There’s only one right answer to what the best possible Super Bowl matchup is this year and it’s the Buffalo Bills against the Minnesota Vikings.
Look anywhere else and you’ll be pounded over the head with an East Coast hammer that says the Eagles against any team is the best, but you can’t write a script better than the one that would exist if the Bills and Vikings meet in Glendale on Feb. 13.
Both teams are cursed by kickers. Minnesota has wide left with Gary Anderson destroying the historic 1998-99 season that saw rookie Randy Moss score 17 touchdowns to help what at the time was the highest-scoring offense in NFL history go 15-1 in the regular season. Buffalo has wide right with Scott Norwood missing a 47-yard field goal to end the 1991 Super Bowl against the Giants.
Both teams have four Super Bowl losses. The Bills were dunked in four straight in the early ’90s and the Vikings haven’t been back to The Big Game since 1976.
It would be a rematch of what was arguably the NFL’s game of the year, when the Vikings rallied from a 27-10 hole with under two minutes left in the third quarter to win 33-30 in overtime. The amount of drama packed into the end of the game was enough to make a two-hour documentary.
- Dalvin Cook’s 81-yard touchdown run
- Justin Jefferson’s miraculous catch to convert 4th-and-18
- Bills stuff Minnesota on 4th-and-goal with 50 seconds to go
- Josh Allen fumbles in the end zone for a Vikings TD
- Bills go 69 yards in 39 seconds to kick a FG and force overtime
- Allen intercepted in the end zone to end overtime
All of the drama in the fourth quarter and overtime overshadowed the individual battle between Stefon Diggs and Jefferson. Diggs made one of the best one-handed catches you’ll ever see before Jefferson upstaged him with what is arguably the greatest one-handed catch in NFL history. You know, that 4th-and-18 miracle that kept Minnesota alive…
Of course, Diggs was traded by the Vikings to the Bills and the Vikings used that pick to draft Jefferson. Win-win, for sure.
Don’t forget the battle between brothers storyline: Dalvin Cook vs. James Cook.
And a hidden storyline of Bills-Vikings is related to Damar Hamlin, who was revived after suffering cardiac arrest on the field two weeks ago. The Bills safety was teammates at the University of Pittsburgh with Vikings defensive end Patrick Jones II. But more than that, they were both captains at Pitt during their senior year in 2020.
Sure, Andy Reid and the Chiefs against the Eagles would be an outstanding revenge narrative and it deserves some love, but no potential Super Bowl matchup has as many epic storylines as Vikings-Bills.
