Bills’ playoff heartache continues with another ‘Wide Right’ field goal

The Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs put on another playoff classic to wrap up Divisional Round weekend. For the Bills and their fans, the outcome not only didn’t change, it evoked the most painful memories from over 30 years ago.

Down 27-24 with under two minutes to go, the Bills stalled out at Kansas City’s 26 with a chance to take the lead. Veteran kicker Tyler Bass, who missed a field goal and had another one blocked last week against the Pittsburgh Steelers, was brought on with the chance to tie it up.

On a chilly, windy night in upstate New York, the kick was pushed wide right, as CBS play-by-play voice Jim Nantz said, “the two most dreaded words in Buffalo.”

The Chiefs picked up a first down two plays later, running out the clock, and clinching a sixth straight AFC Championship appearance.

Perhaps Mahomes would’ve led a game-winning drive to make a made Bass field goal moot, but that’s up to speculation and assumption. It’s still Wide Right 2.0 for Buffalo. In 1991, Scott Norwood’s game-winning 47-yard attempt in Super Bowl XXV against the New York Giants is arguably the most famous wide right kick in NFL history.

Once 6-6 and out of the playoff picture entering its bye week, Buffalo had to win five straight games, including on the road against the Chiefs, to secure a playoff spot and win the AFC East. Finally facing Mahomes and company at home for the first time in the playoffs, this looked like the Bills’ best chance to exact revenge for the defeats in the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

Instead, the road to the Super Bowl not only ends at the hands of the Chiefs for the third time in four seasons, it ends in front of their home fans, and in a painfully familiar way.