MINNEAPOLIS — They know the game by heart, memorialized by a single play they have watched roughly a million times. That didn’t stop Buffalo Bills fans from cramming into Tom’s Watch Bar in downtown Minneapolis on Sunday evening to enjoy it all over again.

One fan referred to it as “the Anthony Barr game.”

Another described it as “Josh Allen’s coming out party.”

That it came against a kindred spirit in Super Bowl suffering made the moment even more cosmically memorable.

“It’s so poetic,” said James Kurdziel, a Buffalo native who now calls Minnesota home.

In his second start as an NFL rookie in 2018, Allen punctuated a breakout performance by hurdling over Vikings linebacker Anthony Barr in a stunning 27-6 win after the Bills entered as 16.5-point underdogs.

That image soon became plastered across Buffalo, a sign of hope and reassurance that the team’s fortunes were about to change. A local chapter of the Bills Mafia (the fan base’s nickname) kicked off festivities for “Monday Night Football” by getting approval from Tom’s Watch Bar management to watch a replay of this 2018 game.

They invited Football Across Minnesota to tag along.

Fans sang the Bills’ “Shout” song. They cheered for touchdowns scored eight years ago. They mingled and shared beers with Vikings fans, possibly to commiserate their mutual bond of being 0-4 in Super Bowls.

“We understand their pain, they understand our pain,” Pat Brady said.

Brady’s brother, Bill, is chapter president of a local fan club called MSP Buffalo Bills Backers. A group of 35 to 50 supporters gather each week to watch Bills games together at Buffalo Wild Wings on the Minnesota Gophers campus.

Bill’s wife, Cheryl, was raised in St. Paul and is a lifelong Vikings fan. She joins the group on game days but has a designated TV to watch the Vikings. The couple understands Super Bowl heartache twofold.

“We’re 0 for 8,” Cheryl noted.

“But we were much more efficient in our futility than you guys were,” Bill replied, referring to Buffalo’s Super Bowl losses in four consecutive seasons. “We got ours done bam, bam, bam, bam. We don’t mess around.”

The couple got engaged shortly before the Bills’ first Super Bowl loss in 1991, known painfully by the Mafia as “Wide Right.”

The Bradys watched the game at a party with friends. They left immediately after the game because Bill was devastated. Cheryl consoled him in a way that only Vikings fans can understand.

“She says, ‘Talk to me when you’ve lost four,’” Bill recalled.

Months later, they attended the wedding of a friend’s daughter. A man who was at the Super Bowl party recognized Bill as he turned to watch the bride come down the aisle. He made eye contact with Bill and placed his hands around his neck in the universal sign for choking.

“Bill looks at me and says, ‘I hate that guy,’” Cheryl said.

Speaking of weddings, Bill and Cheryl’s son Nick was dating a girl named Sammy. Nick is a diehard Bills fan. Sammy loves the Vikings. Early on, she wanted to make a good impression and offered to throw her body onto a folding table. She later put a table on her list for the bridal shower. Of course, her future father-in-law bought that item.

Bills Mafia has turned smashing tables into a trademark, as much a part of their tailgating routine as grilling meat. Fans fling themselves from tall structures onto tables, drawing cheers from onlookers.

The Brady family brought Sammy to a Bills game in New York against the Jets. Somebody had the brilliant idea to haul a table down to a subway platform. And right there, Sammy became an unofficial member of the family.

“I’m going, ‘Don’t do it, you’re going to get hurt,’” Cheryl said. “And Bill is videoing every second.”

The Brady bunch is quintessential Bills faithful. There are 13 siblings — nine girls, four boys, no twins — born in an 18-year window. They grew up outside of Buffalo.

Pat, the oldest boy, wore a T-shirt Sunday with these words on the front: “I was a Buffalo fan before it was cool.”

He married a girl named Nancy from Pittsburgh. Tough deal there. The Steelers, he is often reminded by his wife’s four brothers, own six Super Bowl championships.

One of his brothers-in-law called him right after the Bills’ second Super Bowl loss pretending that he had lost his TV feed and needed to know how the game turned out. Ouch.

Brady child No. 9 probably never has problems getting a dinner reservation back in Buffalo. His name is Joe Brady, same as the Bills head coach.

Their Joe plays in a band and sometimes performs solo. One time he promoted a gig on social media by stating “Not that Joe Brady.”

That Joe Brady’s promotion to Bills head coach last January created some confusion for one of the 13 siblings, a sister who lives in Israel and apparently knows nothing about sports. She asked family members: “Did Joey get a new job?”

The Bills Mafia is one extended family that keeps an open-door policy.

Kurdziel, program director at KQRS-FM, grew up in Buffalo and still owns his home that he left for Minnesota in 2020. He found his Mafia community here by wearing a Bills hat and walking around Mall of America after businesses reopened post-pandemic. People approached him every time.

Kurdziel visited Scotland last year. Driving along a winding road in a small village in the countryside, he spotted a man in a Josh Allen jersey.

“Buffalo is like Minnesota, it’s provincial,” he said. “There’s a lot of pride. People who live there love that they live there. They feel like they have some secret.”

The passion and pride extend well beyond Western New York. Take Chris Semar, for example. He grew up in St. Louis but migrated to the Mafia after the Rams bolted town. He lives in Minnesota now but kept his allegiances.

“We both have the same heartbreak,” he said.

He even has a theory about how Bills fans get folding chairs to smash when visiting road stadiums.

“I think there’s a secret Buffalo underground trade that happens with table manufacturers,” he joked. “They just show up. You don’t worry about it. Somebody comes and picks them up. It’s kind of like Lime scooters. They just kind of show up and then they go.”

Mafia membership doesn’t require dues or a secret handshake. Just a willingness to have fun.

Said Kurdziel: “You could walk around that stadium with your hands in your pockets and nothing on you and by the time you complete a lap of the stadium, you will have been fed, you will be drunk and you will probably be through a table. All at no cost to you.”

Bills Mafia descended upon U.S. Bank Stadium on Monday in large quantity and celebrated a 23-6 win. The Bills are 7-1 and humming along. The Vikings, not so much.

One of them looks like a Super Bowl contender at present.

“My worst nightmare is that they’re in the Super Bowl together,” Kurdziel said. “Because you really want both of them to do it.”

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