Super Bowl Monday_ From the Persian Gulf to the Shores of West Florida - Adam Lazarus [138]
He connected on all three attempts during the playoff win against the Chiefs, including a clutch forty-seven-yarder. And the one time he was called upon in the AFC Championship Game against Denver, Norwood delivered. The kick sailed through and Buffalo hung on to win 10-7.
“I didn’t have any doubts that I was going to make my kick. I was hoping to get the opportunity to come through for my teammates,” Norwood said.
In the postgame press conference, Marv Levy wasn’t nearly as modest on his kicker’s behalf.
“Any Norwood questions, guys?” Levy sarcastically asked the press. “He deserves some credit for what was done. I hate to see him catch a lot of crap when it goes against him and then have you just shrug your shoulders when he’s done something meaningful.”
The meaningful kick earned Buffalo another Lamar Hunt Trophy, awarded to the champion of the American Football Conference. But for a second straight season, the Bills would not supplement the Rich Stadium display case with a Lombardi Trophy.
Washington pummeled the Bills in Super Bowl XXVI, 37-24. A costly unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty against Andre Reed (he slammed his helmet on the ground after an incompletion) and Thurman Thomas’ infamous misplacing of his helmet were as much an embarrassment as the 24-0 deficit they faced in the third period.
The resilience of a franchise that overcame so much just to get to their first Super Bowl, continued to shine the next season. Three losses in the final five games of the 1992 regular season kept Buffalo from claiming another division title.
To return to a third-straight Super Bowl, they would have to do so as a wild-card team. Minutes into their opening-round home playoff game against Houston, there was little hope of that happening. Without Jim Kelly (sprained knee) and Cornelius Bennett (hamstring) heading up their respective units, the Bills fell behind 35-3. Thurman Thomas’ reinjuring of his hip pointer early in the third quarter seemed to signal the end of Buffalo’s season.
Inconceivably, however, the Bills came back. Replacing Kelly was backup Frank Reich. The former University of Maryland quarterback had already engineered the greatest comeback in the history of college football: in November 1984, his Terrapins trailed Miami 31-0 at halftime, then scored six touchdowns to win 42-40. Reich repeated the miracle eight years later.
“[Bills third-string quarterback Gale Gilbert] came up to me and told me what I needed to hear,” said Reich. “He said, ‘Hey, you did it in college, and there’s no reason why you can’t do it here.’”
The Bills scored five touchdowns in the span of twenty-one minutes to stun the Oilers with a 41-38 overtime victory. On the momentum of that historic win, Buffalo cruised through the remainder of the AFC playoffs, only to be pounded in Super Bowl XXVII by Dallas, 52-17.
Again, the Bills did not give up. And, as luck would have it, the first half of the 1993 regular season even afforded the Bills a special opportunity for redemption. In Week One, they crushed New England 38-14, spoiling Bill Parcells’ Patriots debut. Nine weeks later, the Bills again bested Parcells and their AFC East rival.
In between those two victories over the head coach who narrowly defeated the Bills in Super Bowl XXV, Marv Levy’s squad won five of six games. Three of those wins came against the Cowboys, Redskins, and Giants, the franchises to which Buffalo had lost Super Bowls in each of the three previous Januaries.
“We know nobody wants us to win,” Jim Kelly said during that season. “We know nobody wants to see us go back to the Super Bowl again. Everybody is sick of us. And you know what? We love it.”
The Bills went on to reclaim the AFC East crown later that year, earning a first-round bye and another playoff showdown with the Los Angeles Raiders.
“The last time was an embarrassment,” said Raiders perennial