“You’re in Bills Country,” announced a blue-red-and-white banner hanging near the entrance to Champion Grill.
Geographically, I was nowhere near Bills Country. I was here in Charlottesville, more than 400 miles from the cold and snowy home of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills.
And yet, just as the banner promised, the bar was packed with Bills fans, decked out in gaudy team colors, buying beer and taking their places before the Bills’ playoff game against the Kansas City Chiefs. The Charlottesville Buffalo Bills Backers were out in force, same as every other Sunday, all season long.
“It started out because I just wanted to watch Bills games,” said group founder Patrick Webb. “I figured if I could find a few Bills fans, we’d have some camaraderie, a little bit of community.”
That was in 2007. Since then, the club has grown from just seven original members to the robust crowd in attendance at Champion. There are a handful of other out-of-town sports teams with fan clubs in Charlottesville—the Browns Backers meet at the Livery Stable, and the Charlottesville Reds watch Liverpool FC games at Random Row—but the vast majority of teams don’t have any fan club at all. Webb says he thinks the Bills Backers are the biggest crowd in town.
After all, Bills fans have a bit of a reputation. Known for braving the snow, smashing tables, and drinking copious amounts of booze, the team’s ravenous fanbase is affectionately nicknamed the Bills Mafia.
“We’ll do more harm to tables than we will other people,” Webb stressed. The Charlottesville Bills Backers is a family scene—Webb’s elementary-school-aged son is next to him, wearing a Bills jacket. This year, through game day raffles, the group has raised almost $3,000 for local charity Waterboys.
“This is a normal crowd,” said Brian Lewandowski, another of the group’s organizers, scanning the 70-plus blue-clad fans in the bar. “We’ve had [up to] 150.”
The passion of the Bills Mafia, both in Charlottesville and around the country, is even more impressive given the team’s historic struggles on the field. In the ’90s, the Bills made the Super Bowl four times in a row, and lost all four. Starting in 2000, they missed the playoffs for 17 consecutive seasons.
All that has changed in the last two years, however. Suddenly, the Bills are good. Josh Allen, a fantastic young quarterback, has become the team’s talisman. Last year, for the first time since 1993, the Bills made it to the AFC Championship Game. They lost to the same team they were set to play on Sunday—the Kansas City Chiefs.
Meet the Mafia
The Bills and Chiefs traded touchdowns in the first half. As the teams fought to a 14-14 scoreline, I made my way around the room, trying to figure out how all these Bills fans had ended up in this bar in central Virginia, so far away from their homeland in icy Buffalo.
Software engineer JP Scaduto grew up in upstate New York. Everywhere he’s lived since then, he’s found a Bills Backers group to watch games with. “Wherever you go, there’s somebody from Buffalo there,” the young techie told me. “We’ve got the best fanbase in the country.”
For Scaduto, the losing is an important ingredient in the intoxicating Bills cocktail. “If you can live through 17 years without the playoffs, you are a true fan through and through,” he said. “Our sense of community comes from our ability to have gone that long while being that mediocre.”
Richard Sargent, a security integrator wearing a Bills T-shirt under a blazer, was a little more succinct: “Misery loves company.”
As we spoke, a train horn blared over the Champion sound system. The train horn plays in the Bills’ stadium when the Bills are defending a third down, Webb explained, so the Bills Backers have hooked up a digital version for the watch parties.
I chatted with Dale Sadler, who’s been a Bills fan for as long as the team has been around—60-plus years. The retired engineer has been coming to Charlottesville Bills Backers meetings for a decade. He waxed poetic to me about the Bills greats of yore: O.J. Simpson, Jim Kelly, Doug Flutie.
Florence Sadler, a retired schoolteacher, caught Bills fever from Dale, her husband. On Sunday night she showed up to Champion in a Bills cap, Bills earrings, and a Bills facemask, with a Bills Snuggie folded across her arm. “I’m more fair-weather than he is,” she said.
As time expired in the first half, the Chiefs attempted a field goal, but the ball glanced off the right upright and missed. A lucky break—“that never happens for us!” cheered one fan.
Jahnavi Wraight also found the Bills through a loved one. Her best friend and business parter, Shana Sugar, is a longtime Bills fan, and insisted that Wraight accompany her to a game for her birthday.
“Going to this game, I was convinced no one was going to be there,” Wraight recalled. “It was freezing, it snowed the night before.” But sure enough, Buffalo showed up. The parking lot was full of tailgaters, the stands were jammed with rowdy fans, and the concessions booths ran out of alcohol before halftime.
“I like Bills fans,” said Wraight, a tattooed hairdresser. “They’re my people.”
The extreme conditions are an important part of what makes the Bills so special, said Jonathan Amato, a lifelong fan and upstate New York ex-pat who works as a government contractor. “A lot of these Rust Belt cities, football’s a big part of their life,” he said. “It’s snowy and cold. What are you going to do all winter but watch football?”
Patrick Jurewicz, a UVA athletic trainer, roots for the Giants. Even so, after a co-worker introduced him to the Bills Backers, he’s become a regular at the watch parties. “I’m new to town as of August,” he said. “So it’s good to have a good community. It’s what I’m looking for.”
Everyone wants in on the action. “See this guy over here in 27?” Webb said, pointing to a jersey-wearing member of the crowd. “He was here last week. He’d only just heard about us. And [today] he came back with like six people.”
(I did find two Chiefs fans in the crowded bar. They weren’t wearing any gear, but let out a yelp after a Kansas City touchdown. Turns out they’d wandered in by accident. “We thought we’d go out and get some dinner and watch the game,” one said. “We had no idea it would be like this.”)
As the game progressed, the Bills Backers grew more and more absorbed. A Chiefs field goal gave Kansas City a 26-21 lead with nine minutes to play. It was clear the Bills had a tight finish on their hands, but I don’t think anyone could have anticipated what happened next.
Photo: Eze Amos
An instant classic
After the Chiefs’ field goal, the Bills moved down the field confidently, chewing up time as they went. The drive stalled in Kansas City territory. All seemed doomed. Then, with just under two minutes left, on fourth and 13, Allen dropped back, scanned the field, and fired a throw to a wide open Gabriel Davis in the back of the end zone. The bar went wild.
“God I love this team,” said Webb. “But then I hate them. But then I love them.”
Kansas City, trailing 29-26, wasn’t done yet. Five plays after the Bills’ TD, Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill caught a short pass from Patrick Mahomes and zoomed into the end zone from 64 yards out.
The Bills had a minute to work with, trailing by four. Allen connected with Davis twice, then hit Emmanuel Sanders at the Kansas City 19 yard line. Seventeen seconds were left in the game. This was really the end, one way or another.
Allen took the snap, dropped back, and quickly released a laser beam, once again finding Davis in the end zone for the lead.
The bar erupted. Decades of heartbreak were released in elated, manic screams. Fans hugged, high-fived, sprinted around the room, reveled in the collective thrill unique to sports. A middle-aged father tore his shirt off and roared with joy.
But 13 seconds remained on the clock.
Unbelievably, 13 seconds was just enough time for Mahomes and the Chiefs to cover 44 yards and kick a game-tying field goal as time expired.
It got worse from there. The Chiefs won the coin toss to start the overtime period. They sliced down the field, gaining yards on every play until Mahomes found tight end Travis Kelce for a walk-off touchdown.
It was one of the greatest football games ever played. And the Bills lost.
Just minutes after the sheer ecstasy of the last Bills touchdown, the bar fell into a shell-shocked murmur. Kids started crying; adults stared blankly at the TV screens, mouths agape.
As he closed his tab at the bar, Scaduto spoke the die-hard sports fan’s simplest, most poignant refrain: “Next year.”
Fans shuffled past Webb’s table on their way out. With one arm wrapped around his crying son, Webb waved goodbye to his beloved Bills community. “See you next year,” he said. “Just follow us. We’ll be here next year.”
Near the door, Florence Sadler, with all those years of Bills fandom behind her, leaned over to me. As the cold night air poured into the bar, Sadler adjusted her Bills facemask. “If you’re gonna lose,” she said, “you gotta lose good.”