Things certainly did not start well for the Buffalo Bills in their new 80,000-seat stadium in Orchard Park when it came to playing AFC East rival Miami.
The place opened in 1973 and the Dolphins’ decade-long domination of the Bills was already in full force as they won both games in 1970, 1971 and 1972. By the time the 1970s came to a close, Miami had every game in the decade – 20 straight – including the first seven between the teams in Rich Stadium.
But things began to turn Buffalo’s way with one of the most memorable games in the stadium’s history, Week 1 of 1980 when the streak was broken, and through the years, no team shows up more in my 53 memorable games for 53 years in Orchard Park than the Dolphins.
Here is a recap of the 10 games I chose:
Jump to: 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1990 | Jan. 1991 | Sept. 1991 | 1995 | 2016 | 2023 | 2024
Sept. 2, 1979: A missed kick and a gut-punch loss to Miami in ’79
Dolphins 9, Bills 7
Tom Dempsey claimed that he missed only two last-play-of-the-game field goals in his 11-year NFL career, and if that was true, both of them came at Rich Stadium with yours truly in attendance.
The first one had been in 1973 when he was with the Eagles and his misfire allowed the Buffalo Bills to win the game. The second came on this day as a member of the Bills, and it produced a far different effect for those of us in the stadium who walked out of the place with our jaws hanging open in frustration and disbelief.
After 18 consecutive losses to the Dolphins, victory was finally right there for the Bills on a rain-drenched opening day, and then it was gone. Dempsey, who had signed with Buffalo in 1978 and performed well so he was brought back in 1979, had an opportunity to forge his name into Bills’ lore by simply making a 34-yard kick on the final play of the game.
I was sitting in the end zone where Dempsey was kicking and I’ll never forget the excitement and anticipation that I shared with about 70,000 others that the misery against Miami was about to end because, come on, it was a 34-yard field goal, no way he’s missing that. And I’ll admit that no, I wasn’t thinking back to seven years earlier when I watched Dempsey miss his kick for the Eagles.
Well, I will also never forget the feeling of devastation, the ultimate punch in the gut that every one of us who were there felt, when Dempsey missed and the Dolphins laughed their way off the field as 9-7 winners over their favorite patsy.
This was several years before I became an impartial reporter covering the team that I grew up rooting for, so this loss really hurt and I can say, without question, it was the saddest moment I’ve ever experienced as a fan sitting in that stadium. That’s how much we hated the Dolphins and were so desperate to beat them.
“This is only the second time it has happened,” Dempsey said of his last-play miss. “It was just a bad kick on my part. It felt good, the snap and hold were good, and the weather was not a factor. I just blew it. A kicker’s job can depend on one kick and I’m thinking about that right now.”
Of course, Dempsey wasn’t solely to blame for the loss because leading up to the kick, it had been a gruesome day for the Bills’ offense as it managed only five first downs and 121 net yards. But the defense had been superb with the exception of one drive – which happened to occur during a fourth-quarter monsoon – which proved to be the difference.
Fullback Larry Csonka, returning to the Dolphins after a four-year absence, capped an impressive 14-play, 77-yard march that consumed 8:33 and gave Miami its winning points. Buffalo’s only score had come in the second quarter when defensive end Sherman White blocked a Uwe von Schamann field goal and Charlie Romes picked up the loose ball and ran 76 yards for a touchdown.
Yet here it was, 1:47 left to play after a 28-yard punt return by Keith Moody put the ball at the Miami 35, the rain suddenly stopped, and the Bills had a golden opportunity to end the Miami streak. “I thought the stage was set,” Moody said.
Coach Chuck Knox played conservatively, though, and rather than trying to score a touchdown, he admitted that he was playing for the field goal because, “We hadn’t scored a touchdown for 59 minutes and 35 seconds.” He trusted Dempsey, and Dempsey failed, and I remember holder Dan Manucci kneeling for probably half a minute after the ball sailed wide left, refusing to believe the Bills hadn’t won.
“Damn,” said longtime Bills offensive guard Reggie McKenzie who joined the team in 1972 and had experienced more losses to Miami than anyone on the team. “Fifteen times, man, 15 times. The fans, that’s the thing that hurts the fellas more than anything else. They wanted to win it for the 70,000 who came out to sit in the rain.”
Sept. 7, 1980: Bills end the Dolphins curse in a 1980 classic
Bills 17, Dolphins 7
Three-hundred seventy days earlier, Buffalo Bills offensive guard Reggie McKenzie – the longest-tenured man on the roster, having come to Buffalo in the 1972 NFL Draft – sat at his locker at Rich Stadium with a glazed, disbelieving look on his face.
The Bills had just blown their best chance in a decade to defeat the Miami Dolphins and thus end what at the time was an 18-game losing streak. It crept up to 19 on that day when Tom Dempsey inexplicably missed a 34-yard field goal as time expired, and it grew to 20 when the Bills lost in Miami six weeks later.
It’s almost unfathomable to consider that one NFL team could lose 20 consecutive games to another, a streak that neatly encompassed the entire decade of the 1970s and established an NFL record that might never be broken.
But McKenzie refused to believe that it could go on forever, and in the funereal silence of the Bills locker room, he told reporters, “I’m going to beat them once; before I’m through I’m going to beat them.”
Having watched in horror that day when Dempsey’s kick sailed wide of the left upright on Sept. 2, 1979, I certainly had my doubts that McKenzie and the Bills were ever going to beat Don Shula’s Dolphins.
Nonetheless, there I was, among nearly 80,000 fans at Rich Stadium on a gloriously warm and sunny Sunday afternoon, Sept. 7, 1980 to be exact, filled with renewed hope that not only might the improved Bills make the playoffs for just the second time since 1966, but that they might actually beat the Dolphins who were in town for Week 1 looking to start the new decade the same way the old one had ended.
The Bills felt the same way and while they tried their hardest to blow another one as Joe Ferguson threw five interceptions, Buffalo’s new 3-4 defense, nicknamed the Bermuda Triangle, came up with four interceptions of its own, one of which set up Joe Cribbs’ game-clinching touchdown leap on a fourth-and-1 play from the 2-yard-line with 2:02 left to play.
When the final gun sounded on this momentous 17-7 victory, you would have thought the Bills had won the Super Bowl. Fans poured onto the field to celebrate and they tore down both goal posts which I’m almost certain was the first time that had ever happened in Week 1 of any NFL season.
“This is the biggest win we’ve ever had here in 20 years,” owner Ralph Wilson said, perhaps in the euphoria of the day forgetting the two AFL Championship games his team won in the mid-1960s. “They brought the one goal post up to me. They carried it up the whole stadium, but they couldn’t get it in the box because it was too long. That was a great day, one that I’ll never forget.”
It’s one that no one who was there, whether you were a player, coach or fan, will ever forget. Fred Smerlas correctly opined that, “There was nothing wrong in the world that day.”
Because of Ferguson’s interceptions, the Bills were trailing 7-3 in the fourth quarter, but they took possession at their own 32 with 6:44 left to play, and finally, Ferguson decided to stop throwing to the guys in the white jerseys.
The critical play was a 29-yard completion to Jerry Butler that moved the ball to the 11, and a few plays later Ferguson rolled to his left and fired a dangerous pass to the left front corner of the end zone to fullback Roosevelt Leaks. Leaks made the catch in heavy traffic and crashed over the goal line with 3:42 remaining to give the Bills a 10-7 lead.
“I saw him all along. It was thrown where it had to be,” Ferguson said.
After the kickoff, Don Strock – having replaced the ineffective Bob Griese – was picked off by Isaiah Robertson and with the deafening roar of the crowd virtually carrying him through the Dolphins like a hot dog wrapper in a hurricane, Robertson weaved his way 39 yards to the 11, and Cribbs – playing in his first NFL game – put it away.
“It was a great win by a bunch of guys who were not going to be denied,” coach Chuck Knox said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a football team that came any more ready to play. In my 27 years of coaching, I’ve never seen such determination.”
Years later when I interviewed him for my book Relentless: The Hard-Hitting History of Buffalo Bills Football, Smerlas recalled a special feeling before the game, and he sensed that the Miami misery was going to end.
“I remember the spirit going into that game,” Smerlas said. “We walked onto that field and it was like a new era had begun. The fans were pumped, Chuck’s boys were tough, and there was no question, no reservation in anyone’s heart, that we were going to win that game. It was an electric atmosphere. When that final gun sounded and we beat them, there were no problems in the world that day. It was unbelievable.”
I was a freshman at Buffalo State College that year and living with my grandparents, and I remember the ride home with some buddies, and all along the way cars were pulled off the side of the road and fans were just partying as if it was Saturday night on the Elmwood strip, the hopping bar scene near campus.
It was such an amazing day.
Bob Kuechenberg, the star Miami offensive guard, had predicted way back in 1974 in the middle of the domination that, “Buffalo will never beat Miami as long as I am playing.”
He would have been right had he gone ahead and retired prior to the 1980 season which had been his plan. Instead, he made the decision to keep playing, and as fate would have it, Buffalo beat Miami.
“Yeah, I said that,” Kuechenberg said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come back from retirement. The difference was the Bills didn’t beat themselves, we beat ourselves. We made the big plays in the fourth quarter over the course of the last 10 years. That’s how we managed to put together a 20-game winning streak against Buffalo. The streak against Buffalo is something I will stand back on 20 years from now and be proud of. It had to end sometime.”
He then summed up the feelings of Bills fans everywhere when he said, “There wasn’t a single Bills player who was 0-20 against us, but there were a lot of Bills fans who were 0-20. It was something for the city to enjoy. If the shoe was on the other foot, I’d call for work, school and everything else to be closed tomorrow. The fans endured and they deserve a holiday.”
As for McKenzie, he deserved a holiday, too. After 16 losses to the Dolphins, he finally tasted victory, and he said later that night that he would be expecting a call from his old teammate and best friend, O.J. Simpson, who never beat the Dolphins. “I know he’ll say, ‘You suckers finally did it. You beat Miami.’”
Oct. 12, 1981: Joe Ferguson, Bills show they aren’t a fluke
Bills 31, Dolphins 21
With the 20-game Miami Dolphins curse having been exorcized the year before, now the 1980 division champion Buffalo Bills believed they were on equal footing with their long-time tormentor, and the NFL thought so, too.
When the schedule was constructed for 1981, the Bills were pitted against the Dolphins for a Week 6 prime-time showdown, just the eighth time the Bills had been featured on Monday Night Football and the first since 1977.
This was the first time I attended a night game at the stadium, and man, it was worth it. With Howard Cosell up in the press box serving as a target of derision for so many in the sellout crowd, the Bills put on quite a show for the national TV audience as they raced out to a 31-7 lead and coasted to victory.
“The first half had to be one of the best we’ve ever played,” said wide receiver Frank Lewis as the Bills dominated against a Dolphins team that came to Orchard Park with a 4-0-1 record and also had not lost a game in the preseason.
“Last year was the most satisfying,” said guard Reggie McKenzie of the streak-snapping victory over Miami that opened the 1980 season. “We came of age as a team and you could see that on the field tonight.”
Joe Ferguson put on a clinic as he threw for 221 yards and three TDs in the first 30 minutes, two of the scoring passes going to Jerry Butler and the other a 65-yard catch and run by running back Joe Cribbs. Ferguson would finish with 338 yards, his third-highest total to that point in his career.
“I wasn’t hit but twice all night,” Ferguson said, lauding his offensive line. “That’s fantastic protection. Also, we got good play-calling from the coaches upstairs. Some of the plays called were designed for defenses Miami was in and we hit them just right.”
On defense, interceptions by Shane Nelson and Isaiah Robertson directly led to Ferguson’s two TD passes to Butler, and by night’s end, Miami quarterback Don Strock threw four picks.
The Dolphins couldn’t do anything and their only score in the first half came after Buffalo had opened a 17-0 lead and Fulton Walker returned a kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown.
A few weeks earlier, the Bills played the first Thursday night prime-time game in their history and they lost 20-14 at home to the Eagles. But that experience, Ferguson said, might have helped the Bills in this game.
“A lot of guys on this team never played a night game,” he said. “We were looser than we were that night. We found out it’s not such a big deal.”
Dec. 23, 1990: No Jim Kelly, no problem as backup saves Bills
Bills 24, Dolphins 14
In front of a record crowd of 80,235, the Bills beat the Dolphins with Jim Kelly on the sideline using crutches after he’d suffered a knee injury the week before, and it was Frank Reich, relief quarterback extraordinaire, who came through with a 234-yard, two-TD passing performance.
Way back in Week 2, after the Miami Dolphins routed the Bills 30-7 to end their six-game losing streak to Buffalo, trash-talking Miami cornerback Tim McKyer said of the victory, “It was easy.”
McKyer was singing a different tune three-plus months later following the rematch in Orchard Park when, with the AFC East division title on the line, Buffalo ruled the day with a 24-14 victory.
“They brought it to another level,” McKyer admitted after the Bills won for the 13th time in 15 games, clinched their third consecutive division crown, and locked up home-field advantage in the upcoming playoffs thanks to a punishing performance that was much more proficient than the final 10-point margin indicated. “We got beat by a better football team today,” McKyer continued. “I know a better football team when I see one and I was looking at one today.”
Reich had proven his worth before, most notably when he rallied the Bills to a thrilling come-from-behind Monday night victory over the powerful Los Angeles Rams in 1989. But that had been an October game, a game not fraught with so much tension and so much riding on the outcome. No one knew what to expect from Reich in this bubbling cauldron of pressure. No one, that is, except his teammates.
“I’m not surprised a bit,” center Kent Hull said after Reich’s first start of the 1990 season and just his fifth in six years in the NFL. “You can’t rattle that guy. He’s as strong as they come.”
The same could be said for running back Thurman Thomas who, knowing he would have to shoulder an extra burden with Kelly sidelined, carried the ball a career-high 30 times in the season’s 15th game, piled up 154 yards and scored the put-away touchdown early in the fourth quarter.
“I saw Thurman run as hard as I’ve ever seen him run before,” said Hull. “When that happens, I think the offensive line plays a little harder. There’s a guy out there who weighs 190 pounds, taking on the big guys. We feel we’ve got to go get after somebody.”
In the week leading up to the game, another big mouth Dolphin was spouting off. Defensive end Jeff Cross remembered Buffalo rushing for just 44 yards in the early-season loss and he proclaimed the same thing would happen.
“Cross went out and said not only that we wouldn’t run, but we couldn’t run the football,” said Hull. “But in the second half I think maybe he wasn’t saying that anymore. They demand an awful lot of respect, they’ve pretty much stuffed everybody this year, but ‘can’t’ is an awfully big word.”
Said Thomas: “Anytime you have statements about how we can’t run the ball and how they embarrassed us in the second game of the season, it fires our guys up. Today, I think we could have run the ball anywhere we wanted. We just did an excellent job blocking.”
Jan. 12, 1991: Bills destroy divisional foe as war looms on the horizon
Bills 44, Dolphins 34
One by one they stepped up to the lectern to talk about what a glorious day it had been for the Bills.
There was Jim Kelly – having just played his first game in a month and showing no ill effects from the knee injury that sidelined him the final two regular-season games of the 1990 season – gleefully explaining how he was able to throw for 339 yards and three touchdowns during the Bills’ 44-34 AFC Divisional round playoff victory over the arch-rival Miami Dolphins.
There was Thurman Thomas, attitude and all, talking about his 117-yard rushing performance on the snow-slicked artificial turf at Rich Stadium.
There was Andre Reed detailing how he and James Lofton were able to torch Miami’s secondary for a combined 271 yards receiving and all three of Kelly’s touchdown tosses.
And there was Bruce Smith, revealing that part of his motivation for this game had come from a perceived insult from Dolphins’ Tim McKyer and Keith Sims who said earlier in the week on a Miami television show that the NFL’s leading sacker was soft against the run. “That really pissed me off,” Smith said about 10 times during his time at the lectern.
There was so much to talk about on this day as the Bills won the highest-scoring regulation-length playoff game in NFL history, gaining 493 yards in the process, to thrill 77,087 spectators who cheered louder and louder as the points piled up and the snow cascaded down. So much to talk about, yet no one was really paying attention.
Above the post-game lectern where the leaders of the Bills met the media, there was a television, its sound muted but the message that was being silently delivered throughout the interview sessions perfectly understood. The first leader of the free world named Bush, President George Herbert Bush, was telling the nation that war in the Persian Gulf was now imminent.
Sept. 1, 1991: Kelly’s comeback powers Bills past Dolphins in ’91 opener
Bills 35, Dolphins 31
Midway through the third quarter of the Buffalo Bills’ season opener against the Miami Dolphins, an announcement was made in the press box that Jim Kelly had suffered an ankle injury and would not be returning to the game.
Apparently, Kelly did not sign off on that prognosis because the man who earned his reputation as the toughest QB in the NFL missed only a few snaps, then returned to finish a 381-yard passing performance which ended up being the third-highest of his regular-season career and the Bills outlasted Miami in yet another classic shootout.
“It’s going to take a lot more than a bum ankle to keep me out of a game,’’ Kelly said.
Just nine months earlier the Bills had beaten Dan Marino and the Dolphins 44-34 in a divisional playoff game, but despite scoring nine fewer points, they were even more explosive in this game as they rang up a team-record 582 yards of total offense.
In rallying Buffalo from an early 14-0 deficit, Kelly completed 29 of 39 passes and threw touchdown passes of 54 yards to Andre Reed and 50 yards to Thurman Thomas. He directed an offense that converted nine of 11 third downs and also set a team record for most first downs with 33.
And he did it on an ankle that would have relegated most players to the bench, their foot in an ice bucket.
“If there’s a tougher quarterback in the league, I sure don’t know who it is,’’ coach Marv Levy said. “One, he is a tough son of a gun. Two, he heals fast, although I’ve never seen him heal that fast. Three, he wanted very much to go back in the game, and the doctor, after looking at him, didn’t feel he did any additional damage to the leg. It was just getting jammed and it stings when it’s already hurt.’’
Kelly pulled up lame on Buffalo’s first possession but was able to stay in the game. Then, with 8:14 left in the third quarter, T.J. Turner knocked Kelly down and the quarterback wasn’t able to get up. After a few minutes the Bills’ trainers lifted him off the artificial turf and escorted him to the bench, where, it was assumed, he would watch the rest of the game.
Uh-huh. Not Kelly.
He began walking gingerly on the sidelines, then he started walking normally and, eventually, briskly. Next came backpedaling and finally he started throwing a ball to make sure he could follow through on the ankle properly. When the Bills’ offense took the field for its next possession, No. 12 led them on.
“If I can take the field … this is my club, I’m going to do it,’’ he said. “I’m not going to lay down. I’m not going to stand up here and say I’m a hero, but I know what type of football player I am and I know what my offensive line and the other players on the team expect of me.’’
His 50-yard TD pass to Thomas gave Buffalo its first lead at 21-17, and after Marino answered with a TD pass to Mark Clayton early in the fourth quarter, Kelly engineered two drives that ended on TD runs by Thomas and Carwell Gardner for a 35-24 lead, just enough to offset a late Marino TD pass to Mark Duper.
Thomas was incredible as he finished the day with 165 yards rushing on 25 attempts and 103 yards on eight pass receptions, the first time in Bills history that a running back gained over 100 yards in each category in one game. “He was Mr. Everything today,’’ Kelly said.
“I thought both teams showed a lot of fiber out there,’’ Levy said. “We had to rally, they had to rally, both teams were playing with some holes. It was just a heckuva football game.’’
Dec. 30, 1995: The day the Dolphins were ‘Thurmanated’ from the playoffs
Bills 37, Dolphins 22
During the Buffalo Bills’ dynastic run in the AFC in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the Miami Dolphins’ defense went to bed at night, Thurman Thomas was the nightmare that kept them awake.
This had been going on for eight years when Thomas entered the league, so you would think that at some point the Dolphins would have figured him out, but with the calendar about to flip from 1995 to 1996, it still hadn’t happened.
Yet again, the Thurmanator drove a dagger into the Dolphins’ hearts, torturing them for 158 yards rushing as the Bills ripped Miami 37-22 in the AFC wild-card playoff game, their third straight playoff victory over their AFC East rival.
Thomas led a staggering ground assault that produced 341 yards — an AFC playoff record and second-most in NFL postseason history — and he also caught three passes for 42 yards plus returned a kickoff 10 yards, giving him 210 all-purpose yards.
“I really can’t explain why I’ve had so much success against these guys,” Thomas said. “The offensive line just did a great job blocking.”
In the 17 games Thomas had played to this point against Miami, Buffalo won 14 and in those 14 victories he averaged 101 yards rushing. In the three Buffalo losses, he averaged 34 yards.
“Ever since (Dolphins defensive coordinator Tom) Olivadotti has been there, when you do things to hurt him, he doesn’t really make a lot of changes, he doesn’t make a lot of adjustments,” Thomas said. “When we saw what kind of defense they were in, we felt it could be a good day rushing the football.”
Two weeks earlier when the Dolphins lost at Rich, they tried to play a four-man front with five defensive backs to counter Buffalo’s three-receiver formations. In that game, Thomas ran for 148 yards and the Bills piled up 208 in a 23-20 victory. In this game, Olivadotti tried the same approach in the first half and Buffalo promptly exploited it, rushing for 197 yards in opening a 24-0 lead by intermission.
Thomas wasn’t the only running back who shredded Miami. Darick Holmes chipped in 87 yards on 15 attempts, and Tim Tindale, the Canadian Comet, had 68 with 44 coming on a fourth-quarter touchdown that gave the Bills a 34-7 lead.
“It’s a great feeling,” said guard Jerry Ostroski. “We (the line) were looked upon as maybe a negative on this football team and it was hard for us in the beginning. We had to swallow a lot and take a lot of hits, but it just took time for us to jell. The veterans were patient, everybody was patient for us. We decided that we had to win the game for us. We blocked our butts off, played hard. Thurman ran hard, Darick made some unbelievable runs, Tim Tindale. It was just a group effort.”
Dec. 24, 2016: Bills owner couldn’t take anymore of this blabber mouth
Dolphins 34, Bills 31 (OT)
Christmas Day 2016 was not a happy one in the Rex Ryan household.
The Bills’ head coach spent the holiday lamenting what he called “about as painful a loss as I can remember” in reference to Buffalo’s overtime defeat the day before at the hands of the Miami Dolphins that eliminated the Bills from the playoff chase.
“That’s a loss that you lose sleep over,” Ryan said. “For myself, questioning things and what we should have done different or whatever. I can say this, it’s a hell of a lot easier to do that in hindsight than it is the moment it happens. To say that this is obviously the toughest defeat that I’ve taken to this point as the Bills coach, they all hurt, but this one especially.”
This was a loss that Ryan not only lost sleep over, he lost his job. The day after Christmas, Terry Pegula fired him with one week left in the season, meaning the man he had hired for five years and $25 million didn’t even serve two full seasons before the owner realized his mistake.
The final blows for Ryan’s uninspiring, brief and blustery Buffalo tenure came late in this game as the Bills handed a victory to Miami through their own poor play, and Ryan’s poor administration.
Tyrod Taylor had just finished off an 89-yard drive – which was part of a franchise-record 589-yard total offense day – with a go-ahead seven-yard TD pass to Charles Clay with 1:20 left to play. But Buffalo’s kickoff unit allowed a 39-yard return by Kenyan Drake, and Ryan’s defense gave up two pass completions to Matt Moore which positioned Andrew Franks for a game-tying 55-yard field goal with six seconds left in the fourth quarter.
Buffalo won the overtime coin toss and immediately drove to the 17, but a terrible sequence of plays lost 10 yards, and Dan Carpenter missed a 45-yard field goal. The defense forced a punt, and then came the game’s defining moment. The Bills faced fourth-and-2 at their own 41 with 4:09 left, and Ryan opted to punt, even though a tie would have reduced the Bills’ already slim playoff chances to nearly zero.
“At the time, it’s like, let’s pin them back,” Ryan explained. “We’ve done a decent job of stopping them at the end there. I said I thought we’d get the ball back and that’s why I made the decision. I just thought that was the right move. Every coach in America would have done the same thing backed up in your end, one first down away.”
Colton Schmidt did his job with a punt that was fair caught at the 15, but on first down, the Bills had only 10 men on the field and running back Jay Ajayi ripped off a 57-yard run. A few plays later, Franks kicked the game-winning 27-yard field goal.
Without saying it, Ryan seemed to insinuate that the medical staff did not inform the coaches that cornerback Stephon Gilmore, who was being evaluated for a concussion, was unavailable. When the Bills took the field, Ryan, nor any of the coaches, was aware that Gilmore was still on the sideline. Incredibly, no one on the field picked up on it either, so Miami snapped the ball, and Ajayi – who finished with 206 yards – ran to the side where Gilmore would have been lined up and he was off to the races.
“It’s my responsibility,” Ryan said. “That’s all I’ll say. It’s my responsibility, like everything is 100 percent on that field. Every bit of it is my responsibility. I’ve got broad shoulders. I’ll own up to it, and I’ll take it. Every bit of it, but I know what happened.
“Everybody professionally has a job to do. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen, and it should have never happened, but it did happen. And it cost us the game. The information should have been there. We should have had 11 guys on the field. That’s the truth. That’s a true statement, a 100-percent true statement.”
And 100 percent, it was the end of Rex Ryan in Buffalo, the end of his NFL coaching career, and the start of his time as an ESPN blabber mouth, er, analyst.
Jan. 15, 2023: The frigid day the Dolphins nearly torched Buffalo
Bills 34, Dolphins 31
For as long as the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins have been playing each other in a rivalry that dates back to 1966 when Miami joined the old AFL as an expansion franchise, there has been a prevailing thought that Buffalo always has an advantage in cold weather games.
Of course, what tends to be forgotten is that while, yes, the Dolphins practice and play in a warm-weather locale, it’s not like all of their players are from South Florida or other warm states. Many of their guys grew up in the north and played for cold-weather colleges, so it’s not like cold and snow renders them helpless.
If anyone doubted that Miami could compete against the Bills on days when the mercury got very uncomfortable and/or the snow was flying, two late-season games in the 2022 season should have dispelled that.
True, the Bills won both — a snowy 32-29 Week 15 victory that clinched a third straight AFC East title — and then this 34-31 AFC wild-card victory on a 28-degree day during which the Bills jumped out to a 17-0 lead, only to fall behind 24-20 in the third quarter despite Miami having to play third-stringer Skylar Thompson at quarterback.
“One-week seasons, man, that’s it,” Josh Allen said of the Bills’ playoff mentality. “All that matters is surviving and advancing. Doesn’t matter how we win, it’s if we win and I’m proud of our guys for playing the way they did.”
This truly was a survive-and-advance type of game, one the Bills would have never forgotten if a third-string quarterback — playing because starter Tua Tagovailoa and backup Teddy Bridgewater were both injured — had beaten them.
Early on it looked exactly like many envisioned as the Bills overwhelmed the Dolphins and were poised to blow them out. Allen threw a TD pass to Dawson Knox, and two plays later Dean Marlowe picked off Thompson, which set up James Cook’s 12-yard TD run. Following a Miami punt, the Bills drove down the field to set up a Tyler Bass field goal and the Dolphins seemed frozen in real time.
However, they stunned the Bills by scoring on their next four possessions — three Jason Sanders field goals and a Thompson TD pass to Mike Gesicki followed by a two-point conversion that tied the game at 17 — two of those scores directly attributable to a pair of Allen interceptions.
Bass made a 39-yard field goal with four seconds left in the first half, but on the Bills’ first offensive play of the third quarter, Allen was sacked and lost a fumble that Zach Sieler returned for a touchdown to put Miami up 24-20. When the Bills punted on their next two possessions, there was a whole lot of anxiety bubbling in the stadium because losing this game, to this quarterback, would have been an all-time failure.
Reality intervened as Kaiir Elam picked off Thompson and Allen capitalized with a TD pass to Cole Beasley, and then late in the third quarter Allen hit Gabe Davis for a 23-yard TD that put the Bills in control at 34-24.
Still, the Dolphins did not go away. Jeff Wilson scored on a short run with 10:53 left and the Bills’ defense had to make two stops, and Devin Singletary had to convert a clutch third-and-7 in the final minute before Allen could kneel out the victory.
“We’ve got guys who have played a lot of football,” center Mitch Morse said after the Bills avoided a nightmarish defeat. “We’ve got guys who have played quite a few playoff games now, understanding that when the stakes are at the highest, emotions can be almost overwhelming at times. And I think it’s a great checks and balances. Guys have each others’ backs.”
Nov. 3, 2024: Bealeagured kicker becomes a hero with just one kick
Bills 30, Dolphins 27
Tyler Bass was a kicker at a career crossroads, a fifth-year veteran who had been rewarded with an expensive four-year contract extension in 2023 but was now testing the faith of the Buffalo Bills’ hierarchy.
In the first season of that new deal, he had struggled down the stretch and things only got worse in the postseason when he missed three of his five field goal attempts including one in the divisional round loss to Kansas City that would have tied the game with 1:43 left in regulation.
Now, as 2024 was reaching its midway point, Bass had been placed on full alert as general manager Brandon Beane signed free agent kicker Lucas Havrisik to the practice squad and Sean McDermott had the two kickers compete in practice to play in that week’s game against the Titans.
Bass bucked up and won the battle, and in the next two games against the Titans and Seahawks he made all 11 of his kicks — three field goals, eight extra points — and Havrisik was released.
But against Miami, Bass wobbled ever so briefly when he missed an extra point and because of that, the Dolphins were able to tie the game at 27-27 when Tua Tagovailoa threw a seven-yard TD pass to Jaylen Waddle with 1:38 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Obviously, that was plenty of time for Josh Allen to respond, but Buffalo’s final possession was about as ugly as could be, and it was only saved when former Bills standout Jordan Poyer committed an unnecessary roughness penalty by drilling rookie receiver Keon Coleman on a third-and-9 play, which gave the Bills a first down at their own 46.
Allen completed a clutch third-down pass to Mack Hollins, but then came three straight incompletions and the Bills were only at the Miami 43, so with 10 seconds to go, McDermott had two options: Punt and take the game to overtime, or let Bass attempt a 61-yard field goal which, if successful, would have been the longest of his career as well as a new franchise record for Buffalo.
There were probably very few in the stadium who believed Bass could make the kick, so imagine the roar when he sent the ball through the uprights with room to spare to pull out the victory.
“Man, what a story,” McDermott said. “T-Bass hitting a franchise record kick. And that doesn’t happen by itself, so I want to make sure I give credit’s due, in addition with T-Bass with Sam (Martin) and Reid (Ferguson) and the guys up front that were blocking for him. Just a big-time kick for us.”
Bass was overcome with joy in the locker room and he admitted he’d endured some dark times, particularly after the miss against the Chiefs, but also having to prove he was still the team’s best choice at kicker when Havrisik was brought in.
“It means everything, very emotional,” he said. “Haven’t really processed it yet, but just putting in a lot of work, man, and was just focused on right here, right now, the present and being patient with everything. You’re gonna go through ups and downs, but just continue to put your best foot forward. It’s why you play the game, you play it for your teammates and the fact that they’ve had my back since day one. I’d do anything for them, and I’m gonna have their back as long as my career is here.”
This was a crushing loss for the Dolphins who fell to 2-6 on the season, and it completed yet another season sweep for Buffalo. Miami was now 2-15 counting the postseason against the Bills since McDermott’s arrival in 2017, including 0-9 in Orchard Park.
“Obviously frustrated we lost,” said Poyer after his unhappy homecoming. “Proud of the way we fought. Went toe to toe with one of the best teams in the league. Coming down to a (61)-yard field goal to lose the game, it’s tough.”
Allen, who had made a career out of torturing the Dolphins, played one of his least impactful games against them, but a win is a win and he was thrilled the Bills had survived.
“Exhale,” Allen said. “So proud of (Bass), so happy for him. Got emotional in my little post-game speech out there, just the trials and tribulations that he’s been in throughout this year. A 61-yard field goal to win a game against a division rival, it’s what stories are made of. Everybody in that locker room’s so happy for him, and he’s our guy.”
Celebrate the final season at Highmark Stadium with Farewell to The Ralph: Remembering Where We Cheered, Froze, Cried and Bonded—a 208-page keepsake capturing five decades of unforgettable Buffalo Bills moments, fan devotion and stadium legacy. Preorder now at https://BillsStadium.PictorialBook.com to save 20%.
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for four decades including 35 years as the full-time beat writer for the D&C, he has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: These 10 Bills-Dolphins classics are among the best ever played in Highmark Stadium
Reporting by Sal Maiorana, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
