Super Bowl Monday_ From the Persian Gulf to the Shores of West Florida - Adam Lazarus [33]
“We were moving the ball,” Hostetler said. “Then we’d get in scoring range and do something stupid.”
With seventy seconds remaining, the defense forced a Buffalo punt, giving New York one final opportunity to take the lead. Hostetler completed three consecutive passes to reach the Bills’ twenty-six-yard line, then spiked the ball, stopping the clock. With no time-outs and a few seconds remaining, the Giants’ options were limited.
“We were running seam patters, and the (Bills) were just sitting back there waiting for them,” Hostetler said. “In that case, it was best to just try to get it into the end zone.”
Second and third down shots toward the goal line came up incomplete and on fourth and ten, Hostetler’s pass to rookie Troy Kyles fell to the ground—final score: Bills 17, Giants 13.
“If you told me before the game,” Parcells told reporters, “that we were going to have the ball 38 minutes, we would have half the penalties the other team had, we would not miss any extra points or field goals, we would run the ball for 157 yards, we would complete over 55 percent of our passes, we would hold them to 65 yards rushing and we would give up one sack for no yards lost, I would say we would win the game.”
Penalties and several miscues—including two dropped interceptions near the Buffalo goal line by Lawrence Taylor—caused woes for Parcells’ team the entire day. Most troublesome, however, was the New York running game’s inability to gain critical yardage when called upon. Rodney Hampton gashed the Bills for 105 yards on twenty-one rushes, but the Giants were left with third and short or fourth and short on nine separate occasions. They could not gain the first down on six of those tries.
“Not making those first downs was a kick in the face, because we’ve been so successful with it in the past,” said Ottis Anderson, who, despite his early touchdown, finished the game with five carries for zero net yards.
“We’ve been pathetic. We haven’t done anything in the last four, five weeks on short-yardage,” offensive coordinator Ron Erhardt said after the loss. “Third down has been a killer. Every time it seems like a different thing, a guy missing a block or a penalty or whatever. We could change our offense and start doing other things, but you like to be able to run from your strength.”
Despite comparable offensive woes (after Kelly’s injury, the offense managed only four first downs), that Saturday was sweet for Buffalo. Victory had preserved the Bills’ one-game edge in the race for both the division title and home-field advantage in the AFC playoffs. The win also improved their record to 3-0 in December, the critical final month of the regular season in which the team had poor records during recent seasons. (The previous three years, Buffalo finished 1-3 in December.)
Also, any panic over Kelly’s injury was slightly muted by the win. The defense’s performance convinced both themselves, and the rest of the National Football League, that the K-Gun comprised only one-half of their attack.
“After Jim was hurt we were determined not to let the game slip away,” Darryl Talley said. “I think that was the best half of defense we played this year. Guys making plays—coming up with big plays at the times we needed them.”
Reich did not have Kelly-like passing stats (eight completions in fifteen attempts for ninety-seven yards), and his teammates acknowledged a significant talent and experience disparity. But his forty-three-yard connection to Don Beebe was the play that set up Norwood’s key fourth-quarter field goal. (Had it not been for Norwood’s three-pointer, the Giants could have attempted a go-ahead field goal during their two possessions near the Bills’ goal line.)
“I don’t think Kelly’s loss will hurt the team,” said James