OK, full disclosure, it’s my favorite Sunday of the Bills’ season … bye week.

Not that I don’t enjoy Buffalo’s game days, but the focus, for obvious reasons, is on the scheduled matchup; there’s a column and notebook to be written. The other games are peripheral and serve merely as a momentary distraction.

Bye week is different.

Some four decades ago, Patriots writers from Boston introduced me to a game they had learned while covering a Seahawks contest in Seattle. They called it “fantasy football” and explained the then-rudimentary rules.

A year later, in 1981, Pete Dougherty, a former TH sportswriter who now works at the Albany Times-Union, and yours truly, started our own league. We’re now in our 40th season and other than a couple of participants who have passed away, our 16-person league (we had a female or two early on) has rarely had an opening over the past 25 years, and our youngest participant is months away from 50.

Besides sportswriters and athletic media people, there are active and retired school administrators, industrial engineers, a businessman, an accountant and a landscaper.

Our scoring is simple — unlike the complex, statistically-burdened newer leagues — and because the scores and standings are no longer kept by hand but rather via a website, we’ve added both a “picks” and “survivor” pool. There’s a fee, of course, but ‘for amusement purposes only’ … besides it’s all about the bragging rights.

With the Bills idle, it’s a chance to really focus on my fantasy team and the best way to do it is via the NFL Red Zone channel, which I’m convinced is the best televised football invention since the introduction of the first down line.

So, guess how I spent the time between 1 p.m. yesterday and the end of the late afternoon games?

STILL, THE Bills were on my mind.

That was due to the volume of emails which poured into my inbox complaining how Buffalo had managed to blow a win in Arizona a week ago yesterday.

For those vacationing in Tahiti nine days back, the Bills, despite two interceptions and an inability to either generate or stop a running game, fashioned a two-touchdown second-half lead, blew it, then seemed to have salvaged an impressive win when Josh Allen hit Stefon Diggs with a 21-yard touchdown pass in the final minute for a 30-26 lead.

With the Cards having to go 75 yards, and only 34 seconds to do it, even with two timeouts, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, three modest completions later put the ball at Buffalo’s 43-yard line and, with 11 ticks remaining, Arizona quarterback Kyler Murray eluded a near-sack and launched a pass for the end zone where wide receiver De’Andre Hopkins was triple-covered. All four leaped for the ball, and Hopkins corralled it … producing a stunning 32-30 victory.

Unless something more spectacular comes along, it was the play of the year in the NFL and immediately was assigned an unforgettable name — “Hail Murray” — which the Cardinals’ second-year quarterback is already in the process of trademarking.

For Bills fans, of course, that phrase will live in the same infamy as “Music City Miracle.”

And in the days following that galling loss, Bills fans who are TH readers vented.

The most common complaint among my emails was Buffalo’s failure to have a tall player or two stationed in the end zone to knock down a Hail Mary pass intended for the 6-foot-1 Hopkins.

Indeed, some NFL teams do insert oversized wideouts into the defensive lineup in those situations.

But other readers felt the aggressiveness should come at the beginning of the play in the form of an enhanced pass rush to force the quarterback to unload the ball quickly, rather than letting him roll out, get his feet under him and throw for the end zone unchallenged.

Then, too, some wondered why a receiver as dangerous as Hopkins was given a free release from the line of scrimmage, rather than jamming him and disrupting his route.

And, finally, there were those who felt coach Sean McDermott erred in calling timeout before the fateful play — the Cardinals had none left — giving Arizona time to set up the “Hail Murray.”

The reality is, each coach has his own idea of what works best in a last-play defensive circumstance and most are reluctant to conjure some combination of approaches.

And as Marv Levy, during his tenure with the Bills, used to say, “You can’t get caught up in ‘watch out for this,’ and ‘watch out for that’ and ‘watch out for the other thing.’ Pretty soon you’re just watching … and getting beat.”

(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald)