It is the one many longtime fans, me included, believe was the best in franchise history. Better even than the old American Football League 1964-65 championship clubs.

Those ’90 Bills finished an American Football Conference-best 13-3 in the regular season and led the entire NFL in scoring. Their defense was top 10.

Coach Marv Levy’s talented outfit was fueled by offensive coordinator Ted Marchiboda.

You know Marchibroda, the old St. Bonaventure teammate of Cardinal Mindszenty football coaching legend Mike Orbanati. They are the true origin story of Buffalo’s fabled, hurry-up, K-Gun offense.

I went to the 1991 Super Bowl in Tampa and all I brought home was this lousy seat cushion.

It was the glory days of All-Pros Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, Steve Tasker, James Lofton and many more.

The Bills ousted Dan Marino and the Miami Dolphins in the first round of the playoffs 44-34 and then destroyed the Los Angeles Raiders 51-3 in a game that was 41-3 at halftime.

The Buffalo Bills press box, usually a quiet retreat for the visiting and hometown press to mingle and work, was anything but serene. It was more raucous and bristling with excitement than I had ever experienced.

The Buffalo Bills were going to their first Super Bowl. And so was I.

Everyone knows how that horrible Jan. 27 game ended, Scott Norwood’s no-gimme 47-yard field goal try at the end of the game sailed wide right. The opportunistic New York Giants had escaped Super Bowl XXV with a 20-19 victory.

Let me be crystal clear and intensely personal here. It was the worst Super Bowl of all time!

I hated just about everything about the experience other than the game itself, which some rate as top 10 of all-time. Not just games with Roman numbers.

Much to my paper’s outrage, we did not receive a press box berth from the NFL for the big game. Limited space in Tampa meant only media who covered the Bills on an active daily basis, would be seated.

We were granted a basic media pass to the press headquarters in downtown Tampa, not the game itself.

As a consolation prize, each media outlet could purchase up to four Super Bowl game tickets. Sweet.

We got four, at a then-seemingly high cost of $150 apiece. One was for me, the others for City Editor Keith Sheldon, a longtime Bills fan.

Notified in advance, I had a check to cover the cost of the tickets right after the rout of the Raiders.

The big game itself, unlike in recent years and for the foreseeable future, was played exactly one week later.

I had to totally pack for a week, get a good night’s sleep, kiss the wife and kids goodbye and bum a ride to the Buffalo airport.

It was the first time my wife and I would spend this much time apart since meeting at the newspaper in May of 1974.

Yeah, You guessed it, I got quite lonely and terribly sick.

Because Tampa area lodgings were long gone, I had to find a motel and rental car in Orlando. It was about a 90-minute drive to Tampa, where once inside the media center I registered for the week’s activities.

Heard Commissioner Paul Tagliabue give his Super Bowl Week speech with hundreds of other media members.

That was Monday.

I was then sick in bed with an unknown virus until Friday. That’s when I got pulled over by the police on my way to the Tampa media center. Pretty horrible, right?

Seems there was a law at the time that required me to have my headlights on in the morning.

“Safety thing,” the officer said, before sending me on my way with just a friendly warning.

Not much going on in Tampa so back to Orlando I drove.

The only thing to save the week was dinner on Saturday night with my boss at Olive Garden in Walt Disney World Resort.

The less said about Super Bowl Sunday the better. The national anthem as delivered by Whitney Houston was the clear highlight. Gave me chills. Still does.

After I watched the final kick go awry and thousands groan, I hopped back aboard one of the waiting, nearly empty buses and headed back to the media center.

It was there I started my game story and waited for the quotes to trickle in from the locker rooms.

Finally, it was back to my motel room. There I battled mightily with my suitcase-sized, fax-like machine that served as cutting-edge communications technology. Took me hours, but it worked just in time for Monday’s paper.

Several sleepless hours later, I struggled mightily at the airport due to the added weight of souvenirs for friends and family.

It was the final, sweaty act in a horrible, not super, week.

I would not go to another Super Bowl. One was way more than enough for me.

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Bill Hammond is a former EVENING OBSERVER sports editor.