The ascent of the Buffalo Bills to legit Super Bowl-contender status during this decade has been mostly framed through a feel-good lens. After the snakebitten franchise, famous for losing four straight Super Bowls in the 1990s, finally snapped a miserable 17-season playoff drought in 2017, then drafted franchise cornerstone quarterback Josh Allen, the Bills have been back, baby. And they’ve served as worthy AFC foil to the Kansas City Chiefs during their dynastic 2020s run, coming oh-so close, on several occasions, to spoiling the Mahomes–Kelce-and-Co. fairy tale.

But enough with the vibes at this point. 

Because the Bills are on pace to frustrate their fans like no franchise has ever done before. In the Super Bowl era, 15 teams across the decades have won five or more consecutive division titles. Among them are the likes of the Pittsburgh Steelers of the ‘70s (six straight AFC Central crowns, four Super Bowls wins), the Dallas Cowboys of the ‘90s (five straight NFC titles, three Super Bowls wins), and the Belichick–Brady New England Patriots (five straight divisions wins, two Super Bowl victories, one Super Bowl loss, from 2003 to 2007; 11 consecutive AFC East crowns, three Super Bowl wins, two Super Bowl losses, from 2009 to 2019). Of these 15 historically excellent squads, a mere two of them failed to reach a single Super Bowl by year five of their division-winning runs: the Los Angeles Rams of the ‘70s, who eventually made a Super Bowl following the 1979 season, the seventh year of their streak, and these modern-day Buffalo Bills, AFC East champs from 2020 to 2024.  

And those Rams had the likes of James “Shack” Harris, Pat Haden, and Vince Ferragamo under center. Not Allen, the reigning NFL MVP who has more touchdowns to his name through his first seven seasons than any other NFL quarterback in history. “How can you not do it?” says Buffalo native Sal Capaccio, Bills reporter for WGR, a Buffalo sports-radio station, echoing the angst of the team’s passionate fan base known as the Bills Mafia. “You’re right there and you haven’t done it. You have this generational talent. People like this only walk the planet once every 100 years.” 
Across western New York, trepidation has set in. “From a lot of fans, there’s panic in a couple of ways,” says Capaccio. “Do we have the right people running the organization to ultimately get us there? Because we believe we have the right quarterback. But the second part is, how long do we have this quarterback for?” Allen, 29, hasn’t missed a start since his 2018 rookie season. But as a 6-ft. 5-in. dual-threat player, he’s a big target on the field who puts himself at risk with his running. How long can he stay healthy? “You only get so many cracks at it with a guy like that,” says Capaccio.

“The temperature probably this year is higher than it has ever been,” says former Bills star Jim Kelly, the quarterback for those 1990s Super Bowl teams, who settled in Buffalo after ending his Hall of Fame career in 1997. “Now we have to make it to the Super Bowl. Josh is not getting younger. The expectations to get to the Super Bowl, and win one, is so high, that people are going crazy.” 

Everyone still makes a big deal about Buffalo’s 1990s Super Bowl futility: a Netflix documentary on the Dallas Cowboys champions of that era, released this summer, shined more light on that pain. But not even making a Super Bowl during the Allen era might be worse. “It would be crueler to not get there,” says Capaccio. 

After all, in the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” 

Kelly agrees: he prefers his fate of going to four straight Super Bowls and losing than never making one, a prospect Allen now faces. “Hell yeah,” says Kelly. “Your goal is to go there. Everybody that takes the field during training camp, they want to go to the Super Bowl and compete for that one trophy. There’s no doubt about it.”

He adds that the experience of going through that infamous tribulation has also bonded his teammates together, even 30 years later: the ‘90s Bills group chat during games is firing, though Kelly shuts off his phone, preferring to focus. “Now they know why I don’t respond,” he says. “I yell at the officials so much, I probably wouldn’t hear them anyways.”     

With the Chiefs appearing more vulnerable in a season coming off a Super Bowl trouncing, Buffalo—which opens its 2025 campaign Sunday night at home against another formidable foe, the Baltimore Ravens—is poised for a breakthrough. “The offensive side of the ball is a set piece,” says Steve Tasker, a Pro Bowl special-teams standout for the ‘90s Bills who hosts a radio show in Buffalo. The 2024 Bills set a franchise record for most points (525) and touchdowns (65) in a single season. The team’s offensive line allowed the fewest sacks (14) by any team since 2009.

“The question marks come from the other side of the ball,” says Tasker. Injuries and inexperience in the defensive backfield are a concern. The defense ranked 17th in yards allowed a year ago, a bottom-half performance, but thrived on creating turnovers. Buffalo was tops in the NFL in 2024 in takeaway/giveaway ratio. 

Turnovers are nice for a defense. But they’re difficult to depend on. 

If the defense can do enough to push the Bills into the Super Bowl, no fan base would deserve that joyous moment more than Buffalo’s. Of the cities who’ve had at least one big-four (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL) sports team active since 1966, only Buffalo and San Diego have never won a title. That’s a 59-year championship drought for both the Bills and the NHL’s Sabres, who debuted in 1970.

While Bills Mafia holds dear traditions like smashing into tables and dousing a superfan in condiments before games, the group also developed a philanthropic bent. Bills fans have repeatedly rallied around players on their own team, like safety Damar Hamlin after he suffered cardiac arrest on the field in early 2023, and on opposing teams to raise money for worthy causes. For example, after Ravens tight end Mark Andrews dropped a game-tying pass in Baltimore’s divisional playoff loss to Buffalo in January—earning him the typical despicable online vitriol—a Bills fans started a GoFundMe to raise money for a Type 1 diabetes research organization that Andrews, who has the condition, has supported. The campaign raised nearly $150,000. In January 2021, Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson suffered a concussion in Buffalo’s 17-3 playoff victory over Baltimore. Bills fans started a campaign that has since raised more than $500,000 for Blessings in a Backpack, a nonprofit supported by the Ravens star that feeds children who are at risk of going hungry on weekends, when free and reduced-price school meal programs are unavailable.

“People use Buffalo as the butt of jokes,” says Capaccio. “For our losing Super Bowls, for our weather. Because of that, there’s a certain type of bonding that happens. We take care of each other here. When my neighbors can’t get out of their driveway, I shovel their snow. We have a mentality that no one else can help us. We have to help each other. That’s what we do. It’s grown into helping everybody. Because of all the frustration of people always banging on us and making fun of us for all these years, there’s been this mentality to show people what we’re truly all about. We want to make sure that we help everybody rise.” 

So yeah, time’s ticking for these Buffalo Bills. But as another NFL season kicks off this fall, let’s offer three cheers for perspective. “We all want it,” Capaccio says of the elusive Bills championship. “It consumes us every day as sports fans and a community. But we’re going to be OK no matter what.”