Dolphins vs. Bills used to mean serious dislike. Buffalo steamed for years over the Dolphins running the Bills’ table for the 1970s. And Buffalo so tormented the Dolphins from 1989 to ’96 that then-Dolphins player, now-Dolphins coach Bryan Cox letting his birds fly at the Buffalo crowd in 1993 comes off now as coarse summary commentary.

As the franchises slog through playoff-less years, what once stood as a signature AFC rivalry has languished in The Era of Little Feeling … perhaps until Sunday’s contest in Orchard Park, N.Y.

Though there’s all of nine wins between the teams once again headed for nowhere, it’s unlikely there will be a just-playing-it-out feel to the game.

Buffalo accused Miami of taking liberties with its NFL guests during the Dolphins’ 35-8 Bills blasting last month. While that is debatable, it’s not debatable that Dolphins strong safety Yeremiah Bell delivered the unkindest analysis after the game.

Bell said the Bills “laid down” after the Dolphins started putting the hurt on Buffalo on the scoreboard and on the field. Reminded of his November comments last week, Bell stayed with them.

“I think when they watched the film, they knew it, too,” Bell said.

“Now it’s time for Round Two. I like to talk noise; if that gets them riled up, then I’m all for it. Bryan Cox is loving it.”

Last week, several Bills mentioned the “laid down” line.

“You know, it started a little fire in me,” Stevie Johnson told Buffalo reporters.

“Hopefully, it did with the people around me. So I’m looking forward to playing this game and coming out with an attitude. It’s not like we don’t come out with an attitude, but a little bit more just for what was said.”

That’s the 25-year-old Johnson, in his fourth NFL season. This is 37-year-old Dolphins veteran outside linebacker Jason Taylor:

“I’m not real big on the bulletin-board stuff,” Taylor said. “People could say bad things about us if we didn’t play very well. Then you can say bad things about us. I’m not going to post it on my locker. I’m not going to post it on the bulletin board and say, ‘Hey, let’s go win because they said this.’ If that’s the motivation for them, then great. Ours is different.

“We played pretty well the first game. We won by a good margin. Whatever was said before, during or after the game, oh well,” he continued. “To me, it has no bearing on what we’re going to do Sunday and what they’re going to do Sunday. But if they want to get hyped up and run the locker room because somebody said something derogatory about them, then that’s fine. I’m cool with that. But if I hung up everything bad that somebody said about us, boy, there would be no more wall space in this locker room.”

Dolphins interim coach Todd Bowles downplayed the whole kerfuffle.

“We got a few breaks early, and we got up a little bit, and I guess we haven’t won too many games at that point and [a] couple of guys said some things,” Bowles said. “I don’t think that’s a big deal one way or the other as far as we’re concerned or probably they are concerned.”

On the field, Buffalo didn’t appreciate some of the shots the Dolphins delivered, including some helmet-popping hits.

The NFL agreed in one case, fining Dolphins safety Tyrone Culver for dough-popping Johnson.

Those kinds of hits used to be common in the NFL. So was healthy anger in Dolphins vs. Bills.