KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KPR) – A rematch of last season’s AFC Championship game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills is set for this Sunday at Highmark Stadium in Buffalo. Bills fans this year hope their team can reverse the trend in recent years of losing out on a trip to the Super Bowl—because of the Chiefs.
But the greatest years in Bills history can also be linked to the Chiefs, albeit under awkward circumstances, from Kansas City’s standpoint.
Before Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy guided the Bills to four straight Super Bowls from the 1990 to ’94 seasons, his first NFL head coaching job was with the Chiefs for five years.
Levy’s time in Kansas City came to an abrupt halt when the Chiefs fired him. Some former players contend to this day it was a mistake.
“He takes them, Buffalo, to the Super Bowl four consecutive years, which is unheard of at the time,” said Dave Lindstrom, a former Chiefs defensive lineman from 1978 to ’85. “He put together a wonderful team there and I think he was doing that here and had that capability. I have no doubt in my mind that Marv Levy was a great coach.”
Before Levy took over in 1978, the Chiefs finished the ’77 season with a 2-12 record. In each of the next four seasons, the Chiefs made an incremental improvement in their won-loss record.
Then the NFL players went on strike in 1982 two games into the season. The Chiefs split their two games before the strike, then regressed to a 2-5 record after the labor settlement.
Lindstrom believes Levy became the fall guy.
“The Chiefs (front office) weren’t satisfied with okay or just under a winning season,” said Lindstrom. “They wanted something more and I don’t blame them for that. But they fired Marv as a result and, I think, unjustly.”
Levy’s first full season as the Bills head coach in 1987 coincided with the rookie year of Jamie Mueller, a running back out of Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.
“Mueller’s Locker Room,” a bar in Atchison, Kansas, displays clippings and photos from Mueller’s four seasons with the Bills. But he knows today that his name may not be as well-recognized with each passing year.
Except for diehard Benedictine Ravens fans.
“A lot of the alumni that come back, obviously, they know because they were my teammates,” he said.
Mueller said Levy made an immediate impact on him in Buffalo.
“Marv (Levy) was a different coach than what I was used to and I was a bit taken back by his intellect,” he said.
Levy, who turned 100 earlier this year, finished his undergraduate work at Coe College in Iowa, then entered Harvard Law School. But he dropped out to become a football coach.
What turned Levy into a Hall of Fame coach?
Chiefs Hall of Famer Deron Cherry said Levy was a great judge of talent who got the best out of his players.
Cherry recalled signing with the Chiefs as a free agent punter out of Rutgers University under a new special teams coach (Frank Gansz) on Levy’s staff.
“He (Gansz) wanted to change my whole punting style and I knew it wasn’t where it should have been,” said Cherry. “I picked up the phone and called Marv Levy and said, ‘Hey, can I come back in and work at the safety position?’”
Levy said yes and it changed Deron Cherry’s life.
“I wouldn’t be a Chiefs Hall of Famer if it wouldn’t have been for Coach Levy,” said Cherry.
Last season, thousands of Bills fans showed up for the AFC Championship game at Arrowhead Stadium desperately hoping to see their team return to the Super Bowl for the first time since the Marv Levy-coached teams.
Lisa Newton, who lives within walking distance of Highmark Stadium where the Bills play their home games in Orchard Park, N.Y., drove to Kansas City for the first time to attend the game.
“I think Kansas City is very comparable to Buffalo as far as—everything is Chiefs. In Buffalo, everything is Buffalo,” she said.
Newton grew up in the New York City area and met her husband in 1990 before the Super Bowl between the Bills and the New York Giants. Memories of that Super Bowl, a 20-19 Bills loss, are still fresh.
“We met a couple months before and I’m on the phone with him during the game. I just didn’t get it. Being a Giants fan, it’s not the same,” Newton recalled. “But he was so distraught and it was devastating.”
Jamie Mueller played in that Super Bowl and was devastated.
“That was tough, man,” said Mueller. “We were favored to win that game and we should have won that game.”
While the Bills benefited then from the Chiefs cutting ties with Marv Levy, Mueller now shakes his head at how the Chiefs in the Patrick Mahomes era have prevented the Bills from returning to the Super Bowl.
“Mahomes always seems to get the better though when it counts. He really does,” said Mueller who had sound in his voice. “I mean the guy, he’s like a Houdini a little bit.”
Like the rest of Bills fans — often referred to as "the Bills Mafia"— Mueller hopes Buffalo can eventually enjoy a Super Bowl champion.
But after reflecting on it further, knowing the Chiefs have won three Super Bowls in the last five years, Mueller added, “It’s maddening! It really is.”
Bills fans hope this weekend’s outcome will be a sign toward a breakthrough and put an end to years of frustration against the Chiefs.
The Super Bowl will take place next February in Santa Clara, California.