Super Bowl Monday_ From the Persian Gulf to the Shores of West Florida - Adam Lazarus [119]
Free from Giants and near the sideline, Thomas was faced with a crucial, split-second decision. Continue trying to gain yards or make for the sidelines to stop the clock.
Neither choice could be wrong—or right. By avoiding the sidelines, he might gain more yards and shorten the distance to the end zone. It also meant that he would most likely be tackled in bounds and the clock would roll. With no time-outs, the Bills would be forced to spike the ball and not have another chance to run an offensive play.
Thomas could have opted to run out-of-bounds in an attempt to preserve time (twenty seconds would have been left, time enough for at least one more offensive play). But doing so would have sacrificed a chance to gain more yardage. He made the aggressive choice, shunning the sidelines and continuing upfield to gain six additional yards. Mark Collins tackled him, in bounds, at the twenty-nine-yard line.
“Bill [Belichick] said to me ‘We may have just lost the game on that play,’” Parcells recalled. “He said, ‘We were in the wrong defense for that one.’”
The clock rolled—twelve . . . eleven . . . ten . . .—while an official spotted the ball. At the nine-second mark, Kelly (under center for the first time in the second half) took the snap and fired the ball into the ground to stop the clock.
Only eight seconds remained. The Bills could not risk running another play. If the ball carrier were tackled in bounds, that would surely end the game. They had to attempt the field goal. Scott Norwood jogged out on the field to attempt the Super Bowl–winning field goal. As both teams began to line up for the kick, Parcells gestured and shouted to the officials: he wanted a time-out to “ice” the kicker.
Norwood’s strong suit was accuracy, not distance. Because the Bills played their home games on the AstroTurf of Rich Stadium in 1990, Norwood had attempted only one field goal on natural grass. And throughout his entire seven NFL seasons, he had never attempted a kick that long on natural grass.
This championship-deciding kick would be a forty-seven-yarder, which, if good, would be the second-longest field goal in Super Bowl history. He remained focused and confident.
“I thought about the mechanics, about getting a good plant, going into it slow, hitting the ball solidly, probably taking the breeze into consideration a little bit, whether or not to get a draw on the ball, and following through,” Norwood said. “I don’t back away from that type of kick. It’s something I’ve done all my career.”
Meanwhile, New York’s field goal block unit remained on the field as well, stretching out, encouraging one another to block the kick.
“It’s an emotional roller coaster,” said Erik Howard, who recovered enough stamina to return for the field goal.
Everybody out there is thinking, “I’m gonna be the one to block this kick” or “I’m gonna be the one to make this play.” And there’s a bit of willing it to happen, a bit of prayer, whatever you want to call it. But for those guys that are out there on the field, it’s the culmination of what they’ve done their entire lives. It’s hard for people to probably grasp that. But think about all the blood, sweat, and tears of an entire lifetime and trying to get to that one moment and it comes down to [eight] seconds and a field goal. I don’t know that you can describe that or bottle that emotion.
That emotion so overwhelmed at least one Giants player, that it nearly cost New York five critical yards.
Lawrence Taylor had a fairly quiet Super Bowl. Taylor was matched up with Pro Bowl tackle Will Wolford throughout most of the game. And Wolford limited the three-time Defensive Player of the Year to just one tackle. With several Giants coaches distracted amid last-second preparations during the time-out, Taylor decided he would not be a spectator on the Super Bowl’s decisive play.
“Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lawrence Taylor run on the field,