Bills looking like Browns of 1980s
By STEVE KING
The Buffalo Bills now know what the Browns of the late 1980s felt like.
The Bills lost 42-36 in overtime to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC divisional playoffs on Sunday night.
A year ago, they bolted to 9-0 first-quarter lead then lost 38-24 to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game.
Two straight seasons, and two straight misses, including a near-miss on Sunday night after the Bills appeared to score the winning touchdown with 15 seconds left on a Josh Allen pass. But somehow, some way, quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs quickly got themselves into position to kick the game-tying field goal as time expired in regulation, forcing overtime, then watched Kansas City win the coin toss, score a quick TD and win the game.
Allen played well in both games. Mahomes played just a bit better.
The Browns lost three times in four years to the Denver Broncos in the AFC title game, including excruciatingly so in back-to-back seasons in 1986 and ”87 with “The Drive” and then “The Fumble,” respectively.
Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar played well in both of those games, including the first one after his TD pass to wide receiver Brian Brennan with just under five minutes left in regulation gave the Browns a seven-point lead, but the Broncos’ John Elway was just a bit better.
Since both Kosar and Elway were young, the Browns knew that the road to the Super Bowl ran through Denver. So they made roster changes and coaching changes, including hiring iconic defensive mind Bud Carson as head coach to put together a game plan to stop Elway. Nothing worked — the Browns never did get past the Broncos — and the frustration built, leaving a bad taste in everyone’s mouths that lingers today, over three decades later.
Wonder if the same thing will happen to the Bills? Allen and Mahomes are both young, so the road to the Super Bowl goes through Kansas City. Buffalo will have to at least tweak a few things to try to close that small gap with the Chiefs, and if that doesn’t work, then outright changes, including perhaps even a few significant ones, may be needed.
And in addition, the Bills might get some serious competition as well from another young quarterback, Joe Burrow, and the Cincinnati Bengals, especially if the Bengals can pull off another upset and defeat the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday.
In any event, it will be interesting to sit back and watch it all play out, particularly if the Browns can rebuild from a disappointing season to get back into the mix.
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