My dad does not say much about the four Super Bowls. But he will talk about January 30, 1994. He let himself believe that night. The Bills led the Cowboys 13-6 at halftime, in a rematch nobody gave them a prayer in, and for thirty minutes the worst was behind us. Then forty-five seconds into the third quarter, Thurman Thomas put the ball on the ground. Dallas safety James Washington scooped it and ran it back forty-six yards to tie the game. Dallas scored twenty-four unanswered after the break and won 30-13. My dad says he knew the moment Washington crossed the line. Not just that game. The whole thing. He was right. We have not been back since.

It started wide right

The first trip is the one that still hurts the most, because it is the one we nearly won. Super Bowl XXV, January 1991, Tampa, against the Giants. New York held the ball for almost forty-one minutes and kept Jim Kelly’s offense stuck on the sideline. Even so it came down to a 47-yard field goal in the final seconds. Scott Norwood put it up and it sailed wide right. Giants 20-19, the only Super Bowl ever decided by a single point, and the closest this franchise has ever come to a title. Two words Buffalo has never been able to put down.

Then it got worse

We went back the next year and lost bigger. Super Bowl XXVI, January 1992, Minneapolis, down 24-0 to Washington before we found the scoreboard, beaten 37-24. The year after that was the bottom. Super Bowl XXVII, January 1993, the Rose Bowl, against the Cowboys. We turned the ball over nine times. Nine. It is still a Super Bowl record. Dallas won 52-17, and the one thing anyone remembers fondly is Don Beebe running down Leon Lett from behind to slap the ball loose before he could showboat it into the end zone. A hustle play in a massacre. Very Buffalo.

And it ended where my dad’s story begins

Then the fourth, the one my dad watched die in real time. Super Bowl XXVIII, the rematch with Dallas, the 13-6 lead, the Thomas fumble, the 30-13 final. Four straight Super Bowls. Four straight losses. No team had ever played in four in a row, and no team has ever lost four in a row. We are still the only one on both counts.

That is the whole Super Bowl history. Four trips, zero wins, and one missed kick that defines a city to people who were not even there. Most of those players have said they would not trade the run for a single ring, and I understand it now, even if it took me years to. Getting there four times is a feat. Losing there four times is a wound. Buffalo carries both. Thirty-some years on the Lombardi count is still zero, and every season we line up and go again. That is the deal. That has always been the deal.