The Buffalo Bills are an original AFL team that started play in 1960 and joined the NFL as part of the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. Since then, they are best known for their four straight losses in the Super Bowl from 1990-03. However, during that time, their early AFL championship days, and even today, there have been a lot of great Bills players. The best of those players, from quarterbacks Jack Kemp to Jim Kelly to current-day QB Josh Allen and more, will appear on the following list of the 10 greatest players in Bills history.
10. Jack Kemp
While Jim Kelly and the 1990s Bills fell short four times, there is a championship-winning quarterback on this list of the best Bills players ever. Jack Kemp, who played the last six seasons of his career for the Bills, won back-to-back AFL championships in 1964 and 1965.
Kemp’s stats were just OK, with a 43-31-3 record as a starter, 15,134 passing yards, 77 touchdowns, and 132 interceptions. But he did make six Pro Bowls and win the 1965 AFL Player of the Year Award. Plus, those championships are something no other Bills signal-caller can claim.
9. Cornelius Bennett
The Bills defense of the 1990s and a lot of blue-collar, unheralded players who made up Super Bowl-caliber units. There were a few starts, though, and two make the list of greatest Bills of all time, starting with Cornelius Bennett.
Bennett played left outside linebacker in Buffalo’s 3-4 defense and compiled 793 tackles and 52.5 sacks in his nine seasons with the Bills. He made five Pro Bowls, one All-Pro team, and was twice named UPI Defensive Player of the Year, the less-prestigious cousin of the NFL AP DPOY.
8. ST Steve Tasker
Listed as a wide receiver, Steve Tasker caught 49 balls for 760 yards and nine touchdowns in his Bills career. So, how is he the eight-best Bills player of all time? Because he is arguably the best special teams ace to ever play the game.
Tasker was a kamikaze, a playmaker, and a leader on the Bills’ special teams, which was a big part of the franchise making those four Super Bowls. Tasker was a gunner on punt and kickoff teams and returned both types of kicks as well.
The 5-foot-9, 185-pound giant made seven Pro Bowls as the ST specialist during his 12 years in Buffalo, and the fact that he retired in 1998 and is still not in the Hall of Fame is a football crime!
7. G Joe DeLamielleure
Hall of Fame guard Joe DeLamielleure played for the Bills for eight non-consecutive seasons, from 1973-79 and again in 1985. During his years in Western New York, DeLamielleure made five Pro Bowls three first-team All-Pros, and two second-team All-Pros.
During his time as one of the best Bills of all time, DeLamielleure blocked for O.J. Simpson who had one of the most incredible five-year stretches in league history, that included becoming the first player to rush for over 2,000 yards in a season. And he owes a lot of that to DeLamielleure.
6. RB Thurman Thomas
The 1990s Bills Super Bowl teams had a three-headed monster on offense of Jim Kelly, Andre Reed, and Thurman Thomas. We’ll get to the QB and WR later, but for now, let’s talk about the RB.
Thomas was a second-round pick out of Oklahoma State in 1988 and made his first Pro Bowl in his second season. He would go on to make four more Pro Bowls and two All-Pro teams. Thomas also won NFL MVP and Offensive Player of the Year in 1991, one of four seasons he led the league in all-purpose yards from scrimmage.
After 12 seasons in Buffalo, Thomas ended his Hall of Fame run with the franchise with 11,938 rushing yards, 4,458 rushing yards, and 88 total touchdowns.
5. QB Josh Allen
It’s only been six seasons, but 2024 Bills starting quarterback Josh Allen has already cracked the top-five greatest Bills players in team history.
A year after the Bills traded away the pick that became Patrick Mahomes, the front office drafted Allen, and that’s worked out pretty well. Since taking over five games into his rookie season, the QB has racked up 22,703 passing yards, 167 passing touchdowns, 3,611 rushing yards, and 53 rushing touchdowns.
He’s also led the Bills to the playoffs in each of the last five seasons, winning the once-Patriots-dominated AFC East in four of five.
With two Pro Bowls under his belt, Allen still has a way to go in terms of All-Pros, Offensive Player of the Year Awards, and MVPs (not to mention Super Bowls) but he’s off to an amazing start in becoming one of the greatest players in Bills history and maybe even in NFL history when it’s all said and done.
4. WR Andre Reed
Andre Reed was yet another part of the infamous Four Falls of Buffalo, and a key member of the offense. The team’s leading receiver in those Super Bowl years, he played 15 seasons in Buffalo while accumulating 13,095 receiving yards and 86 touchdowns.
Reed made seven Pro Bowls during his time in Orchard Park he is still (by far) the franchise leader in receiving yards, receptions, and receiving touchdowns. Not bad for an unheralded fourth-round pick out of Kutztown State.
3. QB Jim Kelly
Jim Kelly comes in as the best Bills quarterback in history after 11 seasons, 35, 467 passing yards, and 237 touchdowns in Buffalo. He had a 101-59 record as a starter and led the Bills to the playoffs eight times.
Sure, Kelly never won the big one, and a lot of that comes down on the QB in the NFL. But he won a lot of games for the Bills and helped further NFL offense in general by his perfect execution of the “K-Gun” no-huddle offense that other teams would replicate over the years.
2. DE Bruce Smith
When you play as a 3-4 defensive end, you’re supposed to take up blocker and stuff the run so the outside linebackers can rack up the sacks. However, Bills defensive end Bruce Smith could get after the QB as well, racking up more sacks (200.0) than any other player in NFL history to his day.
Smith was the catalyst of the Bills defense that got to those four-straight Super Bowls and was rewarded with 11 Pro Bowls, eight All-Pros, and two Defensive Player of the Year Awards.
The 1985 No. 1 overall pick out of Virginia Tech had 171.0 of his career-leading sacks in Buffalo, with double-digit sack totals in 12 of his 14 years in Western New York.
1. RB O.J. Simpson
Here’s the truth, Bills Mafia. You may not like to hear it, but running back O.J. Simpson tops the list of best Bills players of all time. If we were making a list of the greatest human beings who ever played for the Bills, Simpson would finish dead last. But taking everything else out of the equation, The Juice’s accomplishments on the field are unmatched.
Simpson was the top overall pick by the Bills in the 1969 NFL Draft. He played nine seasons in Buffalo running for 10,183 yards and scoring 69 total touchdowns.
In a five-year stretch from 1972-76, O.J. made the Pro Bowls and All-Pro team all five years, finishing top four of Offensive Player of the Year and MVP voting five and four times, respectively, winning one of each. He also led the league in rushing yards four times and in all-purpose yards three times.
In 1973, Simpson’s best season, he rushed for 2,003 yards — the first NFL player to hit the double-century mark — by averaging 143.1 yards per game.
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