BUFFALO, N.Y. — When I went down to the hotel lobby here Monday morning to get a cup of coffee, I ran into some Bills fans checking out and got to speaking with one. For some reason, I asked her what she was thinking Sunday night at Highmark Stadium as Buffalo’s Tyler Bass went out to attempt that potential game-tying 44-yard field goal with 1 minute, 43 seconds left.
She didn’t use those haunting words ever-present in Buffalo history: “Wide right.” Maybe she couldn’t even utter them.
But she did say Scott Norwood’s infamous missed field goal in the waning seconds of Super Bowl XXV (in 1991) has stayed with her ever since. And that she could only assume the worst in a moment like that — as Bass made happen by indeed missing wide right to preserve the Chiefs’ 27-24 victory in the AFC Divisional Round game.
In the bubbling Chiefs locker room late Sunday night, Bass’ counterpart, Harrison Butker, thought about what Bass must be dealing with.
“I never root against kickers, so it’s unfortunate that he missed the kick,” Butker said, smiling and adding: “Good for the team. Good for the Chiefs. But as a kicker, I definitely feel for him, because we’ve all been there.”
Not just kickers, though.
Even as it becomes more faint by the year, it bears fresh mention that back in The Before Times, pre-Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs fans were stranded where Bills fans continue to languish: in a sense of constant dread that replenished itself with each wretched turn.
The stark point of contrast — between then and now for the Chiefs and their fans, between their flourishing experiences today and the tortured times for the Bills and their faithful — is cause for one last pause to appreciate this marvel before they travel to Baltimore to play in their sixth straight AFC Championship Game.
It wasn’t always like this.
It won’t always be like this.
Just the same, ascending to this stage has become a perennial truth of the Mahomes generation, which grows more astonishing all the time. Since his advent as QB1, the Chiefs have morphed from a franchise whose best times were nearly a half-generation past into one whose good old days are right here, right now.
Even after a precarious (11-6) regular season made them look vulnerable and summoned a fretfulness in Chiefs fans that still lingers.
Even when they’d already lost to Buffalo, and the surging Bills finally were getting them at home for Mahomes’ first career postseason road game and it just felt like maybe this was Buffalo’s time.
So much so that the nice woman I spoke with in the hotel lobby said her Chiefs-fan husband apologized to her for the loss, figuring it was about time her team had a turn.
Instead, the Chiefs now are 13-3 in the postseason with Mahomes at quarterback. With one more win, he will trail only Tom Brady (35) and Joe Montana (16) with playoff wins beside his name. At age 28.
