and still pretty good. But the Bills took it. They were heading to their 4th straight Super Bowl and a rematch with the Dallas Cowboys.

After the first half, it was 13-6 Buffalo. Early on, Steve Christie would tie the game at 3 with a record 56-yard field goal. But then they intercepted all Jim Kelly's passes and we lost 37-13. That's right. Not a single point in the second half. It sucked.

0-4 in the Super Bowl.

Now a big problem was that too many people on this Buffalo Bills team weren't heralded and didn't want to let losing the game destroy their Superbowl experience. Why be injured during your free vacation to the French Quarter?

Next year the Steelers beat the Bills in the 95 AFC divisional playoffs in Pittsburgh.

Jim Kelly retired after the 96 season.

Bruce Smith after the 98 season.

John Elway won a Super Bowl before the Bills did.

But we got Terrell Owens, baby!!!! We got it this year!!!

Below is a 2-part series about the best band in the last 25 years.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Phish

Part 2 is better because that's when they're famous.

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-4-Time-AFC-Champion-Buffalo-Bills