It’s been 17 years since the Buffalo Bills last played a playoff game and the world has changed dramatically in that time.
The Buffalo Bills ended last season without going to the playoffs, making it 17 straight years without a playoff game — the longest current streak in the NFL.
Cleveland and Oakland are tied for the second longest drought, which is 15 years for the Browns while the Raiders ended their streak last year. Rather than sit here and wallow in pain (I did that earlier this week) I thought it might be fun to see how the world has changed since the last time the Bills were in the playoffs.
- O.J. Simpson was finally found guilty (although not of murder) and is sitting in a jail in Nevada right now.
- Facebook launched in February 2004. It was considered the “cool” social media site until people’s parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles joined. Then the kids moved on to Snapchat and Instagram.
- Twitter launched in March 2006. Imagine a time where we couldn’t complain, argue and root on our Bills with complete strangers so easily?
- 17 years ago there were cell phones but there were no smartphones, just “dumb phones”. How did we live without 24-hour internet access wherever we go?
- America has seen it’s first African American President and it’s first female candidate to run on a major party ticket.
- Y2K ended up not blowing up the whole world. Remember when people were freaked out about that? OK, technically this was known eight days before the Bills last playoff game which happened on January 8th in 2000 but this is just to point out how old the streak really is.
- The iPod was released in October 2001. Since then Apple has released several new products which have improved our lives and made it easier to tune out the outside world.
- The Cubs won a World Series Title. That is not a typo, Chicago ended their 108-year streak of not winning the championship. Let’s hope the Bills don’t make us wait that long.
- 15 different quarterbacks have started for the Bills over that time. They are Tyrod Taylor, Matt Cassel, EJ Manuel, Kyle Orton, Thad Lewis, Jeff Tuel, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Trent Edwards, Brian Brohm, J.P. Losman, Kelly Holcomb, Drew Bledsoe, Alex Van Pelt, Rob Johnson and Doug Flutie.
- Robert Kardashian was the most well known Kardashian at the time the Bills last played in the playoffs. Now we keep up with Kim and the rest of the family as often as we can.
- America was attacked by terrorists on September 11th, 2001 and roughly ten years after we killed Osama Bin Laden.
- YouTube was born in 2005. Imagine when we used to pass the time doing something else than watching hours of videos on their website?
- In 2000 we used Windows 2000. Since then six new versions of Windows have come out. They are Windows ME, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and now Windows 10.
- Sadly, the Bills beloved owner and founder Ralph Wilson Jr. passed away in March of 2014 and the team was subsequently sold to Terry and Kim Pegula who plan on keeping the team in Buffalo. Amen.
- Ten people who were associated with the Buffalo Bills organization were selected into the Hall of Fame. They are Marv Levy, Jim Kelly, James Lofton, Joe DeLamielleure, Thurman Thomas, Ralph Wilson Jr., Bruce Smith, Dick LeBeau, Andre Reed and Bill Polian.
- Pluto lost its status as a planet and was demoted to a dwarf planet. If I were Pluto, I’d be pissed!
- On a personal level, I finished going through puberty (I think), completed high school, graduated college, have had six different jobs, got married, and have had 24 nieces and nephews born into my family (I’m the youngest of 10 kids). I don’t even remember what life was like in 2000 anymore. Now get off my lawn you young kids!
Next: All the Latest Free Agency Moves for the Buffalo Bills
Since the Buffalo Bills last playoff game, a lot has happened. Let’s hope there isn’t much more that happens before they play in another playoff game because making lists like this and remembering how much older I am now is not fun at all.