Buffalo’s Painful Déjà Vu: Lindy Ruff Feels the Bills’ OT Heartbreak
BUFFALO - The sting of a season-ending loss is something Lindy Ruff knows all too well. So when the Bills fell 33-30 in overtime to the Denver Broncos in the AFC Divisional Playoff, it wasn’t just the fans feeling gutted - the Sabres head coach felt it too.
“I, like most of the Buffalo fans, just felt you’re stabbed in the gut with a knife,” Ruff said after Sunday’s Sabres practice at KeyBank Center. “That’s what it felt like to me.”
And Ruff isn’t just speaking as a fan. He’s been through this kind of heartbreak before - most notably in 1999, when he was behind the bench for the Sabres during the infamous “No Goal” Stanley Cup Final loss to the Dallas Stars. That controversial moment still lives in Buffalo sports lore, and now, more than two decades later, Ruff sees a painful parallel in what happened to the Bills on Saturday.
Let’s break it down.
With the game tied in overtime, Bills quarterback Josh Allen fired a pass to wide receiver Brandin Cooks. Cooks appeared to secure the ball, his knee hit the ground, and there was contact from Denver cornerback Ja’Quan McMillan.
By most interpretations, that’s a completed catch and a downed player. But the officials didn’t stop play for a review.
McMillan was awarded an interception, and the Broncos capitalized, driving downfield and kicking the game-winning field goal.
Because the play happened in overtime, Bills head coach Sean McDermott couldn’t challenge it. He did call a timeout, hoping to buy time for a review from the league’s replay center in New York - but nothing changed.
“That play is not even close,” McDermott said postgame, via a pool reporter. “That’s a catch all the way … and nobody can convince me that that ball is not caught and in possession of Buffalo.
I just have no idea how the NFL handled it, in particular, the way that they did. I think the players and the fans deserve an explanation, you know?”
Ruff, who watched Brett Hull score the Stanley Cup-winning goal with his skate in the crease in 1999 - a play that should’ve been disallowed under the rules at the time - couldn’t help but draw a comparison.
“I thought that the play that Sean is talking about is eerily like our ‘No Goal’ in ’99,” Ruff said. “What’s the rule?
We’ve had that debate. I totally get it.”
He also pointed to the contrast between how that play was handled and the lengthy review in Buffalo’s Wild Card win over Jacksonville just a week earlier.
“It took two, three minutes to decide whether the clock expired,” Ruff said. “Why wouldn’t it take two, three minutes to decide whether this guy was down on the ground with the ball and he had been touched, and is that a catch? Why was that so definitive so fast?”
It’s a fair question - and one that cuts to the heart of what makes these moments so tough to swallow. It’s not just about a missed call. It’s about the feeling that the process, the system, didn’t do its job in the biggest moment of the season.
To be clear, Ruff wasn’t piling on the officials. He understands what McDermott was feeling in that moment - not anger, but raw emotion.
“I think you want a better explanation,” Ruff said. “You feel like maybe there was a better call to make, like tie goes to the offensive guy.
I know that tie goes to the runner in baseball. I thought tie went to the offensive guy in football, too.
I might be a biased Bills fan, though. That’s probably the way everybody will take it.”
Maybe it’s bias. Maybe it’s just Buffalo being Buffalo - a city that’s seen more than its fair share of heartbreak on the biggest stages.
But for Ruff and Bills fans alike, Saturday’s ending wasn’t just a loss. It was another chapter in a story they know all too well.