Super Bowl Monday_ From the Persian Gulf to the Shores of West Florida - Adam Lazarus [109]
11
The Irresistible Force vs.
The Immovable Object
Bobby Layne never lost a game. Some days, time just ran out on him.
—Doak Walker on Detroit Lions teammate, quarterback Bobby Layne
On the first play of the final quarter of Super Bowl XXV, Thurman Thomas stole back the lead for the Bills.
Buffalo aligned in their standard three-receiver, single-back shotgun formation on first and ten at the thirty-one. As they had been most of the night, the Giants were in their two-down-linemen, four-linebacker front. Giants Carl Banks and Gary Reasons crept near the line of scrimmage, but at the snap, they didn’t blitz.
From this read-and-react position, the two inside linebackers saw Kelly place the ball in Thomas’ hands. A powerful surge by Buffalo’s line—especially center Kent Hull and left guard Jim Ritcher, who teamed up to block Reasons and Banks—sealed off a huge alley for Thomas up the middle. He carried the football a full ten yards before anyone laid a hand on him.
At the twenty-four-yard line, cornerback Reyna Thompson and safety Myron Guyton converged on Thomas. They had him stuffed.
Thomas lowered his shoulder and plowed into Guyton, who tumbled to the ground. Thomas kept running. He sidestepped Thompson and darted outside to the sideline. Guyton’s hit, though it didn’t bring him down, did allow several Giant defenders to gain in their pursuit of Thomas.
Cornerback Everson Walls, who had begun the play on the opposite side of the field, raced to make the tackle. He was in position to bring the ball carrier down at the fifteen, and limit the run to just a first-down gain. Then, wide receiver Andre Reed approached him.
Reed had been severely punished by Giant defenders all day, taking shot after shot whether he caught the ball or not. Here was his chance to deliver the punishment. Reed dove at Walls’ legs, cutting him down to the ground two steps from Thomas.
“That was a freakin’ clip, man!” Walls remembered twenty years later. “That was an easy call to make. . . . He got me strictly from behind. I had the angle down on Thurman Thomas. I had made tackles before that. I was gonna make that tackle. I had him in my sights. Andre did a good job of hustling down the field, things of that nature, but the ref’s gotta do his freakin’ job as well. He’s gotta drop that flag! That was a bad no-call.”
With Walls safely on the ground, Thomas continued on to the end zone untouched. Lawrence Taylor came within a step of Thomas at the two-yard line, but by then, it was too late. Thomas crossed the goal line, pushing Buffalo ahead.
“It would be hard to argue that the best player on the field that day wasn’t Thurman Thomas,” Dan Dierdorf said in 2010. “His play was just exemplary. It was a joy to watch.”
Scott Norwood’s extra point made the score 19-17. Once again, Jeff Hostetler and the Giants offense would be called upon to produce. And once again—as they had done three times in the second half against San Francisco a week earlier and twice already this evening with consecutive, lengthy touchdown drives—they did.
The drive started in familiar fashion. First, Anderson grabbed a few hard-earned yards up the middle. Then, just prior to releasing a pass, Hostetler absorbed a brutal hit in the backfield: offensive tackle Doug Riesenberg had to peel his quarterback up off the ground. The incomplete pass set up third and long.
“Anytime, whether it’s run or pass, you can make a third-down conversion, it’s big,” Ron Erhardt said. “You called it because you wanted to make the first down; if you didn’t feel good about it, you wouldn’t have called it. So when we did make one of those, it was because it was a good call or it was executed well.”
Five times thus far, the Giants had successfully executed third and long situations (seven or more yards to go) during the game. The lone exception being Hostetler’s completion to Mark Ingram, which came up two yards short and set up Ottis Anderson