Super Bowl Monday_ From the Persian Gulf to the Shores of West Florida - Adam Lazarus [141]
“I was hoping that would get the defense going,” Brown said about the play, “and they would go three and out and we’d get the ball again and maybe get some more points.”
But Brown’s touchdown—the third-longest reception in postseason history—would be the last points Los Angeles accumulated that day. Raiders kicker Jeff Jaeger even missed the extra-point try in the face of the harsh winds. No kick in the postseason, it seems, is ever a gimme.
Behind by a single point in the final quarter, the Bills needed to respond. And in typical K-Gun fashion, they did. Within three minutes, Kelly put the Bills in scoring position. At the Raider twenty-two, he floated a perfect pass into the post, right into the grasp of Bill Brooks, capping a nine-play, seventy-one-yard drive.
“Jim put it right on the money,” said Brooks, the free agent signed that season to replace James Lofton. “I wanted to make sure I looked it in; the play before, I dropped the ball. I’d never been in a game this big before. I drove my mom and dad and wife over and my dad said when we got out of the car, ‘You’ve got to relax, you’re too tense.’”
Los Angeles failed to pick up a first down on their next two drives, the second of which ended by way of Bruce Smith sacking Jeff Hostetler on third down. The Raiders were forced to punt with just under six minutes remaining in the game. Hostetler would not get another chance to score as Kelly and the K-Gun shortened the game, hoarding the remainder of the clock. The 29-23 victory sent Buffalo to a fifth AFC Championship Game in six years.
“We have a lot of experience in the playoffs, but most of all, we have a lot of character,” running back Kenneth Davis said. “And character is what’s carried us more than anything.”
A week later, in the AFC Championship Game, the Bills faced Kansas City and another Super Bowl–winning quarterback acquired via free agency, Joe Montana. Once again, it was Thurman Thomas’ incredible performance (thirty-three carries, 186 yards, three touchdowns) that put Buffalo on the verge of a world championship. The 30-13 win sent Buffalo to a record fourth-consecutive Super Bowl. At the Georgia Dome, the Bills led Dallas 13-6 through thirty minutes. But a scoreless effort from the Buffalo offense, two turnovers, and the legs of Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith, buried the Bills in the second half. Dallas repeated as world champions, 30-13.
The Bills quasi-dynasty came to an end that day. Buffalo missed the playoffs the following season and after nine postseason victories during the previous four years, scored just one more the rest of the decade.
Although the optimism that each Buffalo fan, player, and coach awoke with on those four consecutive last Sundays in January ultimately disintegrated into sadness and despair, the Bills run of the early 1990s produced something as historic as any one of the Lombardi Trophies handed out at the end of each season.
“I think if you look at the Bills during those four years, there were games that were won by the offense and there were games won by the defense,” Darryl Talley said ten years after the Bills’ final Super Bowl loss.
And there were a lot of times that we brought it all together and overwhelmed teams on both sides of the ball. The thing to remember about the Bills of the 1990s was the fact that leadership didn’t come from just one player. It came from different guys each week. We took it game by game as far as leadership went.
We weren’t always looking for one or two individuals to always make the big plays. It just seemed like somebody new always came up every week to come through for us. I think that’s what made us so unique. Plus, the fact that we had so much depth on offense and defense.
We might suffer an injury or two, but always seemed to have