It’s finally happened and I never thought it would.

I had given up hope, held vigil every season while wearing my Jim Kelly jersey, waiting for the day I could say this aloud, or type it into a column again.

Buffalo Bills, NFL playoff team.

The year was 1999 and I hadn’t yet worked a day at the Butler Eagle. I was sitting in a sports bar, the name of which I can no longer remember, watching Rob Johnson, a man I loathed, lead the Bills to a 16-15 lead late in the game against the Tennessee Titans.

OK, I thought. Maybe Johnson isn’t so bad.

Then Home Run Throwback happened. The Music City Miracle happened and the Bills were the victim of one of the nuttiest plays in NFL history.

It was an illegal forward pass. I’ll scream that on my death bed.

Still, I had no idea that game, played in the last millennium for crying out loud, would be the last playoff game for the Bills.

Until Sunday.

There are people who were born, grew up and graduated from high school who never knew a world in which the Buffalo Bills were a good enough NFL football team to qualify for the single-elimination championship tournament.

It’s mind-boggling.

You’d think one of those years, Buffalo would have qualified on a fluke, on sheer law of averages.

A bad AFC field. A couple of fortunate bounces. Perhaps an 8-8 record and a sneak into the postseason.

But, no. Never happened.

The Bills got close in 2004 when all they needed to do was beat the 14-1 Pittsburgh Steelers, who were resting all of their starters, at home to earn a spot.

What happened? Something so Buffalo Bills.

They lost, to the Steelers’ second-and-third stringers, and didn’t qualify.

Then, in 2005, they didn’t make it. And again in 2006. And yet again in 2007.

You get the idea.

The Bills had some decent teams during the drought, but something would always trip them up close to the finish line.

A bad loss. An injury. A lot of 7-9s and 8-8s.

Close, but yet so far. The model of mediocrity.

Then 2017 came and with it very low expectations. The Bills embarked on a roster purge, trading away stars like Sammy Watkins, Ronald Darby and Marcell Dareus.

A losing season seemed a certainty. A playoff spot? Preposterous.

Yet here we are, thanks to Andy Dalton.

Yes, that Andy Dalton, the quarterback the Bills passed on to take cornerback Aaron Williams despite the fact all they had on the roster at QB was the Amish Rifle, Ryan Fitzpatrick.

Well, maybe that wasn’t such a bad decision in the long run.

But Dalton is the toast of Buffalo now.

If it weren’t for the Nate Peterman Experiment (which would make a good name for an indie Rock and Roll band, by the way), the Bills may not have needed Dalton.

No matter. The Bills are there and I’ll be watching my first Buffalo playoff game since Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was still a thing.

I’ll be partying like it’s 1999.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.