The two words that haunt Buffalo Bills fans

That just wasn’t the case for the Buffalo Bills on Sunday night.

With a spot in the AFC Championship Game on the line, Buffalo trailed their old foes, the Kansas City Chiefs, by three points.

With time running out, Bills quarterback Josh Allen put together a 16-play, 54-yard drive in the fourth quarter to set up a potential game-tying 44-yard field goal that would have put pressure on the defending Super Bowl champions.

Stepping up was Buffalo kicker Tyler Bass, who hadn’t missed any of his nine career field goal attempts in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime when his team was tied or trailing by three points or less.

In short, his previous resume suggested that Bass would convert the kick and send the game to overtime.

However, Bass’s kick – after starting its trajectory accurately through the goal posts – veered to the right and was no good, leading to Kansas City’s 27-24 victory.

And, as Jim Nantz said on the CBS broadcast: “The two most feared words in Buffalo have resurfaced.

“Wide right.”

A familiar enemy

Bills fans have heard these two words before.

The franchise had built a winning team in the late 1980s under head coach Marv Levy, who booked his place in Super Bowl XXV in 1991.

Playing against the great New York Giants team of that era under legendary head coach Bill Parcells, Buffalo faced them, trailing by one point as time ticked down.

Led by the team’s famed quarterback Jim Kelly, the Bills drove to the Giants’ 29-yard line, setting up a 47-yard field goal to clinch the franchise’s first-ever Super Bowl title.

Bills kicker Scott Norwood entered the frame to potentially etch his name into folklore. But he ended up doing it for a very different reason.

In a moment bearing a striking similarity to Bass’ miss, Norwood’s kick flew wide right of the posts, beginning a bittersweet streak of four losses in four successive Super Bowls for the Bills.

This time it was Bass and not Norwood whose attempt flew wide right, but members of the Bills were keen to emphasize that their kicker was not to blame.

Allen was shown on television cameras reaching out to Bass after the game to console him and sought to take the pressure off him during his postgame press conference.

“I wish he didn’t end up in this situation,” Allen told reporters. “You win as a team, you lose as a team. One game doesn’t define a game. It doesn’t define a season. I know people will say that. We have to be there for him because, again, we’ve done a few plays before, probably singing a different tune right now.

However, after the failure sealed the Chiefs’ sixth straight AFC Championship berth, Bass took full responsibility.

“At the end of the day, it’s all my fault,” a dejected Bass told reporters in the locker room.
“I have to do a better job to reach my goal. I have to do a better job of playing a little more left when you have a left-to-right game.

“I’ve been here long enough to know you have to do this. I trusted my line that I had during warm-ups. Hitting a good ball didn’t work. I feel bad. I love this team and it hurts. This one hurts a lot. I have to do a better job.

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