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To me, it was the best thing that happened to them. They definitely fought like brothers, but I also think that they needed to realize how much better they would be if the bond were tighter and if they worked together and did less of the backbiting. Sure [the media], always takes something and makes it bigger than it is, but it was pretty substantive. . . . They hit that crossroads in ’89, that allowed them to be the team they were in ’90 because they made such an effort. . . . There was almost a kumbaya effort once they got to camp.

In Week Two, the Bills lost their road opener to Miami. Headlines announced that little had changed in Buffalo during the off-season. Behind 30-7 with 7:54 remaining, Levy pulled his first stringers amid the sweltering south Florida heat. Bruce Smith complained about the move, saying, “We just fuckin’ gave up.”

Levy was angry and fined Smith $500. He also fined three defenders who refused to come off the field when the starters were ordered off. But the conflict did not escalate from there.

“The harmony has been great,” Kelly said. “I know people will point to what Bruce said. Bruce says what he wants to say, but we are together as a team. Last week was a bummer. But teams go through that once in a season. Hopefully, this is ours, and we’ve gotten all that bad stuff out of the way in the second week.”

Kelly’s confidence in a new, controversy-free Bills team was valid. That off-season he took Marv Levy’s vows of change very seriously.

“It was Jim, too, I think, figuring out that he needed to learn that he had to have these guys on his side—which he did,” Vic Carucci noted.

They were behind him because they knew he was good. But when he came in, he came in kicking the door down, he was like, “Everybody get on my back, let’s get going and you step up to my level,” calling out offensive linemen. Linemen didn’t love that, and their wives didn’t love that, and their families didn’t love that. They had issues with this cocky kid who seemed to have a free reign.

They got to know each other better; they figured out what he was about. He definitely was smart enough to—as he did with his own family—share with his team, his success and his attention. The only guy getting national notice at that point was Jim, but he shared the wealth.

Kelly—who signed the NFL’s richest contract prior to the 1990 season—started including his teammates in photo shoots as well as his endorsements projects. And the postgame parties at his house, win or lose, became a bonding ritual for the entire team.

After the loss to Miami, the harmonious Bills promptly won eight straight. A loss to the Houston Oilers, on an eardrum-busting Monday night at the Astrodome, did not sidetrack the newly focused Bills. Wins over Philadelphia and Indianapolis meant the Bills were already guaranteed a better December record than they had posted in nine years. And with a Week Fifteen victory over the New York Giants, the Bills swept away all remnants of the “Bickering Bills.”

“I told Vic [Carucci] don’t print this, but if we beat this team, on the road in the Meadowlands, there’s no stopping us. They were good, and that was a tough road game against a team we didn’t see very often, a good defense and we beat them,” Steve Tasker remembered.

That was the one locker room, after that game, when we knew we were good. We knew we were special. That was the happiest locker room I was ever in. . . . This one wasn’t a celebration of “Hey we won this game.”

That locker room was a celebration of convincing ourselves that we were special. And that was the first time—through ‘89, ‘88—when we beat that team in New York, that team for the first time believed it was special and believed it was great. I’ll never forget that locker room. It was really something. I remember Teddy Marchibroda, the smile on his face, and Marv. We were just giddy. Everyone was giggling.

[1]Reich’s statistics during those three games were impressive (60 percent completions, 482 yards, six touchdowns, one interception) and, in his first