It was a very emotional weekend for me, and probably other Bills fans as well – one I hope not to repeat but I probably will – it seems to be the natural cycle of being a Bills fan.

On Saturday night I tuned into the premiere of ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary on the Super Bowl era Bills entitled The Four Falls of Buffalo. For two hours I relived the glory days of the Buffalo Bills with all its highs and lows. The documentary was extremely well done and if you remember those times, it was quite emotional.

There was the rejection of our own first round draft pick, Jim Kelly, as he refused to come to Buffalo and opted for warmer climes in Houston, followed by the optimism his arrival in Buffalo brought to the fans. There was the cocky but extremely talented quarterback learning how to lead and calling out his teammates in the media, leading to the famous “bickering Bills” and their maturation as a team to work through the growing pains.

And of course there was the success – lots of success. The AFC championship game where the Bills absolutely dismantled the Raiders 51-3 and could do no wrong – there was just no stopping that team that day. And of course there was the first Super Bowl and its heartbreaking outcome. Emotionally you went from the highs of seeing a stunned Howie Long unable to describe the whooping his team had just received followed by an epic loss architected by a young Bill Belichick. I remembered not talking for days after the famous missed kick, but as I sat and watched my heart swelled with pride to see the resiliency of Buffalo and her fans as they cheered Scott Norwood at the post-game rally – seriously, what other team fan base would do that for a guy who just missed a career-defining kick? Norwood was interviewed on the steps of Buffalo city hall, site of the rally and a place he hadn’t been back to in years and got emotional about what had happened. To say I didn’t get emotional watching that would be an outright lie – I’m glad nobody was around to see me as I watch TV in the dark.

Cut to Sunday, game day for the Bills against the Eagles. Yet another “must win” game for the Bills – lose it and you can pretty much call it a season. Gone are the days of having an offense the scores almost at will. Gone is the offense with Hall of Fame players at quarterback, running back, receiver and defensive end, surrounded by other of only Pro Bowl quality. I think Buffalo has a more talented team than Philadelphia, but with injuries, inconsistent performances, inability to win more than 2 games in a row and inability to play through emotion it was certainly no guarantee that the Bills would win.

And so, like every December, the Bills found a way to end their season without playing past week 17. For the 16th year in a row, the Bills will be out of the playoffs, relegated to national irrelevancy and being the punchline of jokes. In 1994 the Joke was the Bills couldn’t win the big one, but 20+ years later the joke is that the Bills can’t win enough to see their season extended.

It happens every year – we start out thinking that the Bills have enough talent to finally break the playoff drought. This is the year we’re going to finally take the next step and be competitive. We’re better because this year we improved our offense/defense/coaching and we were so close last year that the new changes should be good enough to give us 2-3 more wins (minimum), just enough to get us over this hump. The Bills win some games you figured they’d lose, just to get you excited, but then fritter away their opportunities by dropping games they should win (we lost to Jacksonville? Seriously?). We go from being in the driver’s seat in the playoff hunt and controlling our own destiny, to needing help from other teams to see the playoffs, to falling out of the playoff race and starting to think of the draft (we’ll pick somewhere between 9th and 16th, as usual). Just far enough out of the top picks to get a player who we feel will put us over the top but won’t. After the draft we’ll be excited for the new season and the cycle continues – just another year in Buffalo.

Sunday’s game was a microcosm of the entire Bills season. Once again, the team had more talent than its opponent, yet key players were unavailable due to injury and it hurt – Leodis McKelvin had a very poor showing playing in place of Stephon Gilmore. Penalties were a problem – they absolutely killed the Bills – on numerous occasions they made a third and long situation a makeable conversion which kept the Eagles offense on the field. Tackling was solid, except in a few cases where it wasn’t, and then there were some huge gains. Some play calls seems questionable – did the Bills always need to try the long pass down the sideline in a makeable third down situation? And finally there was the officiating – the Eagles got away with a blatant pick play for a big gainer to Zach Ertz (they also screwed up a review of McKelvin’s interception that went the Bills’ way, even though it was the wrong call).

We’ve seen it all before – this season and in seasons past. No matter how talented you think the Bills are, there’s always something keeping them from living up to their potential – injuries, bad play calls, bad coaching, penalties, poor calls by officials and flat out bad luck. It almost doesn’t matter why the Bills lost this game or will finish at about .500 yet again – it just somehow happens.

There are many great philosophical question to ponder – what is beauty, if a tree falls in the forrest and nobody is there to hear it does it make a sound, what is the sound of one hand clapping. One I’d like to add to the list is if a team consistently finishes within 2 games of .500 are they improving? Will they ever improve? Improvement needs to be measured, and by just about any measure you choose the Bills have been in the same place for over a decade.

So the offseason starts in earnest tomorrow. Sure, there are still three games left, but win or lose it won’t make much difference. Younger fans and those who haven’t yet learned how to power through the denial phase of the grieving process will point out that the Bills are not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, but trust me – I’ve seen it time and time again – it’s over. Heck, I’m so used to this grieving process I’m already through denial and I’m firmly into anger and the game ended mere hours ago. I’m thinking I’ll skip bargaining altogether (it never works) and go straight to depression – probably tomorrow when it sets in.

Of course my anger is helped a bit by something I saw post-game. MarQueis Gray, a player I like and by all counts a really good guy, decided to take Bills fans to task for venting their anger after the loss. He chastised fans for showing disrespect and saying that fans have to be with the team through the ups and downs, not just when they win. As a lifelong Bills fan, I take tremendous offense to such a tweet questioning fan loyalty. What’s worse, the Bills retweeted the comment, tacitly supporting it. Look, the Bills have some of the most loyal fans of any sports franchise in the world. Show me another fan base who would come out in droves to support a team that hasn’t shown any sort of success in 16 years. Bills fans bought 60,000 season tickets this year – to sit in the cold late in the season and watch the team play. The fan base comes from a wide geographic area and has some of the lowest median income in the league, yet they still come. The season is all but over, but the fans are still going to show up in late December and January. I’m sorry the Bills are hurt that the fans are upset, but never, ever, question our loyalty, especially if you’ve only been here for two seasons, you were in middle school the last time the Bills were in the playoffs and you were in diapers for the Super Bowl years. I’d also caution the Bills against questioning the loyalty of their paying fans - it’s offensive and just plain dumb. We have the right to be angry, but we’ll still be there for you. If you don’t understand that, perhaps you should check out a really cool documentary I saw on ESPN – it explains so much about the Bills and their fans.