No sooner had the Buffalo Bills won Sunday — setting up a heavyweight rematch with the Ravens — than Darin Mislan got a warning from a local friendly fire marshal. His Fells Point bar, the Admiral’s Cup, was due for inspections, and if any small detail was out of order, the second and third floors would surely be shut down.

Mislan, managing partner of the bar, knew the warning was in jest. By making the Admiral’s Cup a local haven for the Bills Mafia — and by unintentionally becoming a die-hard fan in the process — he’s made himself a target of barbs all week until Sunday’s divisional-round playoff game.

If there are any Ravens fans who can’t make it to Buffalo on Sunday but still desire the feeling of rooting on Baltimore in a hostile environment, the upper floors of the Admiral’s Cup will be the next-closest thing. The bartenders will be serving liberal pours of Labatt Blue Light alongside Buffalo-made Sahlen’s hot dogs to hundreds of red-and-blue faithful in our purple-and-black town.

“It has kind of turned into a phenomenon,” Mislan told me this week. “I used to go on hikes with my wife and my dogs every Sunday. Now, during football season, I’m at the Cup — my wife’s not so happy about that, but I’ve learned to love it.”

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I reached out to Mislan and several Baltimore-based Buffalo die-hards this week with an agenda. This season has seen the discourse between Buffalo and Baltimore fans, who both proudly represent blue-collar Northeast cities, devolve into repetitive, mind-numbing and toxic discourse online based primarily on each side backing its quarterback for MVP. After Jackson beat out the field last season, fans of the two best quarterbacks not named Patrick Mahomes have been bantering, and not often in a friendly way.

Can Bills and Ravens fans coexist? I wondered. Turns out they’ve been doing it for years.

Drafting two elite quarterbacks in 2018 has raised the stakes of what used to be a “frenemy”-style rivalry. Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen made their NFL debuts in the same game in 2018 in a Ravens rout, but it was in 2019 when something truly started brewing.

Dan Landel, a western New York native who has lived in the Baltimore region since 2007, watched Jackson and Allen square off in a 24-17 Baltimore win in Orchard Park back then. Walking out of the stadium, he remarked to a friend: “These two teams are gonna see a lot of each other.”

For the millennial and younger generations of Bills fans who have either fuzzy or no memories of the Jim Kelly era when Buffalo went to four straight Super Bowls, there is only Before Allen and After Allen. Landel was president of the Baltimore Bills Backers from 2009 to 2017, when the franchise’s hopes rested in the hands of quarterbacks such as EJ Manuel and Kyle Orton. At that time, Landel could scrape together a viewing party of a dozen or so people to watch frustrating Bills seasons — Buffalo finished last in the AFC East six straight years during one dark stretch.

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Jared Sanson, who has served as club president from 2017 on, said when the Ravens won their second Super Bowl after the 2012 season, he stayed home and closed his blinds during the championship parade.

“It was the first time seeing a city celebrate winning a championship,” said Sanson, who moved to Baltimore in 2005 and even became an Orioles fan but would not forsake the Bills. “I didn’t want to see any of it. When I finally experience a championship, I need it to be my team.”

Allen has changed everything for the moribund franchise, which is why Bills fans seem so, ahem, attached. Allen jerseys are reportedly the most popular dating profile accessory in Buffalo (the “trophy fish pic” of the North, if you will). Landel is planning to light a candle decorated with Allen depicted as a saint before kickoff Sunday.

A candle of Josh Allen representing the Bills quarterback as a religious saint is one of the items in Buffalo fan Dan Landel's Catonsville home. Taken in the 2018 draft before Lamar Jackson, Allen sparked a franchise turnaround that has inspired fanatic devotion from Bills fans.
A candle of Josh Allen representing the Bills quarterback as a religious saint is one of the items in Buffalo fan Dan Landel’s Catonsville home. Taken in the 2018 draft before Lamar Jackson, Allen has sparked a franchise turnaround that has inspired devotion from Bills fans. (Dan Landel)

“When we got to the AFC championship [in 2021], I asked my buddies, ‘How did we ever convince ourselves that what we watched before this was entertaining?’” Landel said. “When things first turned, we [Bills fans] were kind of uncomfortable with winning. Now, as long as we have Josh Allen, it feels like we have a chance to win every game.”

Lamar Jackson fans can understand the feeling.

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The Admiral’s Cup became Baltimore’s Bills haven only in the last few years when Sanson approached Mislan looking for refuge (Bryan Burkert, the longtime owner of the Sound Garden and a fervent Bills fan, offered the suggestion). Mislan was skeptical that the 10 to 15 weekly Bills fans in the club would mean much of a windfall, but he could tell the few who came were loyal patrons. “They would come for every regular-season game, then stay for the final whistle — even when they had no chance of the playoffs.”

The Allen era has changed Buffalo’s competitiveness … and dramatically grown the Admiral Cup’s Sunday business. A few years back the bar had to start stocking Labatt, the preferred brew of the region, and Mislan found himself going through hundreds of cases every week.

Eventually Mislan — who grew up in Annapolis but never cared much for football — started picking up on the enthusiasm, too. While friends teased him for climbing aboard Allen’s bandwagon, Mislan notes he can now name all the Bills’ backup special teamers, too.

“This is like the friendliest fan base ever, and they just welcome you in,” Mislan said. “You kind of get caught up in it. I became a fan of the Bills fans, then became a Bills fan, then became a football fan.”

But it’s not all blue and red on Sundays, Mislan said. Many Ravens fans swing by, too. There are a number of customers who have adopted the Bills as a second team, or Baltimore fans who simply swing by to enjoy the energy of the scene — which sometimes includes one of the backers leading cheers while striding atop the bar counter like General Patton.

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“I don’t think there’s real animus between Bills fans and Ravens fans,” Mislan said. “It’s mostly good-natured crap talking.”

Sanson is also quick to point to the Baltimore Bills Backers’ relationship with Jimmy’s Seafood, one of the most prominent businesses that consistently throws its weight behind the Ravens. John Minadakis, who appears on sports shows including “The Pat McAfee Show” to tout his Ravens fandom, helped the Backers raise thousands of dollars to support survivors of the 2022 mass shooting at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo. Bills Mafia also donated money to Jackson’s charity in 2021 after Buffalo defeated Baltimore in the playoffs.

This week, Sanson said, Minadakis reached out to the Backers for suggestions and advice on arranging buses and a road tailgate in Orchard Park. “We really respect what they do, and they’re great partners with us,” he added.

The MVP discussion has dominated the discourse online between these two fan bases, but Landel also hopes the playoff game marks an end to the internet mudslinging that he calls a “stupid and manufactured debate.” Although he would like Allen to finish his career with an MVP trophy, it wouldn’t matter as much to him as seeing the Bills break through for the franchise’s elusive first championship.

“If Josh Allen wins an MVP, it’s not going to change my life — but the day after winning a Super Bowl, my life will be different,” he said. “Winning an MVP really doesn’t matter for a team identity, and I think both [Allen and Jackson] understand that fact. Realistically, the MVP discussion takes place in an echo chamber.”

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Baltimore fans can confirm: Having a quarterback winning an MVP award doesn’t reduce the pressure to win a Super Bowl one smidge. Sunday’s game could be a huge step toward a title breakthrough for either quarterback — even though the franchises stand in each other’s path, it’s something they can respect about one another.

For Sanson, Sunday represents more than one kind of turning point. He plans on watching his final Bills game at the Admiral’s Cup, then on Monday morning, he’s moving to Hamburg, New York, just a few miles south of Highmark Stadium. If the Bills beat the Ravens, it will feel like a triumphant homeland. If Baltimore wins, however …

“If that happens,” Sanson said, “at least I won’t have to see any Ravens fans the next day.”