Super Bowl Monday_ From the Persian Gulf to the Shores of West Florida - Adam Lazarus [84]
I remember Bill Parcells calling the whole defense over [after the safety], and he talked to them. I imagine he must have told them “stop ’em.” Then he called the whole offense. Basically, he said, “I just talked to the defense: they’re stopping [Buffalo] after we do the free kick. We’re gonna get the ball back. We’re gonna drive it down the field, and score, we’re gonna get back in this game and take control of this game. . . . The way Bill Parcells coached—I’ve been around some great football coaches, college with Joe Paterno—but that guy was absolutely a prophet in how he designed a football game.
From there, the fast-paced first half momentarily slowed. A trio of incompletions—including another drop by Andre Reed, the result of another tough hit delivered from a Giants defender—forced the Bills to punt. A similarly uneventful Giants’ three-and-out returned possession to Buffalo.
Five straight incompletions on five straight offensive snaps convinced Kelly to put the ball in the hands of their most elusive and reliable player. Thurman Thomas gashed the Giants for an eighteen-yard run on first down following the Giants’ punt. The five-foot, ten-inch back punctuated his big gain by pounding safety Myron Guyton, just before three Giants brought him down.
“He runs so big, doesn’t he, Dan,” Frank Gifford wondered aloud, on camera to Dan Dierdorf, “198 pounds and he runs liked a 220-pound back. He’s so quick, so shifty. . . . He just looks for guys, then hammers Guyton.”
Thomas carried the ball on the next three plays—a run for four yards and back-to-back passes out of the backfield that yielded eighteen more—before taking a much-deserved rest on the sidelines.
“It’s up to Thomas,” Gifford said. “They’re not going to change the offense much because he gets more work than any of the receivers, anyone else in that offensive unit. He’s in the pass pattern, he runs the ball, he runs the draw, he runs on the screen. When he finally had it, he points his finger to himself, ‘get me outta here,’ and they bring in help.”
Gifford, the Giants’ all-time leader in total yardage, could appreciate a multitalented back who served as the cornerstone of a championship-caliber team.
But while Thomas stood on the sidelines catching his breath, the Buffalo offense screeched to a halt: an incompletion, a false-start penalty, and a short pass reception that failed to convert on third and seven. Buffalo punted.
“Thurman was an outstanding player; he could run and catch and could do a lot with the ball. I think he was really their ultimate weapon. He provided the balance for that team,” Parcells said in 2010. “They were in the no-huddle, kinda a one-back offense and three wide receivers, the NFL hadn’t seen a lot of that. And it was the offense of the ‘90s. The [Indianapolis] Colts still use, basically, the same thing. It’s had a long lifespan, and almost every team uses some aspects of it.”
Less than four minutes remained in the first half when Hostetler and the Giants offense took the field for a first and ten from their own thirteen. Despite the two-score deficit and being backed up near their own end zone late in the first half, the Giants didn’t flinch.
“I had seen so much of the Giants,” Eagles beat-writer Ray Didinger said,
I knew how mentally tough a team they were. And I knew how well coached they were. I never got the feeling they were gonna let that game get away from them. . . . That’s usually how Super Bowls get out of hand: one team falls behind and the coaching staff would totally get away from what they’ve done all year and what they do well, and they get into sort of a panic mode, and they start trying to force the issue, and they start throwing the ball a lot and taking chances. And then all of a sudden, they start making mistakes, and a couple mistakes lead