Super Bowl Monday_ From the Persian Gulf to the Shores of West Florida - Adam Lazarus [27]
Kelly’s addition was critical, both on and off the field. But Levy and General Manager Bill Polian knew they needed to revamp the roster. By the middle of his first full season, Levy had received a pair of outstanding linebackers. In the first round of the 1987 draft, Buffalo selected Shane Conlan, a captain of the Penn State team that won the national championship that January.
In case one first-round rookie linebacker from a premier college football program wasn’t enough for Levy to mold the Bills defense, Polian brought in another six months later. Cornelius Bennett, the top linebacker taken and second overall pick in that 1987 draft, went to the Indianapolis Colts. Well into the start of the regular season, the two sides could not agree to a contract, and in late October, Bennett was dealt to the Bills as part of a three-way trade that sent all-pro running back Eric Dickerson to the Colts. Bennett signed with Buffalo and was on the field eight days later, sacking John Elway during a 21-14 win over Denver.
A steep price had been paid to acquire Bennett. In addition to parting with running back Greg Bell, the Bills dealt away their first-round selections in the 1988 and 1989 drafts. But Polian was shrewd and knew that first-round picks don’t build dynasties.
“It’s all about the entire process—not just the first round,” Polian would later say at the end of three decades as an NFL general manager.
In April 1988, Polian’s big-picture thinking yielded one of the greatest “steals” in the history of the NFL draft.
Running back Thurman Thomas had been a phenom at Oklahoma State. As a freshman, he rushed for 206 yards and two touchdowns against Kansas State, and topped the 100-yard mark two more times that season. In that year’s Gator Bowl, the eighteen-year-old from Houston posted 155 yards on thirty-two carries, scored a rushing touchdown, and even threw a touchdown pass in the Cowboys’ 21-14 comeback victory over South Carolina. He was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.
Tremendous numbers the next season (three 200-yard games, 1,553 yards rushing) brought on talk of Thomas becoming the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy. He finished tied for tenth place in the voting, far behind Bo Jackson of Auburn. An off-season knee injury suffered while playing pickup basketball set back his growth as an upperclassman. Luckily for the Cowboys, head coach Pat Jones had recruited a capable replacement that spring: a grossly undersized player from Wichita, Kansas, named Barry Sanders.
Thomas struggled most of the 1986 season with the sore knee, enabling Sanders to see significant playing time as a freshman. Oklahoma State finished with a very disappointing 6-5 record and no bowl appearance. A year of rest and rehab rejuvenated Thomas for his senior season, and in 1987, the Cowboys finished 10-2, losing only to powerhouses Oklahoma and Nebraska. And although Sanders would go on to post the greatest season ever by a running back in the history of college football a year later (2,638 rushing yards, thirty-nine touchdowns), Thomas relegated him to second-string.
Ten 100-yard rushing games, including an incredible 293-yard performance against Iowa State, again put Thomas in the Heisman conversation. He didn’t garner nearly enough votes to contend, but in his collegiate finale, Thomas proved he belonged among the nation’s elite. On an absurdly snow-covered field in El Paso, Texas, he scored four touchdowns in a Sun Bowl victory over Don Nehlen’s West Virginia Mountaineers. During the 35-33 victory, Thomas touched the ball on more than half of the Cowboys’ offensive plays and accumulated more than half of the team’s total offense.
“He ended his career