1995 Buffalo Bills: Getting Back On Top In The AFC East

A string of six straight playoff appearances and a historic streak of four straight AFC crowns had come to an end in 1994. The 1995 Buffalo Bills were looking to get back on track. They did. The Bills returned to the top of the AFC East, and while they were no longer one of the league’s elite, started another run of consistent playoff contention.

The pass rush was the key to success. Bruce Smith, the Hall of Fame defensive end, had an All-Pro year with 10 ½ sacks. Phil Hansen was on the other end and added ten sacks of his own. And no one was better than outside linebacker Bryce Paup. The outside linebacker came off the edge, recorded 17 ½ sacks and was named Defensive Player of the Year.

Aided by that pass rush, free safety Kurt Schultz intercepted six passes. The Buffalo defense as a whole wasn’t dominant. But this kind of playmaking was enough to rank them 12^th in the NFL for points allowed.

The proud Hall of Fame veterans on the other side of the ball were the Big Three of quarterback Jim Kelly, running back Thurman Thomas, and wide receiver Andre Reed. The latter would injure his hamstring after six games and miss the balance of the regular season. Thomas ran for 1,000 yards, but his yards-per-carry was a mediocre 3.8. Kelly would rank in the lower half of the league completion percentage (56%), yards-per-attempt (6.8) and interception rate (2.8%, with a 22/13 TD-INT ratio).

On the surface, that looks bleak, but Kelly and Thomas played some of their best games when it mattered the most. Moreover, other players were stepping up. Darick Holmes shared the load in the backfield and ran for nearly 700 yards. Bill Brooks caught 53 passes for 763 yards. Russell Copeland provided Kelly with some field-stretching ability, averaging 15.4 yards on his 42 catches. Tight end Lonnie Johnson added 49 catches. Even with a nondescript offensive line, Buffalo still got to 13^th in the 30-team NFL for points scored.

The Bills opened the season on Sunday Night in Denver. It didn’t go well. Facing an average opponent, Buffalo was outrushed 140-60 and lost 22-7.

Carolina was in their first year of existence, and the Panthers were the home opener. For the first half, the offense continued to be anemic. Kelly threw three interceptions. The defense bailed them out with red-zone stops and the deficit was still a manageable 9-0. Finally, the Bills exploded. Kelly hit Copeland on a 77-yard touchdown strike. Thomas and Holmes each ran for TDs. Schultz delivered a Pick-6. Buffalo rolled to a 31-9 win.

Indianapolis was a contender, and in this pre-2002 alignment, a divisional rival, joining the AFC East’s four current teams. They came to Buffalo for Week 3, and it was tied 14-14 at the half. But Paup had three sacks. Kelly went 19/35 for 201 yards and no mistakes. The Bills ground out a couple field goals after intermission and won 20-14. They were 2-1 headed into an early bye week.

A Monday Night trip to Cleveland was, on the surface, a showdown. The Browns, coached by a young Bill Belichick, had reached the playoffs in 1994 and were off to a 3-1 start. But this was the first game Cleveland had played since the reports of the franchise’s impending relocation to Baltimore went public.

In this strange atmosphere, Kelly went 27/36 for 256 yards. Reed caught nine balls for 97 yards. Thomas ran for 86 more yards. The Buffalo veterans woke up the echoes for the MNF audience and won 22-19.

The lowly New York Jets came to town, and the Bills muscled up. The outrushed the Jets 220-51, with Thomas gaining 133 yards. The defense got four sacks, two by Smith. The rout was on, and it ended 29-10.

Mediocre Seattle was the next visitor. Holding a 10-7 lead in the third quarter, Kelly threw a short touchdown pass to Johnson and 30-yard strike to Brooks. Buffalo won turnovers 4-0 and Paup got two sacks. The Bills got a 27-21 win. They were 5-1 and riding high.

A Monday Night trip to New England was on deck. Bill Parcells had put the Patriots in the playoffs a year earlier. Even though they would stumble in 1995, they had no problem with Buffalo. While Kelly played well, going 20/31 for 211 yards with no mistakes, the Bills allowed four sacks and lost three fumbles in a 27-14 loss.

The next big divisional road trip was in Miami, where the Dolphins were another playoff team from 1994 and in contention again this year. Buffalo couldn’t run the ball, couldn’t get any kind of downfield passing game going and couldn’t convert on third down. The defense hung in for a while and it was 6-6 in the third quarter. But the offensive anemia was too much to overcome, and the afternoon ended with a 23-6 loss.

On a two-game losing streak, Buffalo needed to stand firm in Indianapolis. Kelly got them off to a good start, hitting Brooks on a 51-yard touchdown pass. The Bills won turnovers 3-zip. In spite of not converting a single third down, it was enough for Buffalo to churn out a 16-10 win.

Playoff-bound Atlanta came north. After spotting the Falcons a touchdown, Kelly hit Brooks on scoring plays from 30 and 15 yards. Holmes had a 100-yard day, and the Bills got a 23-17 win. They followed that up with a late afternoon trip to the Meadowlands to face the Jets. Kelly threw for over 300 yards, with Brooks going over 100 receiving. Paup and Hansen each had two sacks. Buffalo led 28-10, and then had to survive a defensive collapse, stopping at two-point conversion to win 28-26.

That defensive collapse was ominously foreshadowing for what happened at home against New England a week later on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The Bills built a 25-13 lead, with Thomas going for 85 yards. But they were not stopping the run, and the Patriots dominated the fourth quarter, ripping off 22 straight points and handing Buffalo a 35-25 loss.

The Bills were 8-4 and in strong position in the AFC East. The Colts were 7-5, but Buffalo had swept the head-to-head. Miami was giving chase at 6-6. New England, for as much trouble as they gave the Bills, were out of the picture. Buffalo was also tied with AFC Central leader Pittsburgh for the 2-seed and first-round bye, although the Bills trailed the Steelers on the conference record tiebreaker.

A Monday Night trip to San Francisco, where the 49ers were the defending Super Bowl champs and also red-hot, was less than ideal. Smith had three sacks, and the game was tied 10-10. But mistakes would kill Buffalo. Kelly threw three interceptions. Two fumbles were lost, one of them returned 96 yards to the house. That was the difference in a 27-17 loss. If nothing else, Indianapolis had lost on Sunday, so the Bills still had a one-game lead on the Colts and Dolphins.

A road trip to St. Louis, where the Rams were on the playoff fringe was next. The offense put together a complete game. Thomas ran for 129 yards and Holmes added 90. Kelly went 19/25 for 257 yards and threw four touchdown passes. Buffalo coasted to a 45-27 win. Indianapolis and Miami kept pace behind them.

The season’s penultimate game was at home with the Dolphins. The stakes were simple—win, and with the tiebreaker advantages, the division would be clinched. Buffalo came out moving the ball well, although bogging down on the red zone forced them to settle for a couple of field goals. They were dominating the ground game, winning rush yards 208-42, with Thomas racking up 148 yards. But Miami hung in, and it was still a 20-20 tie. The Bills launched one more drive, got one more short field goal and with a 23-20 win, were back on top of the AFC East.

Pittsburgh had kept winning, so the 2-seed was beyond Buffalo’s grasp going into the home finale with the Houston Oilers (today’s Tennessee Titans). Starters were rested in a 20-17 loss.

Round 3 with Miami was what opened Wild-Card Weekend in the early Saturday afternoon time slot. It was more than a playoff game with a division rival. It was also the last run for legendary Dolphin coach Don Shula. But while it might have been Shula’s swan song, today was all Buffalo.

Thomas ran for an early touchdown and a field goal gave the Bills a 10-0 lead. In the second quarter, Holmes raced in from 21 yards out. Kelly hit Steve Tasker, a great special teams player, but necessarily known for his receiving, on a 37-yard TD strike. It was 24-0 at the half and the day turned into one long party for Bills’ fans. Thomas ran for 158 yards, and Holmes added 87 more. Tasker caught five balls for 108 yards. The lead grew to 27-0 and while garbage time points made the final score respectable, the 37-22 result was never in doubt.

If a critic wanted to find a flaw though, it was that the great pass rush never sacked Dan Marino—even though he threw 66 times and everyone in the stadium knew Buffalo could tee off.

Buffalo went on to Pittsburgh to play the Divisional Round in the same early Saturday afternoon time slot. This one didn’t go quite as well, Kelly threw three interceptions and was briefly knocked out, as the Bills dug themselves a 20-0 hole. To their credit, they didn’t quit and closed to within 26-21.

But that missing pass rush? It was still evident here, and this time it mattered. The Steelers pulled back away with a pair of touchdowns and ended Buffalo’s season, 40-21.

1995 was still a year when the proud veterans of the Bills made one last statement and added a division title to their legacy. And while some names would change in the coming years, this was the start of a five-year string where Buffalo made the playoffs four times.