ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — What are the odds the Buffalo Bills’ season comes down to a Tyler Bass kick?
If you’re a Bills fan, the thought has crossed your mind at some point. His 44-yard miss that would have tied the Bills’ divisional round loss to the Chiefs last season is still fresh. He’s missed three field goals and four extra points this season. Only one of those missed kicks came in a loss and it was during the blowout against Baltimore.
You still might have felt that twinge of anxiety after the Bills scored their first touchdown in a 30-21 win over the Chiefs on Sunday. Bass lined up for the extra point and pushed the kick wide right. Just like his miss in January. Just like Scott Norwood’s miss that Bills fans get reminded of all too often.
That missed extra point didn’t end up mattering. Bass made his only field goal in the game, and Josh Allen’s heroic fourth-down run in the fourth quarter sealed Buffalo’s win and ensured the game wouldn’t come down to a Bass kick.
History tells us another game will. Last season, of the seven games in the divisional round and beyond, six were decided by one score. Three were decided by a field goal margin, including the AFC Championship Game and the Super Bowl. Eight of the Chiefs’ last 10 playoff games were decided by one score and four of the last six were decided by three points or fewer. The Bills are 9-2, and Western New York is already daydreaming about another playoff run. Where they’re going, they’re going to need a Bass kick. But Bass has a simple mantra he’s been repeating.
“Don’t time travel,” Bass said while standing at his locker a few days before the win over the Chiefs. “Past or future, don’t do it.”
Sports fans are conditioned to boo. Sometimes it even makes sense. Referee makes a bad call? A rival player you don’t like exists on your home team’s field? Boo! Maybe you’ll intimidate the subject of the booing or maybe it will just be cathartic.
Booing your own team is trickier. That vitriol cuts differently. Buffalo fans have done this often to their hockey team, and the lackluster play of a 13-year playoff drought has usually warranted it. Sabres fans even booed general manager Kevyn Adams when he was introduced at the home opener last month. Paying customers don’t have a more effective means of voicing their displeasure for ownership, management and players to hear.
Bills fans eventually tried a different tactic with Bass. It was similar to one used by Philadelphia Phillies fans in 2023 with $300 million shortstop Trea Turner. They went from booing him as he struggled in his first season with the team, to giving him standing ovations out of support at the urging of a fan with a large social media following.
In Week 7, Bass was coming off another missed extra point and field goal in a narrow win over the Jets. The Bills had signed a kicker to the practice squad, and general manager Brandon Beane was open about the fact that he’d be willing to make a change if Bass’ struggles continued. He did add, “We want nothing more than for Tyler to be our guy.”
Bass’ season and career were hitting an inflection point. He came out for warmups before the Titans game and fans showered him with cheers and encouragement. He noticed, and it pulled him out of the negative thoughts.
“I think most people don’t just take a deep breath and realize that probably is the best thing to do,” Bills long snapper Reid Ferguson said. “Everybody gets booed. It happens. You call some bad plays or drop a pass, stuff happens. Everybody gets booed at some point. But when you have a guy that was going through what he was going through, at some point as a fan of the team, you sit back and say, ‘Pushing him down is not going to work. Maybe we should try encouraging this person. Maybe that will help my team win.’”
Bass didn’t realize how much he needed that. He deleted social media in the offseason because of all the hateful messages he received after missing that kick against the Chiefs. He didn’t want to spiral down that path. He focused on the positive like the fans who donated more than $400,000 to a local cat shelter Bass is involved with. He got married during the offseason and that added balance to his life. And when he struggled early in the season, that boost from the fans made a difference.
“Social media and online that’s irrelevant,” Bass said. “That can come from anyone and it doesn’t matter. In person, there’s a lot of love and a lot of support for this team. That’s something I’m really grateful for.”
Grateful is a word Bass returns to often in this conversation. What’s happening between his ears is as important as anything he’s doing on the practice field during the week. That’s why that positive energy from the fans had a real psychological effect. It also made what happened two weeks later in front of those same fans even more special.
Manifested the moment. 🫶@Dawson_Knox mic’d up is dropping soon!
https://t.co/mKle8FMPWi | @GEICO pic.twitter.com/PFArcr58sf— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) November 4, 2024
The Bills were tied 27-27 with the Dolphins late in the fourth quarter. Bass had already missed an extra point and banked a field goal off the upright and in. The Bills were at the Miami 43 with under a minute to play. Allen threw two straight incompletions. Facing fourth-down-and-10 with 10 seconds left, Ferguson wasn’t sure if the Bills were going to kick it since the try was 61 yards. Then he saw Bass running onto the field.
“I was like, ‘Alright, here we go,’” Ferguson said. “At that point, you just have all the confidence that he’s going to make it because it doesn’t do you any good to think otherwise.”
When Bass was in college, he had a kicking coach named Doc Spurgeon, who was in his early 90s at the time. They used to talk weekly early in Bass’ NFL career, but Spurgeon died two years ago. Spurgeon’s messages resonate with Bass more now than they did in college before he realized how much he had to learn. Spurgeon always said a kicker doesn’t get out of sync all at once, it happens little by little.
“I understand it now,” Bass said. “Just really simple things like breathing and relaxing. You hear that, but you need to actually do that.”
So as he lined up for that 61-yard field goal, Bass breathed. He relaxed. Former Bills kicker Stephen Hauschka once said he tried to empty his mind before big kicks. He wanted to be breathing more than he was thinking. That’s what Bass did as he waited for the snap. The wind at Highmark Stadium died down, and Bass drilled the kick down the middle of the uprights. It would have been good from a few yards longer.
The aftermath was an emotional vortex. Teammates lifted him in the air. Sean McDermott gave him a game ball and gushed about how proud he was of Bass.
“Unbelievable journey this guy’s been on,” McDermott said.
When Bass stood in front of the team, he got choked up.
“I couldn’t have done it without you guys,” he said. “I’ve been through a lot and you guys were always there for me.”
This moment is EVERYTHING. 🥹#MIAvsBUF | #BillsMafia pic.twitter.com/cHTI4qO1Lh
— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) November 3, 2024
Ever since Bass got into the league, teammates and coaches have described him as a football player who happens to kick. Before the kickoff rules changed, Bass would stick his nose in to make a tackle on a return. In a wild-card win over the Colts during the 2020 season, Bass broke his hand while tackling a returner in the second half. He then kicked a 54-yard field goal in the fourth quarter that would end up being the difference in a 27-24 win. Those little things added up to a different respect in the locker room because teammates and coaches know Bass can still be that guy. Kicking can be a lonely job, and it’s easy for those players to isolate themselves in the locker room. Bass has never wanted to do that.
“That’s just who I am, building relationships with the guys and playing the game we all love,” Bass said. “I know my role and I know their role, but at the end of the day we’re all brothers. We’re in this together.”
Bass also knows his job is the most unforgiving in the sport. Few care about the minutiae of kicking, only whether the ball goes through the uprights. Teams are quicker to make a change at kicker than any other position. Some of the greatest kickers of all time have played for multiple teams. John Carney, a private kicking coach Bass worked with during the offseason, played for eight different teams despite retiring third all-time in points. So of course Bass wasn’t surprised when the Bills added a kicker to the practice squad earlier this season, nor did he take it personally.
“He never changed who he is,” Ferguson said.
Bass knew as long as he was still kicking for the Bills, he wanted to validate Beane and McDermott’s patience.
“It means a lot,” Bass said. “The Bills do a good job of just letting guys develop. This league is a business, but this team did a great job just being patient and I’m really appreciative of that for sure. I’m just grateful. I just focus on what I can do right now.”
Ferguson thinks that faith in Bass has a ripple effect on the rest of the roster. Under McDermott, he said, players know they can play free and aren’t walking on eggshells, worried about every mistake.
The Bills also aren’t the only AFC contender dealing with uncertainty at kicker. A lot of data is showing that kickers have never been better, especially from long range. But kicker issues are real in the AFC. Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker is on injured reserve. Justin Tucker, one of the most accurate kickers of all time, missed two field goals in Baltimore’s narrow loss against Pittsburgh last week to continue his season-long slump. Bengals kicker Evan McPherson, who confidently called his shot before kicking a game-winner to send the Bengals to the AFC Championship three years ago, missed two potential game-winning kicks in the fourth quarter of Cincinnati’s loss to the Chargers this week. He’s missed six field goals this season after signing a $16 million extension in August and could end up costing the Bengals a shot at the playoffs. Even Texans kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn, who leads the league in 50-plus yard field goals and was the NFL’s most accurate kicker in 2022 and 2023, missed two field goals in a recent loss to the Jets.
“You’re going to go through storms,” Bass said.
And you never know when exactly those storms will clear or if another one is coming. But the near certainty in kicking is that there are more game-altering and season-altering kicks coming.
“Nobody wants to make the kick more than Tyler,” Ferguson said.
(Top photo of Tyler Bass: Bryan M. Bennett / Getty Images)
