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1966 AFL Championship, Bill's vs Chiefs


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I love playing Kansas City in meaningful games.   I am Hank Stram, Lenny Dawson, Buck Buchanan, Willie Lanier, Bobby Bell, Jan Stenerud, Curly Culp .... THIS is old school AFL/NFL ... and Mahomes / Allen can be legend.

 

Be healthy, Patrick, and play ...  join the Pantheon.   This is Troy (foreign soil), where Achilles (our hero) calls out Hector (hero of the invaded land).

 

Sing, Goddess, the wrath of Achilles ...

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I remember listening to that game on the radio too.  In one sense, in retrospect, happy we lost.  KC was very, very good with a bunch of guys who would end up in the Hall of Fame and win a Super Bowl a couple of years later.  Green Bay destroyed them in the first Super Bowl.  I can't imagine what they would have done to the Bills.  

 

The Super Bowl that should have been was '64.  Bills v. Browns would have been competitive.

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I was 8 also and went to my first game two weeks before when the Bills clinched the AFL east and tore down the goal post. We were so sure the Bills were going to the 1st Super Bowl my dad bought our first color TV to watch it on. 

My uncle could get a very snowy picture from Erie Pennsylvania where it wasn't blacked out and watched the Bills and my dream die to the Chiefs, January 1st 1967.

GO BILLS REVENGE!

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Just now, GRHater69 said:

My father always thought that Bills team with Sestak and Dunaway up front and Cookie Gilchrist would have given the Pack a run for their money.

 

Had the NFL accepted the AFL's challenge in 1963 like Commissioner Joe Foss asked. The Bills would have played in what should have been Super Bowl 1 against the Browns in 64 and the Packers in Super Bowl 2 in 65.

Sadly NFL commissioner  Pete Rozelle said no and did not agree until the merger was agreed upon. 

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1 minute ago, GRHater69 said:

My father always thought that Bills team with Sestak and Dunaway up front and Cookie Gilchrist would have given the Pack a run for their money.

 

I think he was right.  The Browns (the 1964 NFL champs) and the Packers were loaded with talent too, don't forget.  Even if the 64 Bills had lost to the one of them, the league would have seen Cookie play at his prime.  What a great runner.  Imagine Cookie going up against Jim Brown.  Brown was better of course -- the greatest player of all time, IMHO -- but Cookie was unknown and deserved a better stage. 

 

The biggest difference was that the Bills offense wasn't really that great, aside from Cookie.  But the Bills defense could have kept them in the game.

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I was just too young back then. Didn't really start following the team until John Rauch took over, but they really fell apart after '66 from what I'd heard growing up. Would have loved to see those AFL Championship teams go up against the NFL back then. Too bad we don't have decent film and video like we do now.

 

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41 minutes ago, Utah John said:

I think he was right.  The Browns (the 1964 NFL champs) and the Packers were loaded with talent too, don't forget.  Even if the 64 Bills had lost to the one of them, the league would have seen Cookie play at his prime.  What a great runner.  Imagine Cookie going up against Jim Brown.  Brown was better of course -- the greatest player of all time, IMHO -- but Cookie was unknown and deserved a better stage. 

 

The biggest difference was that the Bills offense wasn't really that great, aside from Cookie.  But the Bills defense could have kept them in the game.

Sorry to disagree, but you are mistaken. I attended every Bills home game from 1963 until 1972 when I moved away. Cookie was better than Jim Brown. They were equal as power runners, but Cookie was much faster, more elusive, which was rare at the time, and every one of his runs was an “angry run.” The problem was that Cookie always had a couple screws loose. We was as crazy as they come. He was like that until he died. And, he played in the CFL and AFL. NFL players were always considered major-league, while everybody else was considered JV. Between his nutty behavior and his never having had a chance to play in the NFL, Cookie will never get the respect he truly deserves.

 

Elbert Dubenion, Glenn Bass, Jack Kemp and Daryl Lamonica had as successful passing attack as anyone for their time. John Hadl and Lance Alworth in San Diego, coached by the father of the modern passing game Sid Gilman, were the only team of those years that were better. Don’t ever believe that the Bills were a one dimensional running team. They were not. The game clearly had not evolved into the game we have today, but the long bomb was king and the Bills had it to perfection for at least two of those years.

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5 hours ago, I'm Spartacus said:

The Buffalo Bills missed their chance to go to the first Super Bowl. Lost to Kansas City 31-7. Was played in the Rock Pile. I was 8 years old at the time, but still remember listening to it on the radio. Time for some revenge this Sunday! Go Bills!!!


What was odd is that the Bills beat them in KC earlier in the season.   Kind of mirrors what could happen this year.   Hopefully. 

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5 hours ago, I'm Spartacus said:

The Buffalo Bills missed their chance to go to the first Super Bowl. Lost to Kansas City 31-7. Was played in the Rock Pile. I was 8 years old at the time, but still remember listening to it on the radio. Time for some revenge this Sunday! Go Bills!!!

Bills just got old that year.a shadow of the 64 and 65 teams. Running game not great and Sestak was so injured. The next year they were awful...and the decades of bad football followed exc for brief respites in the mid 70s and early eighties.

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4 hours ago, TH3 said:

Fun fact. My father was a professor and took a sabbatical one fall and Jim Dunaway rented our house in Clarence!

cool.... 1966 we were moving and Billy Shaw looked at our house on delamere rd.I was 8 and thought he looked like HOSS from Bonanza

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9 hours ago, I'm Spartacus said:

The Buffalo Bills missed their chance to go to the first Super Bowl. Lost to Kansas City 31-7. Was played in the Rock Pile. I was 8 years old at the time, but still remember listening to it on the radio. Time for some revenge this Sunday! Go Bills!!!

Didn't we get our revenge when we beat KC with Montana at quarterback?

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I wasn’t alive for those years, but for the older guys, wouldn’t we have gotten killed by the Packers if we did win?  I’m not responding sarcastically as I honestly don’t know.  I’ve only seen some highlights from that timeframe.  Under Lombardy, I thought they win 5 of 7 NFL championships before and during the first two SB years.

 

My dad speaks fondly of those days.

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