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While Bailey—and teammates Eddie Fuller (stepfather), John Hagy (nephew), Keith McKeller (father-in-law), and Scott Norwood (brother-in-law), who also had relatives serving in the Persian Gulf—tried to focus on football, the Bills’ front office prepared for the biggest sporting event in the history of western New York.

Not only had the Bills franchise never reached a Super Bowl, virtually no member of the front office had, either. Among the team’s key decision makers, only head coach Marv Levy and his two top assistants, coordinators Ted Marchibroda and Walt Corey, ever participated in the Super Bowl. (Despite eighty-eight combined years of professional football, Levy and Marchibroda each had just one Super Bowl experience, in 1973 as assistant coaches for the Washington Redskins; Corey was a reserve linebacker for the 1966 Chiefs but did participate in Super Bowl I.) Not one member of the Buffalo roster had ever reached the Super Bowl.

By contrast Al Davis’ Raiders—victors in three of the previous fourteen Super Bowls—assembled a squad filled with championship game heroes. Future Hall of Fame defensive end Howie Long and Super Bowl XVIII MVP Marcus Allen starred for Los Angeles. Even journeyman starter Jay Schroeder had taken a few significant snaps (subbing briefly for injured quarterback Doug Williams) as the Washington Redskins backup quarterback in Super Bowl XXII.

More pressing than the Raiders overwhelming edge in experience was the welfare of Buffalo’s defense.

Aside from a marginal effort during the second half of the Giants’ victory, the Bills offense had been spectacular all season, even without Jim Kelly. In two matchups with Miami—the only meaningful games the Bills played during the previous month—Buffalo totaled sixty-eight points and 922 yards against a defense that finished second in the AFC. Given that they were averaging more points per game (26.8) than any other NFL team, the Bills expected a tremendous offensive output each week.

Buffalo’s defense had been comparably steady all season. But the unit anchored by all-pro Bruce Smith and a trio of outstanding linebackers, Shane Conlan, Cornelius Bennett, and Darryl Talley, faltered in the playoff rematch with Miami. Dan Marino torched the Bills for 322 yards and three touchdowns.

Familiar Buffalo weather—wind and cold rain freezing into snow—contributed to defensive woes. The AstroTurf at Rich Stadium became very slippery and, as one reporter noted, “was more suitable for skiing than football.”

“It was horrible,” said Bruce Smith, who the Dolphins frequently occupied with two, sometimes, three blockers. “We couldn’t pass rush. We couldn’t turn the corner.”

With a similarly miserable forecast for the AFC Championship Game, Smith and the Bills would again be tested. Although they defeated the Raiders in Week Five, a twenty-four-point fourth quarter was needed to do so. And in that 38-24 win, the Raiders actually outgained the Bills in both rushing and passing yards; disturbing statistics given that dynamic runner Bo Jackson did not even suit up. That week, Jackson was hitting cleanup and playing left field for the Kansas City Royals.[1]

On game day, an entirely different set of concerns permeated the locker room, the city, and the entire nation. Again, war pushed football onto the back burner.

Iraqi forces launched Scuds—long-range, surface-to-surface missiles—at Israel and Saudi Arabia on Friday, then resumed their attacks late Saturday evening. At least seventeen were reported injured in Tel Aviv and Haifa. The United States struck back, with its own new weapon: the Patriot missile, a seventeen-foot-long, twenty-one-hundred-pound surface-to-air missile that soared three times the speed of sound. In its first-ever combat test, the Patriot was used to intercept airborne Scuds.

Following Iraq’s strike on Friday, Israel accepted the use of American

technicians—they had preferred to employ their own technicians—along with two additional batteries of Patriots. Another battery was