Posted by Os Davis in all, alternate history, football, video | 0 Comments
Dispatch from parallel universe: Remembering Super Bowl XXV (Bills 22, Giants 20)
Norwood: Synonymous with "clutch"
O sure, this piece is completely untimely with the World Cup coming to a head, baseball in full gear, and everyone hype on both sides of the ocean about which basketball free agents are going where.
Nevertheless, it’s Buck Bokai’s blog and Buck Bokai pretty much misses NFL football whenever the regular Sunday dosage isn’t forthcoming. For this writer, the love of this game all goes back to 1991 and Super Bowl XXV or, as Buck Bokai prefers to think of it, The Perfect Game.
Wow, remember the Buffalo Bills…?
Those of us who saw this classic matchup of the Bills’ revolutionary hurry-up offense vs. Bill Parcells and defensive coordinator Bill Belichick’s soon-to-be revolutionary defensive schemes will never forget a moment.
There was MVP Thurman Thomas’ 31-yard pinball-bouncing TD run and the Giants’ masterful 9-1/2 minute fourth-quarter drive. There were QBs Jim Kelly and Phil Simms, piling up workman lines: 18-of-30 for 212 yards against 20-of-32 for 222 yards and one TD. Neither threw a pick. Neither offense turned the ball over.
And the game was won the only way it could have been: With a last-second field goal that made the words “Scott Norwood” synonymous with “clutch.”
The confetti flew, and it was perfect.
For one Sunday.
Buffalo was on top on the football world in 1991, but it didn’t last long. Who could have known that Thomas, after lofty declarations that he’d win the MVP the following season, would tweak his knee in spring training and never put in anything like the 135-yard performance against the Bills? Who could have guessed that, after Parcells & Co. almost withstood the hurry-up offense, seemingly every other NFL team mastered defending it in the preseason? Who would have guessed that Buffalo would never see another winning record?
While Parcells and later Belichick’s Giants would go on to appear in an incredible five of the next seven Super Bowls, winning four, Marv Levy failed at game plan after game plan to manage a 6-10 Bills finish in ‘91.
While New York was getting ready to bounce Troy Aikman and the Dallas Cowboys from the playoffs for the first of many occasions, Levy was making preparations to trade Kelly to the Cincinnati Bengals before the ’92 season. It didn’t help, and Levy retired. The coaching carousel ran full speed for the seven years while the turnstiles slowed to a near stop. By the end of the decade, Buffalo would no longer have a team.
(Incidentally, talking about changing football history, what do you think Aikman would do to be able to change the Cowboys’ drubbing at the hands of Dan Marino’s Dolphins back in XXXIV? And how long will it be before Aikman strangles Boomer Esiason after another Peyton Manning comparison?)
While Manning’s Giants are playing for all the marbles once again, the only solace for Bills fans today is that the Las Vegas Blackjacks have been little more than late-night monologue fodder since uprooting from upstate New York. (The latest: “What’s the difference between Jack Kerouac and the Las Vegas ‘Jacks? Kerouac scored on the road.”)
Of course, the game of speculation is endless and football games are won on the field, not in alternate universes. It’s interesting to speculate what might have happened if, say, Thomas had fumbled the ball away early in the second half. Or if Norwood had somehow missed the field goal…
But history doesn’t change. And on that one Sunday at least, Buffalo was the center of the football universe.
Perfectly.
And now for something (nearly) completely different.