This column could easily be a Shane Greene Jersey sappy love fest about Buffalo, impa sioned and sometimes unhinged fans, the blue-collar nature of the city, the wings, the tailgating, and the vibe in Western New York before a ma sive home game on Sunday.But it's not.I'll explain why.In 2011, painted a glorious picture of the simpler-times scene in Orchard Park before the Bills beat Tom Brady and the in a late-September battle of the unbeatens en route to the cover of Sports Illustrated. It came in a season when Buffalo's rag-tag group of underdogs led by Ryan Fitzpatrick ultimately fizzled after a 3-0 start and finished 6-10.For years, was the de facto angle taken before e sentially every important home Bills game. The team had been so irrelevant during the 2000s, those type of fluff pieces were sensible. They shined a light on local, small-market excitement surrounding a team that long resided in the basement without any power.And for as good as Carpenter Jordy Mercer Jersey 's piece was, and those written afterward, it felt like the meticulous tailgate imagery distracted from the actual football being played. No one really took those Bills teams seriously. Cute story at the time? Sure. But were any of those Bills teams genuine, deep-run-in-the-playoff contenders? Or contenders? Certainly not.As the Bills played more respectable ball from 2014 through the years that culminated with the snapping of the 17-year playoff drought on New Year's Eve 2017, my uncle would occasionally remind that the Bills had become the Boise State of the .Remember those fun-to-root-for perennial collegiate underdogs, who from the early 2000s through the 2010s became a "small school" powerhouse and would get one bowl-game swing at a heavyweight program? Heck, Boise State's win over the Adrian Peterson-led Oklahoma Sooners in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl is etched into lore as one of the game's most legendary tales of David over Goliath. But those Broncos teams never competed for a national title, because like the Bills, they were never taken quite seriously enough. Deep down, we all knew they probably couldn't play with college football's best.That comparison always struck me for its accuracy. It's precisely how the Bills felt within the landscape. They were natural underdogs. And even lately, it's been a hard moniker for the Bills to Jeimer Candelario Jersey shake.At the end of the 2020 season, when and his team erupted to cruise to a 13-3 record before storming into Arrowhead Stadium to play the in the AFC championship game, they were facing a club that had just been there and done that in the . A win in Allen's first trip to Arrowhead seemed a little far-fetched. The next year, after throttling the Chiefs in Kansas City in October, there was more momentum for a potential playoff victory in Kansas City, but the same old Bills mismanaged the game late in what lives in infamy in Buffalo as Omar Infante Jersey "13 Seconds." A January 2023 dud against a team that had already been to a coupled with another hoisting of the Lombardi Trophy for meant the Bills had gone from league-wide underdog to underdog among the elite teams. The Chiefs are the defending Super Bowl champions until they are unseated. But this occasion feels different. This is ChiefsBills for the first time with fans in the Allen-Mahomes era. And Buffalo won in Kansas City in December.For the Bills, there's no happy-to-be-here, quinte sential underdog narrative ahead of this clash. And there's no need for a mushy written feature or TV e say on the intensity, grit or loyalty of Buffalo's fans that diverts attention away from the Bills as a relative long shot to actually win. And you probably won't see those sentimental stories before this game. Because at home, without treacherous weather, in front of their well-documented fans, after previous swings and mi ses of this kind, the Bills are Spencer Turnbull Jersey in prime position to do what's now needed to be taken seriously in Super Bowl conversations.