The Bills have finally earned primetime status

It’s been so long since the Buffalo Bills got to strut their stuff on Sunday Night Football. They have their shot to make some noise in primetime this week.

When you were the last team to earn an NFL playoff berth in the 21st century, there is a really good chance that you’ve played a lot of early-window football games in the 2000s. After getting Music City Miracle-d by the Tennessee Titans during the 1999 playoffs, the Buffalo Bills went a borderline unbelievable 18 years without making the postseason.

This year, few outside of Bills Mafia thought Buffalo would be a viable playoff threat this season. Then, Josh Allen and head coach Sean McDermott responded with a winning campaign whcih still has an outside shot at winning the AFC East should the hated New England Patriots nosedive in the final three weeks.

Even though they’ve lost a few times this year, in most instances, the Bills have proven they can hang with anybody. They earned respect in their early-season loss to New England and nearly came away with a victory over the best team in football last week, taking the Baltimore Ravens into the final seconds in Orchard Park. Their consolation prize: how about Sunday Night Football?

Wait, what? The Bills are good? The Bills are good, and they’ll be playing the Pittsburgh Steelers in primetime this week in the NFL’s signature game. It has been so incredibly and painfully long since the Bills played in primetime on Sunday night. The last time it happened, that was in 2007. George W. Bush was the President of the United States of America. Twitter didn’t even exist yet.

So what on earth had to happen for the Bills to get back to primetime status? Is it here to stay, or will it be a one-off performance?

The reason we can trust the Bills to be good for the foreseeable future is they have a very strong identity as a football team: Play great defense and punch you in the mouth on offense with a physical rushing attack.

In a way, this team plays like those Carolina Panthers teams McDermott used to be a part of on Ron Rivera’s staff. With Buffalo general manager Brandon Beane also having Charlottean NFL roots, this should come as absolutely no surprise. If you watch closely, you will see a bit of Cam Newton in the way Allen plays the quarterback position. Buffalo has found the special sauce.

Sure, the Bills need to act like they’ve been in the end zone before even though they haven’t been in the end zone before. We don’t need every legion of Bills Mafia pile-driving through a foldable picnic table like they’re trying out a spot for a pro wrestling gig in the Mid-South just because they’ve been waiting all day for Sunday night. We have to wonder if Carrie Underwood is ready for this.

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At the end of the day, it will be just another high-profile football game for the Steelers. It doesn’t matter that Devlin “Duck” Hodges is playing out of his mind as a third-stringer. This is Pittsburgh, a city that has seen its professional football team hoist six Lombardi Trophies in the last 50 years. Buffalo has never hoisted one, but for now, the Bills are good enough to put on national television.