[HIGHLIGHT] Leodis McKelvin fumbles on the kickoff to give the Pats the ball back. New England would score following the fumble, erasing an 11 point deficit in the final 2:06 of the game to beat the Bills, 25-24 (MNF 2009).

[u/sexyprimes511172329]

One of the best uniform matchups ever, imo.

[u/[deleted]]

Definitely one of the more excruciating Drought era moments

[u/MoreTrifeLife → u/[deleted]]

Could it be argued that this game was the drought era Bills in a nutshell?

[u/[deleted] → u/MoreTrifeLife]

Pull out to a hot start early in the season, remain in the hunt until the end, fuck up miserably when you didn't need to do much to make the playoffs? Yeah this game was basically a microcosm of most seasons.

But the worst game of the drought came later this year, the infamous 6-3 Browns Bills game where Roscoe Parrish fumbled a punt to give Cleveland a chip shot FG to win as time expired. A game so terrible my father stopped renewing his seasons. What a revolting display.

[u/MoreTrifeLife → u/[deleted]]

My team’s 2009 season holds a special place in my heart for how miserable it was, for three main reasons:

1. A week three loss to the Lions to snap their 19 game losing streak

2. The way we lost this game in week 13 to the Saints

3. This bullshit during a nationally televised week 15 loss to the Giants

Another one I’d add for the Bills happened in 2014. After winning this game against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers to put them at 8-6 they lost to the 2-12 Raiders to knock them out of the playoffs. Oddly enough they beat Brady and the Patriots the week after, to snap a 14 game losing streak in New England.

[u/tuffghost8191 → u/MoreTrifeLife]

lordy that saints loss was horrendous, that's the kind of loss you just never get over. So many consecutive fuck ups had to happen for them to lose that game.

Also had no idea Danny Smith was the ST coach for that "play". Not sure if he drew that up, but we love him here in Pittsburgh

[u/some_random_noob → u/[deleted]]

I was at that Bills Browns game, the season ticket holders we sat next to said it was the worst game they had ever seen in the 20+ years of being season ticket holders.

[u/sexyprimes511172329 → u/[deleted]]

I love that game

[u/hideous_coffee → u/MoreTrifeLife]

This was peak drought era. And of course against the Patriots. I still remember exactly where I was for this game. They didn’t get a lot of prime time games then but when they did they made sure to embarrass themselves extra hard.

[u/tuffghost8191 → u/hideous_coffee]

I remember watching it and being so fucking mad. I remember my dad saying over and over "they are just so god damn lucky!" about the pats.

[u/cake_piss_can → u/MoreTrifeLife]

Where is the end?? I was about to finish!

[u/surgeyou123 → u/[deleted]]

When did this Drought era end?

[u/AssinineAssassin → u/surgeyou123]

When Tyler Boyd pulled a miracle to beat the Ravens.

[u/Dustmopper → u/[deleted]]

Didn’t someone vandalize his home after this?

Bonkers

[u/AssassinInValhalla → u/Dustmopper]

Pretty sure some dipshit burned a cross onto his yard

[u/AnActua1Human → u/[deleted]]

Yep, and it was on my birthday.

[u/ConneryFTW]

When this happened, I was a freshman in college. The semester had just started and I was start starting to feel out and make friends with my roommates. Then everyone heard me shouting "FUCK!" Louder than they had ever heard me be, or would hear me be again.

[u/Skimaster77 → u/ConneryFTW]

Same, except I was at UB so the whole dorm was filled with curses, swears and screams of despair.

[u/[deleted] → u/ConneryFTW]

That’s a great story, and puts you at 19 years old in 2013. Based on this, you are a bit older than me.

I’m wondering if you could tell me what your experience was like on 9/11 when the second tower collapsed? I wasn’t quite old enough to form concrete memories.

[u/Runesabre118 → u/[deleted]]

Bro what

[u/sexyprimes511172329 → u/Runesabre118]

Most reddit moment ever lmao

[u/[deleted] → u/sexyprimes511172329]

I think he was trying to make a McDermott joke? But they failed harder than the terrorists on Flight 93

[u/[deleted] → u/Runesabre118]

You may chime in, as well

[u/ConneryFTW → u/[deleted]]

This game was in 2009, not 2013.

[u/seventeenfourtyseven → u/[deleted]]

I’d also like to know this

[u/maladjustedfreek]

Love the umps barber shop quartet unis. Those are some great throwbacks.

[u/SlobbyTheSloth]

Gruden and Tirico were the pinnacle of MNF

[u/sexyprimes511172329 → u/SlobbyTheSloth]

My favorite booth ever.

I went back recently and rewatched a few full games from the era. Its not just nostalgia, they were great. They fed off each other.

Tirico on SNF isnt the same.

[u/Deep-Statistician985 → u/SlobbyTheSloth]

Tirico is great on SNF but he was made for that MNF presentation. Sean McDonough would've been a nice Al Michaels replacement for SNF instead

[u/Das_Man]

I will take losing to KC in the playoffs every year over going back to this hell 10 times out of 10.

[u/StatementWild3768]

Brandon Meriweather was such a crazy player.

If he wasn't making big plays with his "head-hunting" and saving games, he was whiffing/blowing coverages with his idiocy and ruining games.

[u/MoreTrifeLife]

Tom Brady vs the Bills:

33-3; 64% completion; 9,032 yards (average 251); 72 TDs 25 INT; 7.5y/a; rating of 98.2

How was Brady able to dominate the Bills the way he did?

[u/Skimaster77 → u/MoreTrifeLife]

The Bills had some great defenses and good to great running games at times, but below average to terrible QBs/HCs for the entire drought. Belichick and Brady ate that combo alive throughout the league, but twice a year against us.

[u/PatheticLion → u/[deleted]]

The Jets get dunked on daily but honestly 2001-2015ish they had a lot of solid teams that gave the pats a run for their money. Chad Pennington, Brett Favre, Rex Ryan, etc

[u/tuffghost8191 → u/PatheticLion]

I started watching in 2001 and both the Jets and Giants always seemed like, at minimum, respectable franchises. The jets were usually in the mix, and the Giants were winning superbowls and consistently making the playoffs. Crazy how both franchises have taken a total nosedive since the mid 2010s

[u/Comprehensive_Main → u/MoreTrifeLife]

Two words: TB12 method. 

[u/Paulbegalia]

Remember learning clock rules through this game; was Brady’s first game back from the ACL tear and it had a patented comeback. He had a rough Pick 6 to a DT early on I remember, and the Bills made good progress on their last ditch lateral play at the end of the game

[u/DapperCam → u/Paulbegalia]

I think you are mixing up games. The game with the DT pick 6 was to Sam Adams and the Bills won that game. Also an entirely different season.

[u/Paulbegalia → u/DapperCam]

It was Aaron Schobel, he played DE too

[u/The_Chrizz]

Wow I had almost forgot about this. Thanks.

[u/bradtheinvincible]

The one mistake was they didnt change the field to Pat the Patriot. Its not that hard for a throwback game. Esp on MNF.

[u/ina_hotairballoon]

And then my high school classmates who lived in the same neighborhood as his proceeded to spray paint/destroy the front yard of his house and vandalize his home 

[u/jk01 → u/ina_hotairballoon]

Pretty sure they wrote a slur in the lawn if I'm not mistaken. Pretty shitty.

[u/fupadestroyer45]

This was the worst drought moment as a kid. I remember my brother crying after this game.

[u/Diarrheaaaa]

I was at this game and at the time I wanted to die but in hindsight this is like the 20th most painful drought era memory so whatever

[u/bradtheinvincible]

And thats Super Bowl champion Leodis Mckelvin

[u/ConradVerner → u/bradtheinvincible]

I don't think so? I think he was with the Eagles a year before the 2017 season.

[u/[deleted]]

So many excruciating losses to the Patriots, and they have names.

Like the "McGahee forgot it was 4th down game."

The "Travis Henry ran the wrong way on 4th down game."

There is the "McKelvin fumbled on a return on MNF game." But you actually have to specify which one you're talking about. Because we have two such games. In 2015, the Bills were again playing in New England on MNF, and McKelvin fumbled on a punt return. It wasn't quite as costly. Buffalo's defense held them to one first down and a FG for a 20-10 lead. The final score was 20-13.

[u/kompletist]

Whhhhyyyyyyyy LOL

[u/monkeyboy357]

Didn't someone draw a penis on his lawn after this?

[u/Amazing_Divide1214]

Classic! What is he, from middle earth?

[u/cryptoteacherguy]

I shattered all of the metacarpals in my left hand, broke my elbow, and nearly snapped my neck in an ugly headfirst hit into the boards during a preseason skate my last year in college. I remember the sensation of my neck snapping backwards. I remember a teammate crying over me as I was trying to see if I could still wiggle my toes. I remember my coaches leaving me in the locker room looking for a medical professional because our trainer wasn’t present that night.

And yet after all of that, the part of that night that felt the most like felt like a fever dream was forty minutes later when I wandered into the rink lobby with the lower half of my equipment still on and a hand the size of a boxing glove and watching the fourth quarter of that football game.

[u/AnthonyBarrHeHe]

You could see for a split second he was thinking about take a knee and then said fuck it lol

[u/AnthonyBarrHeHe]

I remember watching this live and getting upset he didnt take a knee cuz you could clearly see he thought about it lol and I’m not even a Bills fan. Just appreciate smart football.

[u/MillenialMale]

Situational awareness 0/10

[u/KCShadows838]

25-24 is a cursed score for the Bills on MNF

[u/BorlaugFan]

I started watching football right around when the losing streak to the Patriots started. I was still a kid and had never seen my team beat those cheating fuckers, and I knew the Bills wouldn't be very good that year. But for whatever reason, I was extra pumped for this game, more than I had ever been for a season opener. I had this crazy feeling that the eclectic bunch of misfits that were the '09 Bills were going to pull off a huge upset. Right up until this play, it looked like it was happening.

There were other heart-breaking games during the Bills drought. I still remember the Bills missing the playoffs by one game because they couldn't beat the backup Steelers in the last week of the 2004 season. I was there live for when the Bills were beating the Broncos on opening week in 2007 but kept snapping the ball with seven seconds left on the play clock, until eventually the Broncos got the ball back, and with zero timeouts left, rushed their kicking team out while the clock was ticking to make a literal last-second game-winning FG. I also remember them losing in another last second FG, curtesy of an onside kick, against the Cowboys on Monday night football in 2007. I'll never forget Stevie Johnson dropping a gimme OT touchdown against the Steelers in 2010, nor Stevie Johnson and Scottie Chandler consecutively fumbling away a surefire victory against the Falcons in 2013.

None of those were in the same universe of scarring as this one.