Why do Buffalo Bills fans break tables?

There is debate about which viral video started the Bills Mafia craze that has now become tradition. Now, the Kansas City Chiefs allegedly tried to ban it.
Jan. 19, 2025: Buffalo Bill fan smashing into a table
Jan. 19, 2025: Buffalo Bill fan smashing into a table / Tina MacIntyre-Yee/Democrat and Chronicle / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

If the Buffalo Bills are indeed now America's team in the NFL, chiropractors and back specialists are going to have a lot of new patients.

The time-honored tradition of Buffalo Bills fans, better known as Bills Mafia, smashing through tables has become a social media staple. But it's, in fact, still only its infancy as by all accounts, the phenomenon only started a decade ago around 2015.

RELATED: Bills fans show classy gesture to Ravens' Mark Andrews after dropped pass

Bills fan
Buffalo Bills fan Alex Cauley, 31, of Kansas City, throws his future groomsmen and Detroit Lions fan Ryan Petras, 31, of Troy through a table at a tailgating party in Detroit on Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024. / Kimberly P. Mitchell / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

As the Bills and Josh Allen look to finally conquer their demons, known as the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes, a tweet from a Bills fans went viral yesterday before the AFC Championship Game that the Chiefs were going out of their way to ban the hilarious, yet albeit very dangerous tradition. (We also don't see Allen's fiancée and Buffalo queen Hailee Steinfeld trying it anytime soon.)

So who can lay claim to starting a tradition unlike any other?

Some point to a drunken Bills fan, getting purposely dizzy first with the old wiffle ball spin, actually running into a tour bus as possibly the start that then evolved into table smashing one week later when a Bills Mafia member threw a Patriots tailgater into a table.

RELATED: Hailee Steinfeld goes casual white tank top before Josh Allen’s biggest Bills game

Heck, one of the most popular answers on Reddit is a completely fabricated story about a 1978 Bills quarterback star named Duncan MacFeely that could easily fool a lot of casual fans as fact.

While there is no proof of which smashing table video is ground zero for Bills Mafia, the general consensus is that the original year is 2015.

Now if the Bills are able to finally win the Super Bowl, in New Orleans of all places, there will be jumping-through-table shenanigans like the world has never seen.

RELATED: Hailee Steinfeld's overlooked unreal gesture with Josh Allen at viral Bills party

Just please Bills Mafia, stay safe!

Ryan Fitzpatrick
Former Buffalo Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick got the fans pumped up by going shirtless before the divisional game against the Baltimore Ravens. / Tina MacIntyre-Yee/Democrat and Chronicle / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Published |Modified
Matthew Graham
MATTHEW GRAHAM

Matthew Graham has over 20 years of media experience and oversees The Athlete Lifestyle On SI. He has had previous leadership roles at NBC Sports, Yahoo, and USA TODAY, where he co-founded For The Win (named Best Mobile Site by Digiday). He has also written for ESPN, Cosmopolitan, US Weekly, People, E! Online, and FHM, covering major sports and entertainment events like the Oscars, the Golden Globes, NBA Finals, Super Bowl, and winning the Yahoo Superstar Award for coverage of the Olympics.