A curse on the Bills was lifted, and the truth behind it is stranger than fiction

New York Times

04-02-2025

He assassinated global leaders, was in the studio when America faked the moon landing and concealed that aliens are among us.
His is the invisible hand upon the world's levers.
The Cigarette Smoking Man in his wickedness has stooped so low as to prevent the small-market Buffalo Bills, time and again, from winning the Super Bowl. Wide Right, the Music City Miracle, the 17-year playoff famine, 13 Seconds — all his dark artistry.
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But don't blame him for what happened that Sunday night in Arrowhead Stadium. Not even Cigarette Smoking Man has the stomach to punish Bills fans any longer.
What occurred in the AFC Championship Game might seem like his work. Officials conveniently missed critical calls that favored the Kansas City Chiefs, that pleased the underground Las Vegas forces, that awarded the NFL another Taylor Swift showcase. Maybe he got to Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady and persuaded him not to use James Cook more.
Cigarette Smoking Man is the iconic fiend from 'The X-Files.' Also known as CSM, Smoking Man and Cancer Man because his background is so clandestine that it's rarely divulged and more seldomly believed, he's the chief antagonist of FBI special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. In November 1996, CSM declared on the hit paranormal series that Buffalo will 'never win the Super Bowl as long as I'm alive.'
Before the AFC Championship Game, however, the actor who played CSM summoned his sinister character from the shadows to post on Facebook, of all things.
'I am today officially removing my curse on the Buffalo Bills,' William B. Davis wrote. 'If they are able to defeat Kansas City I will permit them to go on and win the Super Bowl. Go Bills Go.' He signed it, 'Cigarette Smoking Man.'
Why, then, when referee Clete Blakeman huddled with his crew before announcing a call could we hear a theremin playing in the distance?
Barry Karr normally scoffs at the notion of conspiracy. Karr is the chief financial officer at the Center for Inquiry, an organization that advocates scientific skepticism and critical thinking against religious ideology, pseudoscience and paranormalism.
'The only thing paranormal I believe in is that Western New York sports teams are cursed, and, I swear, if I find out who put the curse on …' Karr laughed from the Center for Inquiry headquarters in suburban Amherst on Sweet Home Road.
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At his home a few miles away, a Bills flag still flaps in the bitter winter breeze.
The Center for Inquiry was founded by University at Buffalo philosophy professor Paul Kurtz alongside scientific heavyweights such as Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, B. F. Skinner and James Randi to promote secular humanism and debunk charlatans who made money as faith healers, psychics, mediums, ghost hunters and whatnot.
'The Music City Miracle and 13 Seconds and Wide Right and No Goal and Ronnie Harmon's drop, we've got these buzzwords in Buffalo, more than other cities, I would think,' said Karr, also executive director of CFI's Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
But what if we told you Karr and Davis have known each other for years?
And what if each has enacted a successful-to-date sports curse on the other?
Bills fans have wallowed in conspiracy theories for generations, but new ones have torn open the portal.
Many are convinced Kansas City's victory was predetermined either because the NFL doesn't want the Bills to succeed or the industrial football complex is so enamored by the commercial success of coach Andy Reid, quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce alongside his megastar girlfriend.
National pundits and even former NFL officiating chief Dean Blandino's brother claim the NFL is rigged.
Two controversial plays have drawn the most scrutiny: a debatable 26-yard reception awarded to Kansas City wideout Xavier Worthy (upheld after a challenge) that appeared to touch the ground and set up a second-quarter touchdown two snaps later; a bad ball placement (upheld by review) on Josh Allen's quarterback sneak that should have given Buffalo a first down early in the fourth quarter, but instead switched possession to the two-time defending champion.
'It's amazing how important it all is,' Davis said by phone from British Columbia, 'and yet it's amazing how it isn't important at all.'
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In the 1990s, CSM was voted the 'nastiest villain' in a TV Guide poll. The magazine also named him among three television characters who will go straight to hell and has included CSM on multiple lists of all-time villains.
Spectral smoke wafted dramatically in every CSM scene. He was mysterious, otherworldly, but palpably evil — perhaps depraved. He didn't smoke until the day he assassinated President Kennedy, the pack of Morley cigarettes given to him by Lee Harvey Oswald.
'For me, I was the good guy. Mulder was the villain,' said Davis, 87, a distinguished acting coach in Vancouver. 'When I would give talks about this, everyone would laugh, but that's what I had to do as an actor. I have to believe in what I'm doing.
'That's what the smoking was all about for me, closing off the ethical fight for what I had to do. For the show's creator, Chris Carter, the smoking suggested something ephemeral and vague, but it also suggested the devil, that something was coming from subterranean depths.'
Barenaked Ladies' 1998 No. 1 hit 'One Week' includes a lyric about 'watching X-Files with no lights on' and hoping 'The Smoking Man's in this one.'
GO DEEPER
Do the Bills need a 'desperate' move to break through?
The seventh episode of the fourth season was dedicated entirely to CSM and introduced the Bills' curse. Carter and his writing staff decided to answer some questions — yet artfully added to the enigma — by peeling back CSM's curtain. 'Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man' aired Nov. 17, 1996.
In a board room, seconds after declining a call from Saddam Hussein on line two, Cigarette Smoking Man stone-coldly reinforces his longstanding whammy.
Agent Cook: 'I am working on next month's Oscar nominations. Any preference?'
CSM: 'I couldn't care less. What I don't want to see is the Bills winning the Super Bowl. As long as I'm alive, that doesn't happen.'
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Agent Lydon: 'Could be tough, sir. Buffalo wants it bad.'
CSM: 'So did the Soviets in '80.'
Agent Lydon: 'What are you saying? You rigged the Olympic hockey game?'
CSM: 'What's the matter? Don't you believe in miracles?'
Agent Cook: 'The boss gave the Russian goaltender a little pregame, good-luck pat on the back. Unseen novocaine needle on a bogus wedding ring. Goalie's a little slow on the stick side? 4-3, home team.'
CSM: 'Payback's a b—-, Ivan.'
Within two months, Buffalo suffered a first-round playoff exit in what would be Marv Levy's final postseason campaign, All-Pro center Kent Hull retired first and quarterback Jim Kelly's tearful announcement followed. The Super Bowl era had crumbled.
'It was just a joke!' said Glen Morgan, writer of that legendary 'The X-Files' episode.
Morgan is bedeviled by it all. He and his little brother, Darin Morgan, were born in Syracuse and still have family in Western New York. Glen began as a Giants fan, but Darin loved the Bills and had an O.J. Simpson poster on their bedroom wall.
But Glen didn't intend for CSM's line as a dig at his little brother or the Bills. To escape the harsh winters, the family moved to San Diego, where the teen boys became Chargers diehards and eventually accomplished Hollywood writers and producers. Glen won an Emmy Award, writing for 'The X-Files.'
It's just that Buffalo's four straight Super Bowl losses were part of the 1990s pop culture zeitgeist. As was the case with the 1980 Miracle on Ice team, Glen Morgan needed sports references everyone in the 'The X-Files' audience would understand.
'I want the Bills to win so bad,' said Glen Morgan, a former subscriber to CFI's Skeptical Inquirer magazine. 'I want them to win the Super Bowl. I have a soft spot for teams that haven't won because I'm a Chargers fan, and we've won nothing. And, as a Chargers fan, I was rooting so hard for the Bills because I hate the Chiefs and want this curse thing to be lifted.'
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One might assume all this talk of covert manipulation would gratify Davis, given his nebulous character and the show's otherworldly bent.
In reality, Davis believes it's all nonsense. So much so that he has delivered lectures at skepticism conventions — sponsored by the Center for Inquiry, no less.
'It came out of 'The X-Files' because people have strange ideas of how working actors choose their work,' Davis said. 'They assume I had chosen this because I believe in the paranormal and were always surprised to find that I didn't.'
Davis calls evolutionary biologist and CFI board member Richard Dawkins his 'scientific hero,' which made for an awkward realization when Dawkins castigated 'The X-Files' for promoting pseudoscience and marginalizing scientific explanation.
'My personal crisis was, 'Could I go on doing a show that is condemned by my scientific hero?'' Davis said. 'He thought it was convincing our fan base to be less skeptical. But what was curious about his statement and his condemnation was he had no evidence. He's a great believer in evidence. He's always pointing to the evidence, the evidence, the evidence. He had no data on what the audience thought.'
Davis explained that, as a frequent speaker at sci-fi and comic book conventions, he would ask the audience if they believed aliens existed among us, and about half would raise a hand, roughly the same percentage as the general public, according to Gallup and Pew Research polling at the time.
'My evidence was meager, but at least I had a little,' Davis said. 'When I did finally meet Dawkins once, he said, 'Oh, are you involved in the show?'
'So, yes, I was bemused by that.'
Not as bemused as Karr has been with Cigarette Smoking Man's curse.
Davis, a native Torontonian, loves hockey and has been a Montreal Canadiens fan since he was 10. His grandfather took him to Maple Leaf Gardens for a game, but Davis couldn't take his eyes off Rocket Richard, Elmer Lach, Toe Blake and Butch Bouchard in the red sweaters.
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Knowing this, Karr conjured a contra-curse to strike at CSM's soul: Until the Bills' jinx is lifted, no Canadian hockey team will win the Stanley Cup.
Montreal was the most recent champion in 1993, the last season Buffalo reached the Super Bowl. Canadian teams are 0-7 in the Stanley Cup Final since then.
'Before I say anything else, let's be clear: I don't really believe in curses,' Karr said. 'I know fans are upset, but it's just easier to see things as a conspiracy. We're envious. We're jealous. Think of all the people that would have to be involved in that kind of vast cover-up, and nothing has come out in years. It's just bad luck.
'But when I told Bill I was cursing Canadian NHL teams, I figured what was good for the goose is good for the gander. It's been fun going back and forth on it.'
Although the Bills didn't win after Davis rescinded the Smoking Man's hex, Karr responded with a gentlemanly act.
'I'll lift my curse,' Karr said. 'I won't hold it hostage until the Bills win it all because who knows how long that'll take? Not that I control anything, but I'll do it for the principle of the thing.'
Hold up a minute, though.
Does Davis even have jurisdiction over Cigarette Smoking Man and the Bills' futility?
Morgan, writer of that script and several others, made a fascinating point.
CSM apparently was killed in the 11th season finale, albeit possibly not the series finale because the show was revived in 2016 after a 14-year dormancy and plausibly could return. Mulder shoots CSM five times in the torso and shoves him into a river. The last we see of CSM, his limp carcass is drifting away.
'The line is, 'As long as I'm alive, that doesn't happen.' So if he's lifting the curse, that means he's alive,' Morgan said. 'When they filmed The Cancer Man getting shot and falling into the water, someone on the crew goes, 'Well, now the Bills can win the Super Bowl.''
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Cigarette Smoking Man was believed to have been killed twice before, yet came back, the vampire that he is.
'I wouldn't say officially, but he's pretty dead in my book,' said Morgan, executive producer of the last episode. 'He's floating in the water up there in Vancouver somewhere.'
The truth is out there.
Unless it isn't.