Super Bowl Monday_ From the Persian Gulf to the Shores of West Florida - Adam Lazarus [77]
The fresh game plan was also intended to catch the Bills off guard.
“They were used to rolling in that no-huddle offense,” nose tackle Erik Howard said. “At that time, I think the Bills had to be saying ‘what is this, a completely different look?’ and they were going to have to adjust to it. There was no way they could prepare for that.
“That was a major deal: sitting us all down and saying ‘We’re putting in a completely new defense.’ We hadn’t played that all season. I think that action alone inspired a whole lot of confidence.”
As the game wore on, the Giants stuck to their game plan and even (occasionally) pulled defensive end Leonard Marshall off the field: only one defensive lineman was on the field for New York. To combat the unorthodox offense of the Buffalo Bills, Belichick crafted an equally quirky defense.
On that first-and-ten, opening play from scrimmage, Kelly surveyed the field as three Giants neared his right side. Just as Marshall—nearing another gruesome championship game tackle of a Pro Bowl quarterback—leapt at him, Kelly unloaded the ball downfield, far beyond his intended receiver, Andre Reed.
Kelly looking for number “83” was nothing new. Not only had Reed been Buffalo’s most dangerous receiver all season, he was by far the quarterback’s favorite target.
Reed, who turned twenty-seven two days after the Super Bowl, starred for Kutztown University, a Division II football program roughly eighty miles northwest of Philadelphia. Team scout Elbert Dubenion—a small school (Bluffton College) product himself—saw potential in Reed, and the Bills chose him in the fourth round of the 1985 draft.
“Supposedly, I was a diamond in the rough,” Reed said. “And [Dubenion] was one of the guys who got me up here. He just told me I had as much of a chance as anyone else of making the team.”
As Buffalo’s offense improved, Reed blossomed into the best wide receiver in the AFC, leading his conference in receptions and yardage in 1989. A year later, he earned a second consecutive spot on the all-pro team. From the moment Kelly joined the Bills in 1986, Reed led the team in catches each season. And by the time their careers were complete, the Kelly-Reed duo would produce more touchdowns than even the celebrated Joe Montana–to–Jerry Rice combination.
“Everybody talks about Jerry Rice, but I’ll stick with Andre,” Kelly said that week in Tampa. “The guy is unbelievable.”
Having missed Reed on the game’s first snap, Kelly returned to him on the next two plays, and this time both passes were completions. But on each reception, the Giants defense and its wall of bodies in the middle of the field—in place of pass-rushing linemen—swallowed Reed up as soon as he made the catch. Buffalo did not gain a first down and was forced to punt.
Dave Meggett’s twenty-yard return of a Rick Tuten punt provided the Giants with a good starting point, the Buffalo forty-three-yard line, for their first offensive series. While the Bills had opened the game in the shotgun with an empty backfield and five receivers, New York’s offense formation was, predictably, the complete opposite.
From a three–tight end, single-back set, Hostetler handed the ball off to Ottis Anderson for a short loss. Because Darryl Talley had been offsides at the time of the snap, the play was nullified, and New York was awarded five free yards. Benefiting from the game’s first penalty, the Giants strung together a pair of first downs by way of a play-action pass from Hostetler to tight end Howard Cross and a run from Meggett.
But after crossing their opponents thirty-five, an incompletion and a short run brought up a third and seven. Forced into a passing situation, the Giants replaced the three-tight-end running