Super Bowl LX this weekend will close the books on another National Football League season that has tortured no fan base as much as that of the Buffalo Bills, whose supporters are known affectionately as the Bills Mafia. The Bills are the only team in history to reach four consecutive Super Bowls—and lose all four. The first loss, to the New York Giants in 1991, was by a single point. The Bills later endured a 17-year playoff drought from 2000 to 2017, the longest such streak across the four major American professional sports leagues.
This season ended brutally for the Bills. On January 17, stud quarterback Josh Allen—the NFL’s 2025 MVP—threw a controversial “freak interception” that led to a divisional-round loss to the Denver Broncos. Head coach and champion of Buffalo Sean McDermott was fired two days later, after nine seasons of playoff appearances with no Super Bowl berth. As sports writer Tyler Dunne wrote, no other coach in NFL history has won more playoff games (eight) without reaching a Super Bowl. The same is true of Allen among quarterbacks.
