What was it like going to 4 straight Super Bowls? Inside the NFL tells the story

[Mr. WEO]

This would be a great topic for a 30 for 30 type treatment…

[Fleezoid]

They should have had their Snickers Bar moment after the 1st Super Bowl. Then maybe they would have figured it out at least 1 of the next 3 chances. 

[US Egg]

22 hours ago, HIT BY SPIKES said:

FOR JIMBO IT WAS LIKE THIS...

 

 

Was that on the menu back then?

[gomper]

I put XXV on the D and coaching. So many plays were there to be made and the Bills made too few of them. 

 

Up 10-3, in the 2nd with 3rd and 1 at midfield, Reed drops a ball worried about Banks blowing him up.

 

The tackling was horrible.  Those who remember that 90 team, know that on occasion, the D played like individuals instead of a team.  Unfortunately, this was one of those games. 

 

Giants went 9/16 on 3rd down. Buffalo was 1/8, with the lone conversion coming on the last drive. 

 

On Thurman's last run, Al Edwards ( no idea why Tasker wasn't the 3 WR after Beebe got hurt) missed his block that might have sprung him at least 10 more yards.

 

All in all, so many plays that weren't made, added up to losing by two feet. That game will always sting.

[Shaw66]

54 minutes ago, gomper said:

I put XXV on the D and coaching.

I hate to speak ill of the living, but I've always put it on Levy. Sometime in the aftermath of XXV, Levy was asked something like, "In hindsight, if you had it to do over again, would you have done more to get the team emotionally prepared for the game." He said something like, "these men are professionals, and they don't need me to get them emotionally prepared." 

 

I think the Giants were emotionally prepared, because they had Parcells and Belichick. I think the Bills were not prepared like that, because Levy didn't think it was necessary. 

 

In the same situation, McDermott certainly will take an active role, be the leader of the team, and have his players prepared in all manners. 

[HIT BY SPIKES]

2 hours ago, US Egg said:

Was that on the menu back then?

 

NOT sure but Jimbo had no problem finding it and "leading" willing teammates to it the week of the SuperBowls

[US Egg]

7 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

I hate to speak ill of the living, but I've always put it on Levy. Sometime in the aftermath of XXV, Levy was asked something like, "In hindsight, if you had it to do over again, would you have done more to get the team emotionally prepared for the game." He said something like, "these men are professionals, and they don't need me to get them emotionally prepared." 

 

I think the Giants were emotionally prepared, because they had Parcells and Belichick. I think the Bills were not prepared like that, because Levy didn't think it was necessary. 

 

In the same situation, McDermott certainly will take an active role, be the leader of the team, and have his players prepared in all manners. 

Yeah, but the players got this Levy post game SB XXV gem to inspire them for the next battle:

 

Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew said,

A little I'm hurt but not yet slain.

I'll just lie down and bleed awhile,

And I'll rise and fight again.

 

I don't know how that could have failed.

[Shaw66]

19 minutes ago, US Egg said:

Yeah, but the players got this Levy post game SB XXV gem to inspire them for the next battle:

 

Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew said,

A little I'm hurt but not yet slain.

I'll just lie down and bleed awhile,

And I'll rise and fight again.

 

I don't know how that could have failed.

You know, that's really funny! It is such a great point. 

 

I guarantee that when they get there, McDermott will have something better to say. Guaranteed.

[SoCal Deek]

2 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

You know, that's really funny! It is such a great point. 

 

I guarantee that when they get there, McDermott will have something better to say. Guaranteed.

How so? McD has lost to the same team over, and over, and over again. It’s your theory that he’s waiting to be magically teleported into the Super Bowl before he brings out the really good inspirational speech? 

[Gunsgoodtime]

On 9/1/2025 at 2:43 PM, nuklz2594 said:

Rocks got bigger and harder to kick after each loss

Which kind?

 

[Shaw66]

2 hours ago, SoCal Deek said:

How so? McD has lost to the same team over, and over, and over again. It’s your theory that he’s waiting to be magically teleported into the Super Bowl before he brings out the really good inspirational speech? 

No. I didn't say McDermott will have the right thing to say. McDermott plans everything, including planning to set what he believes is the proper tone to get his team to compete as well as he can. He may fail at it, but he does it. Levy said, essentially, that he didn't think that was his responsibility. He dialed up the Xs and Os, but he expected his players to get themselves ready. 

[SoCal Deek]

33 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

No. I didn't say McDermott will have the right thing to say. McDermott plans everything, including planning to set what he believes is the proper tone to get his team to compete as well as he can. He may fail at it, but he does it. Levy said, essentially, that he didn't think that was his responsibility. He dialed up the Xs and Os, but he expected his players to get themselves ready. 

Maybe McD should try planning less and inspiring more.

[Shaw66]

15 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Maybe McD should try planning less and inspiring more.

Maybe. I didn't see much passion in Hardknocks.  

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

5 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

You know, that's really funny! It is such a great point. 

 

I guarantee that when they get there, McDermott will have something better to say. Guaranteed.

“Listen, we might have taken a bad beat, but with perseverance, hard work and patience we can make anything possible. Take Timothy McVeigh for example” 

[SoCal Deek]

18 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

Maybe. I didn't see much passion in Hardknocks.  

I have to admit I didn’t watch it. But I’m

praying a bit of television drama is just what they need.

 

Go Bills! 

[nuklz2594]

10 hours ago, Gunsgoodtime said:

Which kind?

 

Yes

[Bob Lamb]

The Civic/Fan atmosphere was unreal. I was fortunate to live through it all. There was no NFL all intruive interference. Erie County shut down on Sunday.

The end of XXV was tough but there were many failures. The second was tough too. 

I was fortunate to be at the Oiler game (yes, I have the ticket stub).  As a sports city Buffalo was incredible (and the Sabres were not have bad either)

On 9/2/2025 at 11:45 AM, Fleezoid said:

They should have had their Snickers Bar moment after the 1st Super Bowl. Then maybe they would have figured it out at least 1 of the next 3 chances. 

 

If you have a tape of the game - the commercials were very low key - the era of  "WO#W" had not happened yet

[Livinginthepast]

I was 22 when they made it to the first one. If they played that game 10 times, the Bills win 9/10  but every piece of bad luck hit the Bills that night. Sure Bellichick came up with some wizardry, the Bills players were overconfident and possibly hung over, Marv wasnt a coach to make adjustments on the fly. But all that considered they should have beaten that Giants team. Had they won that first game every game after changes. Who knows maybe they wouldnt have gone to 4 in a row? I think they would have won 2-3 but after that loss got in their heads they could never get over the hump and could never do what they had to do to win in that high pressure game. Watching Norwood miss is still one of the worst moments of my life (as trivial as that seems with all of lifes triumphs and tragedies).  Over the past 34 years, when I have seen replays of the game and the miss, I sometimes get a fleeting memory of that horrible despair I felt in that moment and its awful. They have to win one to get that weight off me!!

Edited September 5 by Livinginthepast

[Thrivefourfive]

On 9/1/2025 at 4:16 PM, Walking Tall said:

The Bills had a 2nd and 2 from the Giants 45 with 5 minutes left in the first half, leading 12-3. A false start and 2 incompletions, and a punt later, and that was where they blew the ***** game.

This. The Bills were on their way to kicking the crap out of the lesser Giants. They had beat up team after team, and it was the Giants turn to feel the pain. Just didn’t happened the way it should have. 

[hondo in seattle]

On 9/2/2025 at 12:10 PM, Shaw66 said:

I hate to speak ill of the living, but I've always put it on Levy. Sometime in the aftermath of XXV, Levy was asked something like, "In hindsight, if you had it to do over again, would you have done more to get the team emotionally prepared for the game." He said something like, "these men are professionals, and they don't need me to get them emotionally prepared." 

 

I think the Giants were emotionally prepared, because they had Parcells and Belichick. I think the Bills were not prepared like that, because Levy didn't think it was necessary. 

 

In the same situation, McDermott certainly will take an active role, be the leader of the team, and have his players prepared in all manners. 

 

I love Levy so I hate to pile on, but I'll tell this story...

 

In 1983, the Purdue Boilermakers basketball squad was predicted to finish at or near the bottom of the Big Ten.  It lacked the kind of prototypical talent seen on other squads.  But the Boilers had some uniqueness to them.  For example, center Jim Rowinski was only 6'8," clumsy, and could barely dribble.  But he was built like Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Keady believed that if he could leverage the team's odd and disparate skills, and play together as a team, they could make a run.  But the team needed to believe, too.  Only they didn't because of their lack of accomplishment in the past and the poor assessments of them in the media.

 

So Keady hired a motivational consultant/mental performance coach named David Cook to work with the team.  And the Bad News Boilers went on to shock the basketball world that season by winning the Big Ten title and earning a NCAA Tournament berth.  Rowinski was named Big Ten co-MVP.

 

I always thought Levy should have hired a mental performance coach because it was clear there was something mentally off with the Bills in the Super Bowls.