SUPER BOWL XXVI / WASHINGTON REDSKINS 37, BUFFALO BILLS 24 : Fans Find the Back of the Class : Buffalo: After early euphoria, team followers blame everything from officials to the Bills’ griping players.

The Buffalo Bills’ fans confidently looked forward to their Super Bowl celebration.

Then the game started.

“This is awful,” said Matthew Mulhern, owner of The Locker Room, as he watched the fourth-quarter crowd at his sports bar dwindle with each muffed play in the Bills’ 37-24 loss to Washington Sunday.

The dejected bar crowds were thinning out by late in the third quarter as it became clear the game was a lost cause for the Bills. A year ago, crowds remained glued to their chairs until the last moment of the Bills’ 20-19 loss to the Giants.

Early in Sunday’s game, the Bills’ fans were upbeat as a replay reversal took away a Redskin touchdown and a fumbled hold on a field goal attempt kept Washington from scoring.

“Remember that one; that could be it; that could be the big play of the game,” said Tom Clark, who watched the game at Rettig’s Inn in suburban Orchard Park, a hundred yards from the Bills’ home field, Rich Stadium.

At that point, did the crowd at Rettig’s think Buffalo would win?

“Definitely,” Rettig’s regular Irv Anderson said. “You don’t come in here and ask that.”

Down the road, the lights at Rich Stadium shone eerily over the empty arena.

“Maybe the lights are a good luck thing,” bartender Jim Battleson said.

Later, the outlook changed.

“This is pathetic,” said Norman Habib, who watched the game at a place called The Bar With No Name in Buffalo. “We’re getting killed. Terrible, terrible, terrible.”

As Buffalo’s offense sputtered, Habib blamed the officials for a couple of plays where he thought Washington should have been called for pass interference.

“That ref’s a zebra. He looks like a human zebra,” Habib yelled.

At The Locker Room, Buffalo fans David Staley and Greg Morog said the Bills just plain lost, bad officiating or not. “There were no bad breaks,” Staley said. “They got beat by a better team.”

Many of the Bills’ fans blamed their team’s performance on last week’s griping by defensive end Bruce Smith, who complained he received racist letters, and running back Thurman Thomas, who complained he was unappreciated.

“Bruce Smith’s a guy who makes more money in one week than I make in a year, and he’s crying over his mail?” Staley said. “Just play the game.”

Tim Mulhern, brother of the bar’s owner, took it further, imitating the two Bills weeping.

“Boo-hoo, I’m Thurman Thomas, I don’t get any press,” Mulhern said. “Boo-hoo, I’m Bruce Smith, and I got a bunch of nasty letters.”

At the Buffalo Sports Garden, a cavernous tavern where 1,200 people gathered to watch the game, fans almost felt as if they were at rowdy Rich Stadium, where spectators are partial to pelting opposing teams with snowballs.

The bones of Buffalo-style chicken wings lay everywhere in one area of the bar where some fans got out of hand. Buffalo police led one fan out with ice over his eye after he got punched by another spectator. Minutes later, half-a-dozen police and bouncers in referee stripes wrestled another rowdy fan out the door.

“He must be a Redskins fan,” said a police officer who would not give his name.

Will the Bills be back?

“If you live in Buffalo, you don’t feel like you’re ever going to win the Super Bowl,” Morog said. “It’s the Buffalo jinx.”

“A good consolation is that our friend won $2,000,” Staley said. “He bet on Washington.”