The Buffalo Bills have played 34 playoff games in their history. The first came against the Boston Patriots. And the next will come against them, too.
The franchise is called New England now, but don’t let that fool you. They’re the same old Pats, still tormenting the Bills over all these years.
Bills Mafia can only hope the next playoff game goes better than that first one, in 1963: Patriots 26, Bills 8. You think this season’s Bills struggled to run at times? Those Bills gained all of seven yards on the ground on that snowy day at War Memorial Stadium.
That was all the more astonishing because just three weeks earlier, Bills fullback Cookie Gilchrist set the all-time pro rushing record for a single game. He had 243 yards on 36 carries against the New York Jets at the Rockpile on Dec. 8 – and 7 yards on eight carries against the Pats on the same field on Dec. 28.
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“We intended to run a lot more,” Bills coach Lou Saban said after. “But on a field like that, you could run all day and not catch up.”
As it turned out, the Bills couldn’t catch up with the pass, either. Jack Kemp started at quarterback. Daryle Lamonica replaced him. Kemp came back in. And nothing worked. Kemp threw one interception. Lamonica threw three.
“Blame it on the quarterbacks,” Kemp said. “We are either the heroes or the bums.”
The Bills and Patriots had each finished the regular season at 7-6-1. This was a one-game playoff to decide the East Division title – and decide who would get to play in the American Football League championship game against the powerhouse San Diego Chargers, who had won the West Division with an 11-3 record.
Things went badly for the Bills right from the start: Elbert Dubenion fumbled the opening kickoff, and the Patriots recovered. The Pats did not cash in, because the Bills intercepted a Babe Parilli pass, but then Gino Cappelletti hit a 28-yard field goal and Larry Garron scored on a 59-yard Parilli pass. Score after one quarter: Pats 10, Bills 0.
“Ten points on that field,” Saban said, “was like a mountain.”
Cappelletti added two more field goals in the second quarter, and Gilchrist missed one for the Bills from 39. (Yes, position players did those things then; Lamonica was the Bills punter that day, and Cappelletti played wide receiver for the Patriots.) Score at the half: Pats 16, Bills 0.
Then came the game’s lone moment of glory for the Bills: Lamonica hit Dubenion for a 93-yard touchdown. Duby hauled it in at the Bills’ 45 and sped untouched the rest of the way. Then Lamonica tossed a two-point conversion to John Tracey, which made it a one-score game. Score after three quarters: Pats 16, Bills 8.
Alas, the Pats closed it out easily with another Garron TD catch and another Cappelletti field goal, and that was that. Final score: 26-8.
“The snow-covered gridiron reduced the effectiveness of the power running of Gilchrist,” The New York Times said in its report, “but did not seem to hamper Ron Burton or Larry Garron,” the Patriots’ running backs.
A week later, in San Diego, the Chargers pounded the Pats, 51-10. Chargers running back Keith Lincoln was a one-man show with 349 total yards: 206 as a rusher, 123 as a pass receiver, and 20 as a passer.
A year later, in the next AFL title game, in Buffalo, Lincoln looked as if he might be on his way to another boffo performance. He had 47 yards on three rushes and 11 more on a pass reception as the Chargers led, 7-0, in the first quarter.
Bills fans know what happened next. Linebacker Mike Stratton walloped Lincoln in the midsection as he was catching a swing pass. This broke Lincoln’s ribs – and the Chargers’ spirit. The Bills won, 20-7. The play is immortalized in Bills lore as the Hit Heard ’Round the World.
Robert L. Smith got a picture of it a split-second before impact. It just might be the most famous photo in Bills history. Chances are, if you are of a certain age, you have seen it dozens of times. There’s an untold story about that photo coming soon.
In the meantime, it will be Bills vs. Pats in the playoffs for the first time in 58 years. And 58, as chance would have it, was Mike Stratton’s number.
