“Wide right” will now have an additional painful meaning for the Bills and their fans.
Kicker Tyler Bass added his name just below Scott Norwood in the annals of franchise history.
This wasn’t the Super Bowl, but the heartbreak is fresh after Bass missed wide right on a 44-yard field goal try that would have tied the score with 1:47 to play.
Instead, the Bills endured another crushing defeat at the hands of the Chiefs, 27-24 in the AFC Divisional Round on a windy Sunday night at Highmark Stadium.
Bass said the hold and snap were good on the play.
“Ultimately you can put it on me,” Bass told reporters after the game. “I got to do a better job of keeping my target. I got to do a better job of playing it a little bit more left to right. I’ve been playing here long enough to know you got to do that. … It just didn’t work out. I feel terrible. I love this team and this one hurts bad.”
It’s the Bills’ third loss in four years to Chief in the postseason.
Quarterback Josh Allen hugged Bass as the team walked back through the tunnel after this defeat.
“I wish he wouldn’t have been put in that situation,” Allen said. “You win as a team, you lose as a team. One play doesn’t define a game.”
The most infamous “wide right” in Bills history came when Norwood missed a 47-yard field goal to the right that would have won Super Bowl XXV against the Giants in 1991.
in Super Bowl XXV against the Giants. AP
Instead Big Blue walked away with a 20-19 victory.
Bass said he’s got “nothing but love” from his teammates after the game.
“We have a special bond in this building,” Bass said. “I’m forever grateful for that. Forever grateful to be a Buffalo Bill. I’m disappointed that it hurts now and I’m gonna let this feeling go into the offseason.”
Bass wasn’t the only Bills star who didn’t make a big play late as wide receiver Stefon Diggs (three catches, 21 yards) had a perfectly thrown long pass from Allen go through his hands with about eight minutes to play in the game that would have put Buffalo near the Chiefs’ 20-yard line.
