Kentucky has an ever growing relationship with Bills Mafia

One of the biggest topics around the 2025 NFL draft (besides the whole Shedeur Sanders drama and a baby vomiting on air) is how Buffalo has become Kentucky North. The Bills drafted Maxwell Hairston in the first round and Deone Walker in the fourth round. They’ll now join former collegiate teammate Ray Davis, who had a very solid rookie season for Buffalo last year.

However, Buffalo’s affinity for Kentucky players is not just a recent phenomenon. The Bills have had a unique kinship with Kentucky football, punctuated by Stevie Johnson of “Stevie Got Loose” fame helping start the term Bills Mafia.

It’s true.

Johnson took to a relatively new social media platform called Twitter in 2011 to vent frustrations over a dropped game-winning touchdown pass. The tweet that effectively blamed God for his slippery fingers went viral, with NFL insider Adam Schefter retweeting it. However, instead of mocking Johnson like so many other Internet trolls, Buffalo fans defended him.

It was the type of pitchfork-raising that unites a community, almost as if it were a family. A close-knit group that can be rabid at times but comes together like no other when outsiders attack. Kind of like…a mafia.

Johnson teamed up with a few Bills fans to help promote the newfound moniker, Bills Mafia, and the term skyrocketed in popularity, gaining national awareness with ESPN’s SportsCenter using the term as well.

Now, Bills Mafia is as commonly used as Big Blue Nation, and there might not be two more universally known nicknames for fanbases in all of sports.

Stevie got loose for one of the greatest game-winning touchdown catches in Kentucky history, but Stevie also got loose for one of the most famous would-be game-winning touchdown drops in Bills history.

What a legend.

No team has drafted more Kentucky players than Buffalo since 2008

The Bills drafted Stevie Johnson in the 7th round of the 2008 draft. After adding Davis, Hairston, and Walker in the last two drafts, no other team has drafted more Wildcats in that timeframe. The New York Giants are the only team to also draft four former Kentucky players since ’08: Wan’Dale Robinson, Andru Phillips, George Asafo-Adjei, and Andre’ Woodson.

Even if you were to go back farther in time to the start of the Super Bowl era, the Bills rank 3rd all-time in teams that have drafted Kentucky players, with seven. Only the Pittsburgh Steelers (9) and the Baltimore Colts (8) have drafted more. That’s right, the Baltimore Colts. Like I said, back in time.

The Bills have also signed a few former Kentucky guys, including two-time Super Bowl-winning defensive back Mike Edwards, who spent most of the season last year in Buffalo. However, the best former Kentucky player to suit up for the Bills was Art Still, who played for Buffalo in 1988 and 1989, the last two seasons of his remarkable career that included four Pro Bowl appearances.

But as Stevie Johnson would say, why so serious? There is likely no bigger kinship between Big Blue Nation and Bills Mafia than their appreciation for professional wrestling. BBN hasn’t quite adopted the Bills Mafia’s penchant for throwing themselves through tables with regularity, but former players have been known to send radio hosts through them on occasion.

In short, it is time to go buy a Bills jersey. Or three.

OVW’s @KashDaniel15 is with us now on KSR.

Here’s the time he put @ryanlemond through a table. pic.twitter.com/XOpWCD9QDe

— Drew Franklin (@DrewFranklinKSR) April 24, 2025