Sunday’s Bills game was longest home game in franchise history

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (WIVB) — Did you feel like Sunday’s Bills game dragged on for an excruciatingly long time?

That’s because it did.

Unofficially, Sunday’s game between the Bills and the Miami Dolphins checked in at 3 hours and 53 minutes, kicking off at 1:02 p.m. and unofficially finishing at 4:55 p.m. That number would make it the longest home game in franchise history and the fourth-longest in the history of the franchise.

In fact, Sunday beat out the previous record that was set by a game earlier this season. The game between the Bills and Vikings on Nov. 13 lasted 3 hours and 46 minutes.

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The longest game in team history happened a little more than a year ago, with the game against the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium on Oct. 10, 2021 lasting 4 hours and 14 minutes, but that number includes a 75-minute weather delay. The NFL does include weather delay time in official time of games, while Major League Baseball, which is also susceptible to weather delays, does not.

The longest Bills game without a weather delay happened on September 15, 2002, when Buffalo beat the Vikings 45-39 in overtime at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis. That game lasted 4 hours and 5 minutes.

The longest game in NFL history was a game between the Dolphins and Tennessee Titans on September 9, 2018, which lasted 7 hours and 8 minutes, which included nearly four hours worth of weather delays.

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Some of the other longest games in other leagues include (some data unavailable):

Major League Baseball: Chicago White Sox vs Milwaukee Brewers, May 8-9, 1984, 8 hours and 6 minutes (Chicago won 7-6 in 25 innings)

National Hockey League: Pittsburgh Penguins vs Philadelphia Flyers, May 4, 2000, 6 hours and 57 minutes (Philadelphia won 2-1 in 5OT)

National Basketball Association: No data available for longest times, but the record for most overtimes was a 6OT game between the Indianapolis Olympians and Rochester Royals on January 6, 1951 (Indianapolis won 75-73)