Wild weekend saw Bills, Buccaneers and Browns shatter droughts

Three teams with “B” nicknames broke epic playoff droughts

It was the weekend to be a “B.”

Three teams that had gone through playoff droughts snapped them in NFL Wild-Card games over the weekend.

The Cleveland Browns completed the trifecta on Sunday when they whomped the Pittsburgh Steelers, 48-37, at Heinz Field.

The previous playoff victory by Cleveland came on Jan. 1, 1995, when the Bill Belichick-coached Browns defeated, yep, the New England Patriots, 20-13.

The gap between that victory and Jan. 10, 2021, was 9,506 days. Also, 26 years and 9 days

A day earlier, the Buccaneers and Bills broke loose.

The last time the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won a playoff game before Saturday, they were taking the throne from Tom Brady and the New England Patriots as Super Bowl champions.

That is how long it had been until Brady led the Buccaneers to a tough, 31-23 victory over the Washington Football Team in an NFC Wild-Card game to end a dry run that had extended from Jan. 26, 2003.

The Bucs became champs by beating the Raiders, 48-21, a year after Brady and the Patriots downed the Rams for his first championship.

That would be 7,291 days or 19 years, 11 months, and 17 days.

That doesn’t come close to the schneid the Buffalo Bills broke earlier in the day.

It had been 9,142 days between when the Bills downed the Miami Dolphins on Dec. 30, 1995, and Jan. 9, 2021, as Buffalo upended Indianapolis in an AFC Wild-Card game.

Between the trio it was 25,939 days. And now it is 0.

Now all three teams have to wait a week or less to see if they can create postseason winning streaks.