Few NFL fan bases can match the passion and loyalty of Buffalo Bills fans. From their legendary tailgate parties and willingness to travel across the country to support their team to their well-documented charitable contributions, Bills Mafia has become a phenomenon that extends far beyond the football field. Despite decades of heartbreaking losses and near misses, their devotion has never wavered. It’s that unwavering loyalty, and the people behind it, that take center stage in the new Tubi docuseries, Just One Before I Die.
The five-part series takes viewers inside the world of Bills Mafia, exploring the history, heartbreak, and passion that have come to define one of professional football’s most recognizable fan bases. But beyond the touchdowns, tailgates, and infamous table-smashing antics, Just One Before I Die is ultimately a story about community, connection, and what it means to be part of something bigger than yourself. The series was produced by Buffalo native and One Tree Hill and A Cinderella Story star Chad Michael Murray and NFL Hall of Fame wide receiver Andre Reed, with LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s UNINTERRUPTED, through Fulwell Entertainment, serving as executive producers. Kevin Polowy and Addison Henderson directed and produced the series.
We recently spoke with Polowy and Henderson about how the project came together, the challenges of turning nearly 100 days of footage into a five-part series, and why the stories behind Bills Mafia are about much more than football.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: As a Buffalo native and lifelong Bills fan, Screen Radar Editor and Co-Founder Jeff Heller is a proud member of Bills Mafia]
First of all, congratulations on the series.
Thank you.
It seems like a huge undertaking. Can you just talk about how the whole project came together?
Kevin Polowy: Yeah, sure. It started with a phone call I got from my cousin on Super Bowl Sunday in early 2024. I was coming home from the Super Bowl party, and the Kansas City Chiefs had just won their second consecutive Super Bowl. They were seemingly cakewalking into the Super Bowl every year, and we were just sort of commiserating over the fact that it just seems like, “Are we cursed? Why can’t we ever experience what all these other fan bases get to experience?” Whether you’re a Chiefs fan, or a Patriots fan, or all the other teams that have gotten to experience it in some sport, right? As Buffalonians, we’ve never gotten to experience it in any major sport.
He pitched this idea. He doesn’t work in entertainment. He’s an oncologist, a really incredible oncologist in Scottsdale, Arizona; really good and successful at what he does. He proposed this idea of doing a documentary and funding the initial budget for it. I was looking to make some films. I wasn’t looking to do a documentary. At the time, I had done one in Buffalo before about Lance Diamond. It was a lot of work, and it was a niche audience. I was like, “That was great. I’m glad we did that, but I’m never doing another documentary.”
Then there was the idea of living in the world of Bills Mafia, following these fans around, and telling a story that seemed destined to be told by somebody. That was his pitch. He’s like, “Somebody’s going to tell it. Bills Mafia has become such a phenomenon. Someone’s going to tell the story.” I said, “Let me sleep on it.” I couldn’t go to bed that night. It’s all I could think about. First thing in the morning, I called Addison. I said, “If I got this opportunity here, if I do this, I want to do it with you, if you’re interested.”
Addison Henderson: That’s what happened. He came my way, and I was like, “If we do this, it’s got to be a character study. We can’t just tell the same stories we’ve seen on ESPN, or the viral videos of the table jumps. We got to get really deep into what it means to be part of Bills Mafia. What is fandom? Why, ultimately, do we do the things we do for our fandom? Really get behind what’s behind the blue and red, like the people that live in a city in Western New York, and on the outskirts of town.”
I was like, “We got to do that. I’ll bring some cinematic quality to what we do. It was amazing. Pinto Ron says this thing. He says, “You do this. It gets addicting.” It is kind of addicting. It’s like following the Grateful Dead or the Indy 500. It’s just so much fun. You get to learn about these people. They don’t only become your friends; they become your family.
There’s a lot of footage in this series, and I’m assuming you shot a ton more. Can you just talk about crafting a narrative and juggling these multiple storylines over five episodes with all the footage that you had?
Kevin Polowy: We filmed close to 100 days of footage. When you say we had a lot of footage, we had a lot of footage. Post-production was tremendously challenging. Filming it is a rush. It’s so fun. You’re surrounded by Bills Mafia and all the madness and joy and occasional heartbreak. Man, scripting these episodes, weaving together the storylines, and really culling through the footage was challenging. We were an independent crew. Addison and I didn’t have an ESPN research team or production assistants at our disposal. It was us and a couple of editors. It was many, many, many, many late nights. It was months and years of editing this thing to what you see on the screen. It was trial and error. It was over-scripting stuff.
Maybe the first cuts, if we had the full timeline of our initial episodes, I think [episode] one was like two and a half hours long. You’re just whittling and whittling, whittling, and whittling down to what hopefully is the best of the best. Documentaries are tough.
Addison Henderson: Let me add on that too there, Jeff. In the beginning, we outlined what this could look like. We crafted questions and we crafted a storyline of what this could possibly be. Now, along the way, because we were prepared and we were ready to meet the moment, we had some extraordinary things happen. Three, four months into filming, I believe, we met Steve Brown, who’s one of the major characters that’s actually essentially what this series is about. It’s about wanting something before you got to go off the planet.
His fandom was so strong, but so was his connection to his family and everything else in his life. Being able to actually sit with him and be in his presence and to get his story was profound for us, profound for me. Then you have other people like Kim K., whose son dies tragically, and she gets to meet the woman who received her son’s organs. Things like that, man. Our fandom is something, and it’s great, Bills Mafia. It’s like I say, Bills Mafia is a high concept, but the stories behind that are the thing that really just drives us when we’re filming, but also the storytelling. We met these people in the process of something that we had an idea of the story we were telling, but then you get lucky, and you find these amazing things.
Kevin Polowy: Yeah. We were also very conscious in the planning phase with casting this, that every character represented a different facet of fandom. Remember, something we haven’t talked about today, Addison, but we went through early on as we were casting, as we were bringing people in the fold, ‘What does this person represent in fandom that’s different from anyone else?’ There were so many amazing people we could have featured from the casting call, but we really wanted everyone to represent a certain facet of the fan base.
What do you hope both Bills fans and non-Bills fans take away from this series?
Kevin Polowy: For me, I think it’s the power of sports to bring people together, sports fandom specifically, especially during a time where every system out there seems designed to divide us. Sports can be a really beautiful mechanism to unite us. There is a lot of toxicity to sports fandom. That’s undeniable. We touch on that in the series. Especially in the age of social media with how people interact with each other and with the media. But I think ultimately, hopefully this shines through in the series, there’s this really beautiful poetic power of fandom where it doesn’t matter what your age is, what your race is, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, political beliefs. On Sundays, we’re all in the same accord and we’re all one. That’s a beautiful thing and probably how life should be more often.
Addison Henderson: Simply for me, I just hope that people watch this, and they see a little bit of themselves.
Kevin Polowy: If you’re from Buffalo, you might see yourself because we shot 100 days of footage and we filmed a lot of tailgate parties. There are literally hundreds of thousands of Bills fans in this place.
Well, guys, congratulations again, and go Bills!
Kevin Polowy: Go Bills!
Addison Henderson: Thanks, Jeff.
You can watch our interview with Kevin Polowy and Addison Henderson below.
All episodes of Just One Before I Die premiere for free exclusively on Tubi on Wednesday, October 21.