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Despite the inconsistencies, his teammates and the coaching staff showed endless confidence in their kicker.

“If I had to have someone in the NFL kick a field goal to get us into the play-offs tomorrow,” DeHaven said in October 1990, “Scott Norwood is the guy I’d want kicking it, regardless of what’s happened in recent weeks. There isn’t a kicker in the league who hasn’t had a time when he’s struggled a bit.”

DeHaven knew that a few misses wouldn’t affect his veteran placekicker.

“He had the perfect personality for a kicker,” DeHaven said in 2010.

He just never gets very high or very low. I remember him telling me one time, we’d been someplace and he noticed how the other kicker was setting his tee up on kickoffs, that he was somehow managing to get just a little bit extra height out of placing the ball there. [Scott] said, “I can’t tell you how excited I am about that.” I said, “Well I’m glad you told me that,” ’cause I couldn’t have told. When Scott was really excited, you wouldn’t have noticed. And I think that always helped him as a kicker—that he had such a level emotional state about him.

Having analyzed and resolved his early season kicking woes, Norwood returned to his reliable form. Beginning in Week Eight, he made thirty-four consecutive extra points and ten field goals in thirteen attempts. He didn’t miss a single kick in the Bills’ last three regular-season games and the playoff victory over Miami—all but one of those was played outside in cold, wintery Buffalo.

“I was in a little slump. I missed some early in the season, and the fans got on me. When I started making my kicks again, the fans got behind me. They know I can do the job. Things like that just happen in this game,” Norwood said. “It was never anything mental. It was just mechanics. With a new holder, it takes a little while to gel, to get to know each other and to communicate. It’s not something that happens overnight.”

When the Bills arrived in Tampa, Norwood had solid kicking workouts on the natural grass at the Buccaneers’ practice facility. And in sharp contrast to Matt Bahr, his Super Bowl counterpart, Scott Norwood approached the greatest challenge a kicker could possibly face, with his customary confidence.

“Now that I’m in the Super Bowl, I’ve had a mental picture of winning the game. It could happen,” Norwood said during Super Bowl week. “It would be an exciting opportunity. I’m confident in any situation. I’m prepared to take advantage of any opportunity I’m given. I look forward to a chance to win the game, but I don’t want to make it too nerve-wracking for my teammates.”

[1]A day after making that statement, Talley was added to the Pro Bowl roster: Art Shell, the head coach of the AFC squad, added Talley as a “need player,” an appointment made at the coach’s discretion.

6

Super Sunday

Two late-night pieces of key lime pie probably were not responsible for keeping Stephen Baker awake past midnight on Sunday morning January 27, 1991. He had eaten the Hyatt’s room-service dessert every evening since arriving in Tampa as a reward for sharp practices each day. Rather than sweets, butterflies in his stomach (like many of his teammates) prevented the Giants’ four-year veteran from falling asleep.

Waiting to digest the traditional family vice—“My name is Baker, so I like baked goods”—he found ways to keep occupied. For the long road trip, the twenty-five-year-old had packed his Sega Genesis and a popular video game, the original John Madden Football.

“That video game is big now, and it was big back then. Graphics weren’t as good, but I used to take my video game on the road with me,” Baker said two decades later. “I played Giants versus the Bills on there. Of course we won.”

Baker eventually caught some sleep the next morning: with kickoff not until 6:18 p.m., he could afford to. He awoke several hours before the team bus left for Tampa Stadium and phoned his Alexander Hamilton (Los Angeles) high school football coach and his West Los Angeles junior