The Bills and Chargers haven’t crossed paths all that often in recent years, but when they do, the games tend to leave a mark.
Sunday’s visit to Orchard Park will be the 42nd meeting between Buffalo and Los Angeles, a rivalry that goes all the way back to 1960, when both clubs were original members of the American Football League. By the middle of that decade, they were already meeting with championships at stake.
Buffalo’s two league titles both came against the Chargers, and both came one year apart. The first arrived on Dec. 26, 1964, when the Bills hosted San Diego in the AFL Championship Game and won 20-7 at War Memorial Stadium in front of a standing-room-only crowd of 40,242.
A year later, Buffalo went to San Diego and did it again, this time blanking the Chargers 23-0 in the 1965 AFL Championship Game. Butch Byrd’s 74-yard interception return for a touchdown helped fuel a defense that held San Diego to 223 total yards.
The postseason rematch finally came 15 years later, and this time the Chargers got theirs.
Buffalo entered the 1980 divisional round after going 11-5 and winning the AFC East, then carried a 14-3 halftime lead in San Diego behind a Roosevelt Leaks touchdown run and a Joe Ferguson scoring pass to Frank Lewis. But Dan Fouts and the Chargers flipped the game.
San Diego cut the margin to 14-13, then Fouts hit Ron Smith on a 50-yard touchdown with 2:08 left to seal a 20-14 win. It remains San Diego’s only playoff victory in the series.
Buffalo still leads the postseason matchup, 2-1, even though the Chargers own the overall edge, 25-14-2.
Not every Bills-Chargers meeting has had championship stakes, though. One of the strangest came on Oct. 19, 2008, when three helium balloons tangled in a power line outside Ralph Wilson Stadium and knocked out electricity during the first quarter. The scoreboard and play clocks went dark, the CBS broadcast went off the air, and officials had to keep time on the field after play resumed.
Buffalo handled the chaos just fine. Trent Edwards went 25 of 30 for 261 yards and a touchdown, Marshawn Lynch scored the go-ahead touchdown in the third quarter, and Kawika Mitchell intercepted Philip Rivers in the end zone late in the fourth. The Bills won 23-14 and moved to 5-1.
Then there’s the one Buffalo fans probably wish they could erase entirely.
In November 2017, Sean McDermott started rookie Nathan Peterman over Tyrod Taylor when the Bills went to Los Angeles. Peterman’s first NFL start lasted one half, and it was brutal: five interceptions on 14 attempts. The Chargers turned that into a 37-7 halftime lead and rolled to a 54-24 win after Peterman was replaced by Taylor.
Since Josh Allen took over, Buffalo has had the upper hand. The teams have met twice in Allen’s career, and the Bills have won both.
In November 2020 in Orchard Park, Allen threw a touchdown and ran for another, Cole Beasley even tossed a 20-yard touchdown pass to Gabe Davis, and Buffalo’s defense picked off rookie Justin Herbert and sacked him three times in a 27-17 win. The next meeting, on Dec. 23, 2023 in Los Angeles, was tighter.
Buffalo trailed 10-0 in the second quarter before Allen hit Gabe Davis for a 57-yard touchdown. Allen added two rushing scores, but the Chargers grabbed a 22-21 lead with 5:26 left.
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