This could be the year.
For the Buffalo Bills. And the Detroit Lions.
“It would be best for the league if it’s Buffalo versus Detroit, ” longtime NFL beat writer and Pro Football Hall of Fame voter John McClain exclusively told talkSPORT.
“Fans all over the country could get behind that Super Bowl in New Orleans.”
On Sunday, it will be Bills vs Lions at Ford Field in Detroit.
In a truly American symbol of a potential Super Bowl LIX preview, the cheapest ticket entering the weekend was $340 to watch a Week 15 game.
Bills quarterback Josh Allen and Lions QB Jared Goff are both NFL MVP candidates in 2024.
With the Super Bowl contenders posting a combined 22-4 record, both proudly devoted — and long suffering — fanbases have every right to dream of taking over the Superdome on February 9 as Christmas Day approaches.
“This is going to be the time for Josh Allen to win at home in the playoffs over Patrick Mahomes (and the Chiefs), and go to the Super Bowl to play Detroit,” McClain said.
If that happens, one franchise will achieve a historic breakthrough decades in the making.
And another will suffer painful playoff heartbreak again.
“I covered their four consecutive Super Bowl losses,” said McClain, referring to the Bills.
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“I felt so bad for the players, coach Marv Levy, but especially the fans.
“It’s just too much torture for the Bills to go back to the Super Bowl and lose another one.
“I don’t know if upstate New York could take it.”
Detroit counts Barry Sanders, Calvin Johnson and Matthew Stafford among its all-time best players.
But overall, the Lions are a sad 603-708-34 since their inception in 1930.
Almost 100 years have passed since Detroit first fielded a professional football team.
What started as the Portsmouth Spartans has become Dan Campbell’s proud and fiery Lions in 2024.
“I’m so freaking proud of you,” Campbell told his team, after a hard-fought 34-31 home win over the Green Bay Packers last week.
“That’s the way to show up. You talk about pressure — we live in pressure. That’s where we freaking thrive.
“It doesn’t matter who we’re playing, it doesn’t matter what’s going on. You always find a way to win.”
Detroit hasn’t lost since September 15 and has overcome injury after injury to lead the NFL in point differential (plus-183) and grab the current No. 1 playoff seed in the NFC.
“It’s the Lions (in the Super Bowl) and the reason it’s the Lions is because of … Dan Campbell,” talkSPORT NFL Run Down host Will Gavin said.
Simply making the big game would be historic for Detroit.
The Lions are 9-14 in the playoffs all-time and one of just four NFL teams to never play in the Super Bowl.
As for the road team on Sunday in Detroit, the Super Bowl was a serious curse in the 1990s.
Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, James Lofton, Don Beebe, Steve Tasker, Bruce Smith and Cornelius Bennett formed one of the deepest cores the NFL has seen in decades.
“They were loaded with talent,” said McClain, who believes the Super Bowl-losing Bills were better than Sean McDermott’s 2024 team.
Yet Buffalo went an unbelievable 0-4 in the big game from 1990-93, losing the Super Bowl via a last-second missed field goal that sailed wide right, and back-to-back blowouts to the Dallas Cowboys’ last dynasty.
The Bills were a sparkling 49-15 those four years during the regular season.
But every NFL fan obsessed with the league’s history associates professional football in Buffalo with two huge numbers (0 and 4) more than anything else.
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With Allen topping Philadelphia’s Saquon Barkley and Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson in the current MVP betting odds, the Bills’ best QB since Kelly could be the difference-maker — if Buffalo can finally get past Mahomes and the reigning back-to-back champion Chiefs in the AFC.
“It sucks,” said Allen, following a 27-24 home playoff defeat to Kansas City last season.
If the torture ends in 2024 for Detroit and Buffalo, both teams will reach the Super Bowl — and one fanbase will finally win it all.
“If Detroit are Buffalo are in, I don’t know how anybody could be disappointed,” McClain said.
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