More than a decade has passed since he played his final NFL snap, but John Wendling still can smell the tailgates in Buffalo and feel the celebratory hand slaps in Detroit.
The Bills and Lions — the home teams in Sunday’s Divisional round playoff games — share a tortured history as two of the seven teams who were around in 1966 but have not yet won the Super Bowl in the championship game’s 57-year history.
So, loads of pent-up frustration will be fueling the raucous atmospheres in an unlikely pairing of home playoff crowds for the Buccaneers-Lions and Chiefs-Bills doubleheader.
“Both of those are similar fan bases of blue-collar people who are loyal to the bitter end,” Wendling told Sports+. “They were some of our biggest fans and our worst critics — not afraid to tell us when we weren’t doing any good — but living and dying with us on every play and with the anticipation of every new season. You could count on them to show up every Sunday.”
Eight players have logged more than 100 games combined for the Bills and Lions — done most frequently by tight end Pete Metzelaars (187), most successfully by linebacker Chris Spielman (four Pro Bowls) and most relevantly by Frank Reich (an NFL head coach for the past six seasons).
But Wendling — a former sixth-round draft pick who made his mark on special teams over 46 games with the 2007-09 Bills and 64 with the 2010-13 Lions — is the only one with at least 45 games played for both teams.
“A teammate of mine in Buffalo and I would always go to the games together, and we’d always roll the windows down no matter how cold it was, just as we went through the tailgates,” Wendling said. “The barbeques were rolling — and the guys were on top of a van spraying his hot dogs and coating them in ketchup and mustard. It got us fired up just to see the energy those people brought, no matter our record or what happened the week before.”
Years later, in 2011, Wendling was part of the first Lions team since 1999 to clinch a playoff berth.
“The whole crowd stayed in that stadium after the game, and we all walked around that field and gave high-fives,” Wendling said. “That’s one of those moments that’s like, ‘This city deserves this.’”
Of the 16 possible pairings remaining for Super Bowl LVIII, Bills-Lions has the fifth-best odds, according to BetMGM. But it could be adopted as the matchup to cheer for by fans whose favorite teams are out of contention, no longer have other rooting interests and are tired of seeing the Chiefs, 49ers and other semi-regulars.
“That would be awesome. It really would,” Metzelaars said. “They should play it in Cleveland!”
Metzelaars grew up as a Lions fan, but played 10 of his 16 seasons for the Bills, compared with two for his childhood team. He is part of the greatest era in Bills history — four straight AFC championships (1990-93) that resulted in four straight Super Bowl losses for a core of 22 holdover players.
“Bills fans are an integral part of Buffalo — they grew up with football and would get loud when the defense was on the field and quiet down when the offense was on the field,” Metzelaars said. “If the Bills win the Super Bowl, the people of Buffalo would die and go to heaven. I’ll fly up to Buffalo and run around in the street with everybody.”
Metzelaars cherishes a memory of Bills fans storming the field and tearing down the goal posts after an AFC East-clinching victory in 1988.
“Being in the middle of that was unbelievable,” he said. “The guys I hung out with, like [teammates] Don Beebe and Steve Tasker, could fit into a crowd and nobody would notice them, but I’m 6-foot-8 with red hair. I wasn’t hiding. They would call me the ‘Fan Magnet’ because people out and around town would say, ‘There’s Pete!’ and they’d get exposed also when you are trying to lay low, which is hard to do in Buffalo. At least it was for me.”
The pressure to finish the job with a championship for those so-close Bills teams still carries on.
“Talk about heartbreaking: People still talked about that even when I was there,” Wendling said. “Even though a Super Bowl didn’t come out of those teams, the legacy they left and what they accomplished was pretty unbelievable. The pressure there was, ‘This is the bar that they set.’”
Since their last appearance in the Divisional round of the playoffs in 1991, the Lions’ heartbreak mostly has come from non-competitiveness. They are 204-309-2 (.398 winning percentage) since 1992, including the NFL’s first-ever 0-16 season in 2008.
Successful seasons proved to be one-offs.
“The pressure in Detroit was different because … we had a mentality of Detroit versus everybody,” Wendling said. “One of the guys ended up getting us sweatshirts made. We felt: ‘Nobody believes we can do it, but we can do it.’ That wasn’t just our team. That was the whole city’s mentality. I thought for sure [2011] was going to be a turnaround point for that organization, and it just didn’t work out.”
When Metzelaars first joined the Lions in 1996, he thought the fans were there “more to be entertained” than for football. But that changed by the last of his 235 career regular-season games, a Week 17 win over the Jets in 1997 to clinch a playoff berth at home, where the Lions’ crowd made it so “the glass on the boxes was shaking and it was the loudest stadium I’ve ever been in.”
“For the state of Michigan fan — a Tigers fan, a Lions fan, a Red Wings fan, a University of Michigan fan — there’s a certain [feeling of] ‘Ugh, we’re horrible. We don’t have a chance,’ and then it’s: ‘We’re going to win this game! We’re great!’” Metzelaars said. “My father-in-law is like that. Maybe they’ve developed woe over the years. They flip the switch very quickly.”
Wendling, who lives in his native Wyoming, is raising three children who feel connected to the Bills because Pro Bowl quarterback Josh Allen is a University of Wyoming product. But their father reminds them there are two favorite teams in his house.
And if they meet in Super Bowl LVIII on Feb. 11?
“I’ve told people there’s going to be a party at my house,” Wendling said. “I’d just love so much to see that matchup. It’s been a long time coming.”
Seven of the eight starting quarterbacks remaining in the playoffs are former first-round draft picks.
But the only two selected No. 1 overall will go head-to-head when Baker Mayfield leads the Buccaneers into Detroit to face Jared Goff’s Lions (Sunday, 3 p.m., NBC). Of course, neither Goff (drafted by the Rams in 2016) nor Mayfield (drafted by the Browns in 2018) has taken a traditional route to this point.
“Baker got screwed over by the Browns — there’s no other way around it,” NBC studio analyst and former NFL quarterback Chris Simms told The Post. “He played with a hurt shoulder for a year [2021] and didn’t play great. They used that against him and then went out and tried to get Deshaun Watson without letting him know. He cancelled them out, then they realized, ‘Oh, we’ve upset him. Now we have no quarterback. We have to finally get Deshaun Watson.’”
Replaced by Watson after what looks like a disastrous trade for the Browns, Mayfield split his 2022 season between the Panthers and Rams, emerging from two losing situations with a reputation for his best days being over.
He instead has turned around his career on a one-year contract with the Buccaneers, setting career highs in completion percentage (64.3) and touchdown passes (28).
“He has the ability to lead, which you need as a starting quarterback,” Simms said. “He has a grittiness and a toughness about him that a locker room can rally behind. And he has a big-time NFL arm — one of the strongest in the NFL. He got into a place for the first time in 2-3 years where the team around him was good enough to allow him to show his own abilities.”
The Buccaneers started 3-5 before conservative-minded head coach Todd Bowles moved away from relying on the NFL’s worst rushing attack (88.8 yards per game) and defense and toward putting the games in Mayfield’s hands.
“It got off to a little bit of a bumpy start in the middle of the year,” Simms said. “But when they finally started to realize who they were — stopped trying so hard to run the ball and bang their head against the wall that way — and started to play through the pass game more, they kind of took off. He’s perfect to stand in the pocket and throw the ball down the field to Mike Evans and Chris Godwin.”
Mayfield’s confidence proved to be the perfect fit for the unenviable job of filling the retired Tom Brady’s shoes in Tampa Bay. For all the preseason predictions of a regression, the Buccaneers went 9-8 under Mayfield after going 8-9 under Brady last season.
“I think they are dangerous this weekend,” Simms said. “I think they match up really well with Detroit. If you ask me to pick one upset that could happen this week, it would be this one.”
Goff, who quarterbacked the Rams to an appearance in Super Bowl LIII after the 2018 season, was at his low when the Rams essentially begged the Lions to take him off their hands by pairing him with two first-round picks in a trade for Matthew Stafford. The Rams immediately won a Super Bowl with Stafford, but lost last week to Goff.
“The cool thing about Jared Goff is, because of the circumstances, he had to reinvent himself and his style of play to still stay a starting quarterback,” Simms said. “The Jared Goff we see now is not the same Jared Goff with the Rams. You couldn’t get him to throw the ball down the field into tight windows. He was constantly having to be micromanaged, and Sean McVay had to call genius games to make him look good. They were winning games in spite of him, not because of him.”
If his contract had allowed, the Lions might have moved on from Goff after he went 3-10-1 as a starter in 2021. That would’ve been a mistake based on his production over the past two seasons — 21-13 record, 66.2 percent completions, 9,013 yards, 59 touchdowns and 19 interceptions.
“He has flipped that narrative totally around,” Simms said. “I think it’s because he knew, ‘I’m not going to be a starting quarterback much longer if I continue to play like I did with the Rams.’ And he had coaches around him in [offensive coordinator] Ben Johnson, [quarterbacks coach] Mark Brunell and [head coach] Dan Campbell that are great at instilling confidence in people and not looking for excuses but going, ‘This guy is not perfect, but there are some things he does well and let’s play to his strengths.’
“They did a beautiful job of rebuilding Jared Goff — the man, the mentality, the grit and toughness on the field. Of course, he deserves all the credit. It’s awesome to see him make this type of turnaround.”
What is Goff now?
“One of the best play-action passers in football,” Simms said. “He’s clutch under pressure. His arm is not big-time — it’s not the prettiest lasers — but he will stand in the pocket with people around him and make aggressive decisions and big-time throws.”
The winner of the head-to-head battle either will face a surging first-round draft pick who spent his first three years on the bench (the Packers’ Jordan Love) or a former Mr. Irrelevant as the last pick in the 2022 NFL Draft (the 49ers’ Brock Purdy).
The NFL splits its playoffs into the AFC and NFC.
Here’s another way to divide up the final eight teams: by coaching tree.
Mike Shanahan’s tree: Kyle Shanahan (49ers), Matt LaFleur (Packers), DeMeco Ryans (Texans).
Two of the most fruitful coaching staffs of all-time belong to Mike Shanahan’s 2013 Washington football team (3-13) and Andy Reid’s 1999 Eagles (5-11).
Shanahan hired his son Kyle as offensive coordinator and LaFleur as quarterbacks coach. The staff also included Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel as wide receivers coach and Rams head coach Sean McVay as tight ends coach, both of whom were among last week’s Wild Card playoff losers.
Kyle, as offensive coordinator, later brought LaFleur with him to the Falcons. When Kyle became a head coach, he hired Ryans, who climbed his way to defensive coordinator for two seasons before the Texans made him their head coach.
Andy Reid’s tree: Reid (Chiefs), Sean McDermott (Bills), John Harbaugh (Ravens), Todd Bowles (Buccaneers).
Reid’s Eagles staffs are famous for producing future head coaches.
Harbaugh was the special teams coordinator (1998-06) until he was hired as Ravens head coach. McDermott worked his way from assistant to the head coach (2001) to defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach (2009-10).
Bowles joined Reid’s final staff (2012) as defensive backs coach and was elevated to interim defensive coordinator. Interestingly, Ryans’ first of four seasons as a player with the Eagles was under Reid’s watch.
Bill Parcells’ tree: Dan Campbell (Lions), Bowles.
Bowles’ first NFL assistant’s job was with the 2000 Jets under Parcells’ successor and protégé Al Groh. When Parcells became executive vice president of operations for the Dolphins, his hand-picked head coach Tony Sparano hired Bowles as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator.
Campbell played tight end for the Parcells-coached Cowboys (2003-05), and the relationship was rekindled when Campbell began as a coaching assistant for the 2010 Dolphins. His last stop prior to becoming a head coach was assistant head coach and tight ends coach for Parcells disciple Sean Payton with the Saints.
You might notice that Bill Belichick’s coaching tree is absent from the playoffs.
Which of these three trees will add another Lombardi Trophy?
By upsetting the Cowboys, the Packers became the youngest team to win a playoff game since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger, according to Elias Sports Bureau.
The crazy thing is that the roster — average age of 25.58 years old — could get another infusion of youth around first-year starting quarterback Jordan Love during the 2024 draft.
The Packers have the fifth-most draft capital in the league, according to Tankathon. With a descending numerical value assigned to each pick in the draft, the Packers, who own five top-100 picks, have 977.4 points — behind only the Cardinals, Commanders, Bears and Giants.
The other teams in the top eight in draft capital possess top-eight first-round draft picks while the Packers won’t pick until the late first round based on advancing in the playoffs. The Titans, who will pick No. 7 overall, are bumped out of the top eight (18th in draft capital) to make room for the Packers.
The Eagles and 49ers rank ninth and 10th, respectively, in draft capital despite making the playoffs.
Not surprisingly, the Jets, who will pick No. 10 overall, take the biggest hit down to 24th in draft capital — mainly as a result of picks dealt to the Packers in the Aaron Rodgers trade.