Jim Nantz reflects on a Buffalo Bills journey that is as amazing as Tony Romo’s prediction

CBS’ top NFL team of play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz and analyst Tony Romo have called so many Buffalo Bills games this season that they almost feel like hometown broadcasters.

When they work their fifth Buffalo game Sunday as the Bills host the Pittsburgh Steelers in an AFC wild-card playoff game on WIVB-TV (Channel 4), Nantz is sure to bring up the super-optimistic comment made by Romo after the Bills defeated the Kansas City Chiefs to go to 7-6.

Five straight wins at the end of the regular season have the Bills heading to the playoffs as AFC East champs once again. Mark Gaughan and Katherine Fitzgerald discuss what went right for the Bills and how they can keep things going in the postseason. Plus, we take a closer look at the “Josh Allen experience.” The quarterback was able to lead his team to victory in Miami but there were some questionable decisions by Allen in the first half. Also, Mark and Katherine discuss the Pittsburgh Steelers and explain why they pose a threat when they play the Bills on Sunday in Orchard Park.

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“They could be playing at home if they win out,” Romo said Dec. 10.

Romo was suggesting the Bills could even win the AFC East and host a playoff game.

With only about seven seconds to sign off, Nantz then added a note of realism, as he often does.

“They would need Miami to really falter at the end,” Nantz replied.

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Of course, that’s exactly what happened.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Nantz said he expects to mention Romo’s prediction Sunday.

“You can bet it’ll happen at some point during the game,” Nantz said. “I brought it up last week on the air.”

“He had this thought and it proved to be spot on. ‘Romostradamus’ surfaced with seconds to go in the broadcast and it was a heck of a call.”

It wasn’t the first time during a Bills game that Romo sounded as optimistic as any fan in Western New York.

With slightly more than five minutes left in the Bills’ 32-6 demolition of the New York Jets on Nov. 19, Romo declared: “The Bills had Super Bowl aspirations. They are still there. They can win the Super Bowl this year.”

He also suggested the Bills’ regular-season finale on the road against the Miami Dolphins could be for playoff seeding.

Nantz’s own preseason prediction is still alive.

During a summer golf tournament, analyst Trevor Immelman revealed who Nantz liked for the Super Bowl.

“He said, ‘So you like Buffalo and Dallas to be in the Super Bowl this year?’” recalled Nantz. “I said that was not supposed to be on the air. That was dinner conversation. He divulged it. And I’ve had a lot of people here in the last week that have said, ‘Hey, your Buffalo-Dallas Super Bowl could still come true.’ I mean, I got them both to the two seed … So it’s very possible.”

In a wide-ranging interview, Nantz described Romo’s predictions, defended Bills quarterback Josh Allen against all the roundtable pundits who emphasize his turnovers and speculated about a potential dream matchup if the Bills and the Chiefs advance this weekend.

“What an amazing journey this has been,” Nantz said. “You go into the playoffs for the team that at one point had, what, a 5% chance to win the division semi-late in the year and under 30% chance to make the playoffs and not only make the playoffs, but be the two seed. Pretty amazing. It’s never dull with the Bills, that’s for sure. Never predictable. It makes it fun, man. It’s great entertainment.”

By any measure, Allen is one of the greatest entertainers in the league. Former Bills coach Rex Ryan called him his favorite player on ESPN this week.

Nantz clearly is an Allen fan, too.

“I think he’s had a phenomenal year,” Nantz said. “I think these hot-take specialists out there have focused so much on his interceptions and don’t really look at where they have happened on the field. How many of them happened with deep balls to close out a half? Well, that’s not really an interception. You went for a Hail Mary. I’m not saying all of them were, but there were a number of them. I had one in one of our games, where he threw one right before the half. It was his only interception of the game. And I remember afterwards reading all the stories, ‘Josh Allen threw a turnover for the seventh game.’ Well, wait a minute. That doesn’t even count.

“And the great thing about him, he doesn’t even care and he shouldn’t. He’s making so many plays. That’s part of his magic … He’s got the risk-reward quotient and it’s high, but the reward side of that is way higher than the risk part of it. Brett Favre was like that. Brett Favre, he didn’t care, he just keeps slinging it.

“All this talk about who’s the MVP of the league? If you really sat down and looked at it objectively, you could build a pretty strong argument that there’s been no player more valuable to their team’s success than Josh has been. He has willed his team to victory and sometimes he’s almost willed his team to victory like (in a loss to) Philadelphia. That was a phenomenal performance. The plays he makes, it’s extraordinary.”

Speaking of extraordinary, there was Deonte Harty’s 96-yard punt return that changed the momentum Sunday in a Bills’ 21-14 victory over Miami to win the AFC East.

“It just was an absolute one of the biggest plays of the year,” said Nantz.

He recalled calling Harty’s other punt return for a touchdown in his career for New Orleans against Seattle in 2019. Before the game, Nantz asked then-Saints coach Sean Payton about a possible X factor.

“He said, ‘I got this kid Deonte Harty, his speed is unbelievable. He just might return one tomorrow, watch out for him.’ And he returned the punt for a touchdown in that game. He’s never had another one until Sunday night.

“When he fielded it, I first thought, ‘Why did you catch that?’ Then I thought for sure they had him trapped and then you look up and it’s the second coming of Dante Hall and Devin Hester, the best kick returner in the history of the league. It was a brilliant return. Talk about changing the game. Holy cow.”

When you talk about changing a season, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin’s decision to go to quarterback Mason Randolph is near the top of the list.

Nantz has had a lot of homework to do on the Steelers this week because he and Romo haven’t had one Pittsburgh game.

“You’ve got two teams that really closed fast. You forget that Pittsburgh was 7-7. I thought it was quite an achievement for them to be a .500 ballclub with all of their shortcomings and lo and behold, Mike Tomlin does another masterful job and they get a spark from Mason Rudolph and here they are coming in inspired and 10-7.”

The absence of injured pass rusher T.J. Watt could be a big factor in the game.

“He is the soul of the whole team, not just the defense,” said Nantz. “I don’t know how you recover from that. But this league, there are no days off. You just got to be careful, no matter who you are because the other teams will be hungry and no matter who’s out, they’re capable of winning a game. That’s true in any NFL game.

“Having said, you would expect that Buffalo riding in with five straight victories, not all of them were runaway wins. Some of them were nail-biters and major challenges right down to the waning minutes. I expect the Bills to play really well. I just think they’ve come together at the right time.”

He believes the 20-17 win over Kansas City – the day of Romo’s super optimism – could be long remembered.

“If this season is destined for greatness, you go back and look at that game and say, ‘Wow, look at that play. How important was that play? How important was that offsides call against Kadarius Toney (that negated a long gain)?’ The win at Arrowhead was a major achievement and for a team that was on life support.”

Nantz would love to call a potential Bills-Chiefs rematch, featuring Allen and Patrick Mahomes if it happens in the next round.

“If it’s Kansas City in Buffalo, WOW, that’s all I can say,” Nantz said. “To see that matchup in the playoffs, this time being played up there in Buffalo, I would love to see that game.”

There’s no guarantee that Nantz and Romo would get it because CBS only gets one of the two AFC divisional round games next weekend.

But Nantz noted that if Buffalo keeps winning he and Romo could potentially work up to “six, seven and eight” Bills games this season.

If so, the Bills would be in the Super Bowl on CBS and fulfill both Romo’s and Nantz’s predictions.

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