Buffalo Bills Football Team

You ever see a guy win a poker hand against three aces with a pair of treys? You ever see a .220 hitter work a Hall of Fame fastball pitcher for a walk to win a game? Like to see a tennis player whose specialty is just getting the ball back win in straight sets over a major league serve-and-volleyer? Talk about winning ugly! Listen! For the information of the Buffalo Bills football team, the football is an oblate spheroid about 11 inches long and six in diameter and leather covered.

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Talk about a flex game. The undefeated New England Patriots flexed all right, tensing their muscles Sunday night and squeezing the wind out of the upstart Buffalo Bills, 56-10. The performance not only quieted the chattering crowd at Ralph Wilson Stadium but probably sent a chill through the rest of the NFL. The pecking order is clear. It's the Patriots . . . and everybody else. "Obviously they're the No.

Not that there isn't much mystery to Super Bowl XXVIII, but to understand it, all you have do is look up. It's right there on Interstate 85, the major highway running past the Georgia Dome. It's on two billboards featuring the face of Dallas Cowboy quarterback Troy Aikman. He appears to be sneering. He is accompanied by two words. GET REAL . Such is the Cowboys' inspiration, and Buffalo Bills' torment, as they meet today at 3:18 p.m.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett could be transferred to a Houston hospital by this weekend to begin the next phase of his rehabilitation, a person close to the family told the Associated Press on Tuesday. "That's the plan that probably by the end of the week, if progress remains the same, he'll be transferred back to Houston," said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of Everett's status.

The Buffalo Bills' fans confidently looked forward to their Super Bowl celebration. Then the game started. "This is awful," said Matthew Mulhern, owner of The Locker Room, as he watched the fourth-quarter crowd at his sports bar dwindle with each muffed play in the Bills' 37-24 loss to Washington Sunday. The dejected bar crowds were thinning out by late in the third quarter as it became clear the game was a lost cause for the Bills.

Buffalo quarterback Jim Kelly set Super Bowl records that didn't matter, picked the wrong year to score 24 points, took a step backward on the road to immortality and made it safe for John Elway to come outside. After the Bills' 37-24 loss to the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XXVI, Kelly has some explaining to do back home in Western Pennsylvania, the cradle of Super Bowl champion quarterbacks. Joe Montana, who hails from Monongahela, has won four Super Bowls without a loss.

Of the NFL's 28 teams, only 18 have played in the Super Bowl, which is fast approaching its 26th birthday. Yet the Buffalo Bills are representing the AFC for the second year in a row. And this time, they might even upset the NFC Washington Redskins. For one thing, this time, the Bills will have their own kind of field. From quarterback Jim Kelly and running back Thurman Thomas to their improving defense, the Bills were built to play on artificial turf.

A radio station held a contest last week to determine how far Bills' fans would go to get a ticket to see their team in the AFC championship game in Miami. Pretty far. One desperate soul ate maggots. Another consumed what he claimed were buffalo chips. And they weren't even the winners. That dubious honor went to a fan who smeared his body with what he claimed were dolphin parts and then ate them.

Raider wide receiver Tim Brown prides himself on his ability to catch the ball and make big plays. His ego, however, was somewhat bruised when he dropped several key passes while wearing gloves in the Raiders' 16-10 loss at Cincinnati last week. To bounce back, Brown decided to go glove-less in the Buffalo cold against the Bills on Sunday. It's a decision Buffalo defensive backs wish he never made.

A game that obviously needed some comic relief near the end got just that in the person of Leon Lett, a 292-pound defensive tackle for the Dallas Cowboys. Lett, who isn't a starter, showed that he isn't a finisher, either.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Kevin Everett voluntarily moved his arms and legs Tuesday when partially awakened, prompting a neurosurgeon to say the Buffalo Bills tight end would walk again -- contrary to the grim prognosis given a day before. "Based on our experience, the fact that he's moving so well, so early after such a catastrophic injury means he will walk again," said Dr. Barth Green, chairman of the department of neurological surgery at the University of Miami school of medicine.

Two NFL coaching vacancies were filled on Wednesday, when the Chicago Bears hired St. Louis Ram defensive coordinator Lovie Smith and the Buffalo Bills hired Pittsburgh Steeler offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey. Smith agreed to a four-year deal. He replaces Dick Jauron, fired Dec. 29. Smith will be introduced at a news conference today. He was in St. Louis on Wednesday and unavailable for comment. The Rams had one of the NFL's worst defenses when Smith arrived, allowing 471 points in 2000.

Just a simple piece of advice. That's what Jim Kelly had for Drew Bledsoe when Bledsoe arrived in April, replacing Rob Johnson as quarterback of the Buffalo Bills. Seeing as how Kelly is not only a Hall of Fame quarterback but is permanently entrenched as the city's golden boy, Bledsoe would have been a fool to ignore these three simple words: Location, location, location. Not location of Bledsoe's throws, mind you; he's one of the game's most accurate passers.

Cornerback Phillip Buchanon wasn't going to miss the same pass twice. Moments after allowing a pass by Drew Bledsoe to slip through his hands, Buchanon intercepted the next one and ran it back 81 yards for a touchdown, sparking the Oakland Raiders to a 49-31 win over the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. Oakland (4-0) is the NFL's only unbeaten team, following San Diego's 26-9 loss to Denver. The Raiders matched the best start in franchise history, last going 4-0 in 1990. They have Buchanon to thank.

The resurgent New England Patriots are getting picky. Simply winning doesn't thrill them anymore. The Patriots beat the Buffalo Bills, 21-11, Sunday, moving above .500 for the first time in two seasons under Coach Bill Belichick and matching last year's victory total. But they didn't play that well. "Last year these would be types of games we'd lose," quarterback Tom Brady said. "You'd always like to play great every week, but that's not always the case in this league, as I'm finding out."

Two of the NFL's longest-running sagas came to a close Wednesday when quarterback Ryan Leaf was waived by the San Diego Chargers and the Buffalo Bills ended their divisive quarterback controversy by picking Rob Johnson over Doug Flutie, who was released. Leaf became one of the more notorious busts in NFL draft history after being selected second overall behind Peyton Manning in 1998.

Remember those old high school annuals where they used to put under the pictures of certain students, "Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith"? Well, fate failed in a big way in Super Bowl XXVIII. It could well be that the game--and the championship of the universe--is decided by a Smith. We have never had a President named Smith. But we could have a Super Bowl most valuable player. The game could well degenerate into a contest of Smith vs. Smith. First, there is Bruce.

The NFC beat the AFC in the Super Bowl on Sunday. And a pie is round, and water is wet, and ice is slippery, and roses are red and violets are blue. The Pope is Catholic and there are bear tracks in the woods and the sun sets in the West. So did the Buffalo Bills. The score is so embarrassing, I don't think I'll mention it to you. It was as one-sided as a train wreck. A disaster movie. If there's a team in the AFC that can give the NFC a game, Buffalo ain't it.

The Baltimore Ravens' record-setting defense will try to define its place in NFL history in the Super Bowl on Sunday, but Marvin Lewis, its architect, may be in his final days with the team. Lewis will interview with the Buffalo Bills and the Cleveland Browns about their head coaching jobs after the Super Bowl. He has a particular affinity for the Bills, because he and new General Manager Tom Donahoe worked together when Lewis was an assistant with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

If the Buffalo Bills needed more incentive to defeat the archrival Miami Dolphins on Sunday, the Dolphins' Thurman Thomas upped the ante. Thomas, the Bills' all-time leading rusher who signed with the Dolphins after being cut by the Bills, ripped into the organization and three veteran defensive stalwarts in particular in a story published Monday in the Miami Herald.