Stefon Diggs Disappointed Buffalo Bills Couldn’t Give ‘Mafia’ Super Bowl Trip

Sunday marks the 29^th consecutive year that the Buffalo Bills have missed the Super Bowl.

And when the Bills were getting to Super Bowls, they experienced one of the greatest litanies of frustration in professional sports history. Buffalo lost four consecutive Super Bowls following the 1990-93 seasons. No other franchise in NFL history has that distinction.

So Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs will watch Sunday’s Super Bowl XVII between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., with a melancholy feeling.

No group of players and fan base might have a tighter bond than the Bills and Bills Mafia. Buffalo’s last title came in 1965 when it won the American Football League championship five years before that league merged and was absorbed by the NFL.

That is a long time to wait for a championship, especially considering the Bills have been in the NFL Playoffs in five of the last six years. They have yet to reach the Super Bowl in that span.

“It’s like a family environment,” Diggs said of playing in Buffalo. “They love their football in Buffalo. The Bills Mafia has always got your back. They’re like your mom or your dad because they’re going to love you regardless. It just makes you want to do right by them. You want to win for them, and we all feel bad we couldn’t bring that Super Bowl to them again this year. They deserve one. They deserve a championship to celebrate.”

The Bills had a 13-3 record in the regular season and won their third straight AFC East title. However, they lost to Cincinnati Bengals 27-10 in a divisional-round playoff game on their home field of Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y.

Diggs made the rounds doing media appearances this week in Phoenix during the Super Bowl festivities in his role as a spokesman for Downy Unstoppables, which are said, “to deliver 12 weeks of freshness with results so incredible that you really have to sniff it to believe it.”

Diggs has enjoyed being part of the ad campaign.

“I tend to have a good day when I smell good,” he said with a laugh. “They work just fine to keep my clothes smelling fresh. I like to think I shower well and dress well.”

Diggs, though, would like to be dressed in his Bills’ uniform Sunday. He did his part this season as he was selected to the Pro Bowl for a third straight year while catching 108 passes for 1,429 yards and 11 touchdowns.

However, the Bills fell short again during a trying season. The Bills had to battle two major snowstorms in Western New York then watched safety Damar Hamlin collapse and go into cardiac arrest on Jan. 2 during a game against the Bengals in Cincinnati.

“We had to go through a lot but God gives the toughest battles to the toughest shoulders,” Diggs said. “There was a lot of adversity but at that moment it puts us all together, which it did, even though the world got a little closer with everything that happened. You try to take the positives out of it.”

There is no bigger positive than Hamlin making a remarkable recovery. He attended the Bills’ playoff loss and has been making appearances this week in Phoenix.

“Just to see him alive and well and living his life, it’s hard to describe what that makes me and every guy on our team feel like,” Diggs said.

Now Diggs and his teammates can start thinking ahead to the 2023 season.

“We’ve got 100 percent motivation, 100 percent confidence and we’re going to keep making that push,” he said. “We’ll all try to be healthier at the right time. The healthiest teams always win. We had some key injuries at the wrong time that put a damper on us.

“At the end of the day, we have to play at a high level and execute. No matter who is out there, we’ve got to figure out a way to win.”