Four Falls of Buffalo
Narrated by William Fichtner, who grew up in Buffalo.,Features SportsCenter (1979),I was just a kid of 6 years old when the Bills went to their first Super Bowl. We weren't living in Western New York yet, but it wasn't much longer until we moved there and I began following the Bills. Though I hadn't been a life-long fan, those three other Super Bowls hurt.

Time has a way of flipping the narrative though. As a fan of a team in which their greatest accomplishment is losing in four consecutive Super Bowls, that's what the haters always point to. Yet this documentary brings to the forefront an accomplishment that not even the Cowboys of the 90s did, nor did the Patriots of the 2000s do: they played in four consecutive Super Bowls. Considering that the game of football is a violent train wreck that happens four weeks in the pre-season, 16 weeks over the regular season, and for the best teams 3-4 more weeks in the post season, that's a lot of physical, emotional, and psychological strain that sports medicine and science is just beginning to understand. Even the victors of those Super Bowls against the Bills have to admit that what they accomplished is not likely to ever be repeated. Though the Bills didn't win, the greatness of those teams is now better understood.

What I particularly liked about this documentary though is the character that shone through of Scott Norwood. When people think of "character" and "Bills Super Bowl appearances" the first, and sometimes only thought, that comes to mind is Don Beebe chasing down Leon Lett in a blowout loss, and rightly so. Yet Scott Norwood, who should have never been put in a position to have the game on his foot, addressed the media and answered every question about it. I'm sure in that moment only Bill Buckner could truly understand how he felt. Yet 24 years later he was still being asked about it. Given how the other three Super Bowls went, and how victory in that first one was a 47 yard kick away, he wasn't crushed. Of course it haunts him, but he didn't wallow in agony. I think that, as much as anything else (if not more) revealed that those Bills teams had big egos to be sure, but a lot of character too.

This documentary didn't need to answer the question of why didn't they win. It showed that those were very special years that likely will never be repeated ever.,