The Buffalo Bills season may have sailed wide right, following a similar path to Rian Lindell’s Monday night missed kick. The team is 5-5 and now in dead-last place in the AFC East after coming off an ugly loss at home against Cleveland.

This has us wondering: weren’t these the same Bills who were once a trendy pick to win this division with Brady out? Isn’t this the same team that was 4-0 and looked so promising a quarter into the season?

Unfortunately, we can attribute this breakdown to the team being the same old cursed franchise, nothing Bills fans haven’t been used to in their sad and tragic history. Buffalo won the AFC Championship game four years straight, from 1990 to 1993. But even in four tries, the Bills couldn’t win a Super Bowl, and haunting memories of kicker Scott Norwood’s missed field goal as time expired in Super Bowl XXV linger to this day in western New York.

One couldn’t help but feel sorry for this year’s team thanks to the clever highlights on SportsCenter: side-to-side replays of Norwood and Lindell’s wide-right missed field goals (the two stunned looks on QB Jim Kelly’s face in split-screen were priceless).

Now, of course the Norwood kick in 1991 was much more significant considering the circumstances, but Lindell’s shank on primetime the other night still defines the familiar sinking feeling in Buffalo.

Didn’t we watch this special teams horror scene play out last year in Buffalo? On the fifth Monday Night Football game in 2007, the Bills led the Dallas Cowboys at home 24-22 with two seconds left. Cowboys K Nick Folk hit not one, but two improbable 57-yard field goals to suck the life out of Orchard Park. The 2007 season basically went down the toilet from there into a 6-10 disappointment.

This 2008 team was 4-0 with a two game lead in the division after Week 4. What’s happened since is a complete collapse of a once-first place contender. The Jets, Dolphins and Patriots have all made considerable improvements in their last six games (Miami 4-2, New England 3-3 and New York 5-1). The Bills aren’t even close to .500 in their previous six outings, winning only one game to go along with five defeats.

The reason? Buffalo was never going to contend. Right now, they stand at 0-3 against their division, with three straight losses to Miami, the Jets and New England. The good news is that two of their three remaining division games will be at home; the bad news is that every team, even Miami, is better than Buffalo.

QB Trent Edwards is nearing 2,000 passing yards but has been horrendous in his recent performances. He has thrown only three touchdowns in the team’s five losses to match his equally disappointing eight interceptions. In five victories, WR Lee Evans has caught 22 passes for 421 yards. In five losses, he’s only grabbed 15 receptions for 279 yards. Evans’ trademark game was just this past Monday: 0 catches, 0 yards and 0 touchdowns against Cleveland.

And finally, the tragic tale of the kicking game. As if last season’s heart-wrenching Monday Night Football loss at home against Dallas wasn’t painful enough, another kick had to crush the hopes of Bills fans everywhere.

This game should have been much worse for the psyche of the team; at least they lost to Super Bowl contenders last year against Dallas. Losing at home to a sub-par Cleveland team on national television? That’s enough to crush the hopes of most teams in the NFL.

The Buffalo Bills are no exception.