Whenever people say the Buffalo Bills and Super Bowl in the same sentence, it's usually never a good story. Not only are those four straight Super Bowl losses the most painful part of the Bills' franchise history but there's a moment during those Super Bowls that has gone down as the weirdest moment in the history of the Buffalo Bills organization.
Super Bowl XXVI was the Bills' second straight appearance in the big game and they were hoping for the right result this time around. Unfortunately, things weren't going their way from the start of the game despite the defense forcing a three-and-out and allowing the Bills' explosive offense to take the field and do what they so often did that season.
Well, something was different about the unit that ultimately took the field for the first drive. Future Hall of Fame running back Thurman Thomas was nowhere to be found and instead, Kenneth Davis was taking the handoffs from Jim Kelly.
Where was Thomas? Why wasn't he on the field? It turns out that Thomas was unable to take the field because he couldn't locate his helmet on the sideline.
Thurman Thomas losing his helmet in Super Bowl XXVI is Bills' weirdest moment
In an article about Helmet Gate from the Bills' official website in 2011, Bills equipment manager Dave Hojnowski discussed what he think happened that evening.
"About five minutes prior to the calling of captains to midfield Hojnowski knows that Thomas put his helmet down in a specific area.
"Thurman used to put his helmet down in the same spot before every game," he said. "It was always on the table where we would keep the drinks. It was right to the left of that behind the bench for the offense."
Thomas, who Hojnowski recalls as one of the team captains, went out for the coin toss. Washington won the toss and chose to receive. The Bills running back returned to the sideline. He went to retrieve his helmet, but discovered it was no longer on the table by the drinks behind the benches.
"So Thurman is looking for where he put it and it's not there," said Hojnowski. "Thurman was frantic running around to all of us saying he couldn't find his helmet."
At that point, head coach Marv Levy started, understandably, freaking out and taking his anger out on Hojnowski. The entire staff was then searching for the missing helmet as the game continued without Thomas but only for two plays. The helmet turned up and on the field Thomas went for the 3rd-and-5 play that ultimately ended in a Kelly sack.
Where was the helmet and why was it not where it was supposed to be? Hojnowski recalled that it was on the other end of the bench where the defensive ends sit. He gave his thoughts on what likely happened to Thomas' helmet during the Bills' biggest game of the season.
"I firmly believe that one of his teammates picked up Thurman's helmet thinking it was theirs and walked to the other end of the bench and realized it wasn't his helmet, put it down and then went to find his own," said Hojnowski.
It appears that, even to this day, we don't know who the culprit was that moved Thomas' helmet but Hojnowski's explanation makes sense and is more than likely what happened. Would you want to fess up to that even after all of these years? Probably not.
Even still, this moment instantly went down as a weird situation and is still the weirdest moment in Bills history to this day.