by Adam Lazarus
In their previous forty-three games, Buffalo had only six wins, by far the poorest record of any team during that stretch. They were the worst team in professional football.
“I went through the jokes,” recalled Darryl Talley, a linebacker drafted by the team in 1983. “Like: Knock-knock.
“Who’s there?
“Owen.
“Owen who?
“Oh-and-10.”
The Bills did not start the 1986 season quite that horribly, as they had two years earlier. In fact, given the recent history, their 2-7 record practically constituted a hot streak. Still, those narrow wins over St. Louis and Indianapolis were not enough to save head coach Hank Bullough’s job. One day after the Bills’ early November loss to the comparably futile Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Bullough was replaced.
“We felt that new direction was needed,” first-year General Manager Bill Polian told the press, “and we reached out to a man who had had an established head coaching career, who has helped build winners every place he has been in football.”
That man was Marv Levy.
“I’m very excited and thrilled to be coming to Buffalo,” said Levy. “I probably know the Bills better than any team in the NFL, by virtue of doing the preseason games. I’ve got a pretty good line on their personnel, their strengths and weaknesses.”
Turning the Bills around would be a tall task for him, no matter how well he knew his new team. But Levy—a Phi Beta Kappa from Coe College, who earned a masters degree in English history at Harvard—approached the task with a scholar’s lens.
“I think defensively, and statistics will bear this out, that there needs to be improvement, some of it from current players, some of it from development of current players,” he told reporters. “Offensively, I see some good things, but it’s very hard to divorce offense and defense from kicking.”
But improvements to the defense and (especially) the kicking game would not stir up the excitement the franchise needed to please its loyal, yet starving, fans. And Levy knew that.
“It’s a young team and I’m pleased to be coming to a team with an outstanding quarterback prospect.”
That man was Jim Kelly, the team’s gutsy, flashy, $8 million acquisition, who joined the Bills that season and immediately made a name for himself. In his NFL debut against the New York Jets, the twenty-six-year-old threw for 292 yards and three touchdowns. More so than his passing statistics, Kelly’s scrambling ability and disregard for self-preservation—hanging in the pocket, he endured several hard hits from Jets defenders—endeared him to his teammates, his opponents, Bills fans, and the media.
“It’s easy to lose perspective here. It’s easy to get carried away. Let’s just say, coolly and unemotionally, the National Football League debut of Buffalo rookie quarterback Jim Kelly was nothing short of sensational,” Sports Illustrated’s Paul Zimmerman wrote. “Jim Kelly is Joe Namath with knees.”
Even with super Namath, the Bills’ abysmal record continued throughout the first two months of the regular season.
“I hate losing,” Kelly said before the Bills’ tenth game. “It hurts. It bothers me a lot. I’ve never been a loser. I’ve never been on a team with a losing record, not even in midget league, not in my whole life. We’re a young team, so you have to expect us to lose some games. But it doesn’t have to last. I can make this team a winner.”
Once Levy took control of the team, Kelly’s vow seemed reasonable.
“Marv had an immediate, positive impact on the team,” said Kelly. “But it wasn’t a case of coming in and running everybody into the ground, the way some new head coaches feel they have to do when they take over a losing program. In fact, the first thing Marv did was shorten practices saying it was quality that mattered, not quantity. . . . Marv came across as more of a college professor more than an NFL head coach, using a lot of big words and talking about a lot of historical figures whom most of us had never even heard of before.”
Bills players crammed Levy’s lesson plan that week, in preparation for their first exam, a November 9 home matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Despite their own poor record (3-6), the Steelers came to Buffalo on a two-game winning streak. Chuck Noll’s defense had not surrendered a touchdown in nine consecutive quarters, and with five touchdown passes from quarterback Mark Malone, the Steelers outscored their opponents 57-12 in the two wins.
Given the minor resurgence in Pittsburgh’s passing game and the presence of Buffalo’s skilled and exciting rookie quarterback, the game had the potential of becoming a shoot-out. Gusting winds on game day at Buffalo’s Rich Stadium prevented that from happening. Garbage bags repeatedly swirled by the field of play, eventually blowing up and out of the stadium. When the referee executed the pregame toss to decide possession, the coin soared seven yards from where he was standing.
“I’ve seen hurricanes in Mississippi with less velocity than that,” Bills center Kent Hull noted.
More than seventy-two thousand people braved the elements to see the Bills take an early lead.
Keeping his passes beneath the harsh wins, Kelly connected with wide receiver Andre Reed for a three-yard touchdown midway through the opening quarter. As the less-than-ideal passing conditions worsened, Levy suggested offensive coordinator Bob Leahy keep the ball on the ground. Buffalo’s Robb Riddick carried out Levy’s instructions, quickly racking up fifty yards and a touchdown late in the second period.
Buffalo’s defense was even more impressive. With a sore knee limiting star defensive end Bruce Smith’s availability, linebackers Darryl Talley and Ray Bentley anchored the defense and kept Pittsburgh without a single first down until two minutes before halftime.
“They were mixing up their defenses against the run,” Steelers tackle Ray Pinner said, “but mainly they were just beating us one-on-one. We got stuffed.”
With the score 13-0, the Bills charged out of the locker room after halftime, eager to preserve their lead and send the local fans home with a victory. However, within seconds of the start of the third period, one thought ran through the minds of every spectator present that day at Rich Stadium: “same old Bills.”
Standing deep in his own territory, Bills wide receiver Eric Richardson settled under the second half kickoff. At the fifteen-yard line, Pittsburgh’s Rick Woods crushed Richardson, who fumbled. After it had been accidently kicked by a nearby official, Steelers linebacker Mike Merriweather picked up the football. A member of the return team, Steve Tasker, who had been cut by Houston and signed off waivers two days earlier, brought down Merriweather at the five-yard line, saving a touchdown.
As he jogged off the field—having just made his first significant special teams contribution to the Buffalo Bills—Tasker had one thought: “No wonder this team has been 2-14.”
Pittsburgh needed just one play to cross the goal line and seconds into the half, the score stood 13-6. The ensuing Buffalo possession was similarly disastrous. Three plays by Kelly’s offense failed to produce a first down, forcing Levy to send out his punt team. From his own twenty-four-yard line, John Kidd booted the ball downfield, only to see the unbelievably strong winds that blew in from Lake Erie stonewall the kick. The punt went five yards. Again, Pittsburgh took advantage of the Bills special teams mishap and quickly put another touchdown on the scoreboard.
At that point in the game, with just over ten minutes remaining in the third period and each team having recorded two touchdowns, the score should have been tied 14-14. But the wind affected more than just the punting game. Three of the four point-after-touchdown tries failed: one for Buffalo and both Pittsburgh attempts. Steelers holder Harry Newsome couldn’t field either one of Dan Turk’s long snaps.
“The ball was fluttering back,” Noll said. “It was like a knuckleball and our catcher couldn’t hang on to it. Our catcher didn’t have a big enough glove.”
Twenty-six-year-old kicker Scott Norwood ignored the kicking game conundrum when he trotted out to attempt a critical field goal. Kelly, Levy, and the rest of
the sideline breathed a sigh of relief when his twenty-nine-yard try was good, making the score 16-12. With ten minutes remaining in the game, the task before Buffalo’s defense was simple: keep Pittsburgh out of the end zone.
Pacing along the sidelines during the final minutes, Levy watched Buffalo’s defense—which had been exceptional all afternoon—now surrender large chunks of yardage.
“I kept saying ‘This can’t happen. Not at the end. Please don’t let them score,’” Jim Kelly said.
The Steelers drove from their own twenty-yard line to the Buffalo twenty-nine. With ten seconds showing on the clock, Malone surveyed the field and chucked a pass intended for Calvin Sweeney near the end zone.
“Mark throws it, he tries to throw it into the scoreboard end,” Steve Tasker remembered. “Even on a good day, the wind knocks that down. And he threw it in a windy day and it had no chance. It ended up ten yards short from where it was gonna go and it goes right into Rodney Bellinger’s hands.”
At the two-yard line, Buffalo safety Rodney Bellinger intercepted the pass to secure the victory.
“We were relaxed, we were confident, even at the end,” Bellinger said. “I attribute that to the new coach (Marv Levy). All the guys were loose. He wants to see us have fun and not be tight. I think the coaching change was a step in the right direction.”
During his first postgame press conference, the ever-modest Levy deflected any praise.
“Thank God for 45 stout hearts and the north wind,” he told reporters.
Levy didn’t quite know his situation yet: there were only forty-three men on his roster, and the forty-seven-mile-per-hour winds were blustering in from the southwest.
1
Every Pennsylvania Boy Wants to Play for JoePa
With two athletically gifted older brothers, William Jeffrey Hostetler had learned to wait with patience and humility for his turn in the spotlight. The fifth child (third boy) of Norman and Dolly Hostetler, Jeff was born on April 22, 1961, in rural western Pennsylvania. A tough, hard-working farmer, Norm owned 120 acres off of State Route 601, where he raised dairy cows before a fire prompted him to switch exclusively to chickens. (Although their postal address was Holsopple, Pennsylvania, the family lived closer to the town of Jerome.)
In between feeding chickens and washing eggs, the Hostetler boys tossed around baseballs, footballs, or basketballs and watched Notre Dame football games on television. But because Norm and Dolly were Mennonites, they had not planned on sending the children to public school.
“Mom and dad prayed over the matter,” recalled Ron, the eldest male. “They decided to see if the things they taught us would hold up (in public schools). It was a change that took a lot of thought, a lot of prayers. We thought it was God’s will that we make the change.”
Attending public school meant that the children could compete in team sports. Ron was the first in the line of Hostetler boys to excel in athletics at Conemaugh Township High School. In the fall of 1972, his senior year, Ron and the Indians posted a 9-0 record and a narrow second-place finish in the Western Pennsylvania Conference standings.
Those football skills impressed head coach Joe Paterno to invite Ron to play for Penn State University. Roughly a two-hour drive from the family farm, Penn State was close enough to home, and he enrolled there for the fall 1973 semester. Recruited to play quarterback, by the start of Ron’s first season, Paterno moved the freshman to linebacker, where he would star for the Nittany Lions until a knee injury endangered his career. During the spring and summer of 1977, Ron, now a senior, worked his way back into shape. By August, he was ready to compete for one of the outside linebacker positions against the biggest threat to his reclaiming the starting job: his younger brother, Doug.
Even after Ron played his last game for Conemaugh in 1972, the following autumn, a Hostetler was under center for the Indians. A year younger than Ron, Doug followed his brother to Penn State in 1974. And, as he had with Ron, Joe Paterno soon converted the reluctant quarterback into a linebacker.
So when Jeff Hostetler entered Conemaugh High in the fall of 1975, his future had already been mapped out. He made the varsity as a freshman, then claimed his birthright as the Indians quarterback the following season. A linebacker on defense as well, the six-foot, 180-pounder earned all-county honors. Completing passes to another Hostetler boy, his younger brother, tight end Todd, Jeff guided Conemaugh to an 8-1 record as a junior and was again named an all-county quarterback. His senior year—the best time to impress college scouts handing out scholarships—was expected to be even better.
“I think he’ll be the most sought-after player in the state,” his head coach, Joe Badaczewski, said before the season opener. “He’s got the size, the arm and the running ability they look for.”
But a week later, Badaczewski moved Jeff to tailback so he could replace an injured starter. Todd Hostetler became the quarterback. With great speed and size, Jeff dominated as a runner and won the Southern Alleghenies Football Coaches Association award for Most Valuable Offensive Player. Parade Magazine also named him to their all-American team, as a linebacker. (A Californian named John Elway and a Pittsburgher named Dan Marino were named as the team’s quarterbacks.)
The Indians again went 8-1 and Jeff played whatever role the coach asked of him in order to win.
“The fact that I was good at [linebacker] caused me a lot of grief as I got older and kept pushing to achieve my life’s ambition—to be a winning quarterback.”
Although most newspapers listed him as a linebacker, Hostetler did garner attention as a quarterback from many top college programs. The Hostetler legacy and his achievements as a sophomore and junior luckily overshadowed his yearlong sabbatical at running back.
Approximately fifty schools offered scholarships. He visited the campuses of Stanford University, Notre Dame, and the University of Pittsburgh. But everyone expected, given the family history, that he would be in Happy Valley for fall classes in 1978. The choice was not quite that simple.
“It came down to my determination to play quarterback,” he remembered. “I didn’t want to go to a school that wouldn’t promise to let me play the position my heart was set on. It was something to worry about with Penn State, Joe Paterno or no Joe Paterno—or, maybe more to the point, because of Joe Paterno—because my brothers’ experiences had taught me that promises made can be promises broken.”
On February 21, 1979, Paterno drove through a snowstorm from State College to the Hostetler farm. Inside the family home, he shook hands with Norm and Dolly (for the third time in five years), then watched as Jeff and his parents signed the letter of intent.
“This is great,” Paterno said. “I’m looking forward to seeing you and the family soon.”
Exactly a month after the Penn State scholarship was complete, Jeff Hostetler was busy working at another family legacy: basketball. Ron and Doug had each been fine hoopsters for Conemaugh—big, tough, and strong, they could both rebound and score around the basket. As expected, Jeff soon starred for the Indians squad.
As a junior, he netted twenty-seven points (brother Todd tossed in twenty) and earned MVP honors in the Jaycee Holiday Tournament. The next year, Jeff and the Indians won the early season Mountain Cat Tip-Off Tournament and cruised through the regular season undefeated.
Victories over Mercyhurst Prep and Bentworth advanced Conemaugh to the semifinals of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Associate (PIAA) Class A Championship Tournament. In the next game, their opponent was a high school from East Brady, Pennsylvania, a town about one hundred miles northwest of the Hostetler farm, and home to another family with a knack for churning out stellar athletes.
Twin brothers Dan and Kevin Kelly helped East Brady keep pace with the powerful Conemaugh team. A pair of free throws by Dan with just over a minute remaining evened the score at fifty-five. At the start of overtime, Dan gave the Bulldogs a one-basket lead. Then Jeff Hostetler dominated the extra period (he finished with twe
nty-eight points and twelve rebounds) to give Conemaugh a 63-57 win.
After the game, the Kelly clan—father Joe, the twins, Dan and Kevin, the older boys, Pat, Ed, and Ray, as well as college freshman James Edward “Jim” Kelly—met with Conemaugh’s star forward.
“I was in the locker room after the game,” remembered Dave Michaels, the Conemaugh Township baseball coach, “Jim Kelly and his father and brothers came in to congratulate Jeff. Jeff’s father and brothers were there. I remember thinking how similar they were. Two very close families.”
Joe Kelly’s parents had died when he was two years old, and he was raised by nuns at a Pittsburgh orphanage. After spending time in the navy, he married Alice McGinn, then took up work as a machinist for Daman Industries, a steel mill repair company. The Irish Catholic family had six children, all boys.
“We all learned to be tough from the time we started talking,” Jim Kelly later wrote. “That was the only way you could survive in our house.”
The eldest boy, Pat, played linebacker for the University of Richmond and was selected by the Baltimore Colts in the fifteenth round of the 1974 NFL draft. The third Kelly boy, Ray, also played for Richmond, earning two varsity letters.
Jim Kelly was every bit as tough as his older brothers. Even when Jim was very young, his father knew that he was a special talent.
“He had something a little bit extra, more than the other boys,” his father later said. “I felt that all he needed was a little push to become great.”
Joe was often home during the daytime (prior to working the night shift), and Jim would come back from school to have lunch with his dad.
“I always told him, ‘before you eat, you gotta throw so many passes, so many punts and so many kicks,’” Joe told NFL Films in 1996. “He had to keep doing it until he got it right. I kept at him every day. There was times he was getting mad at me and I knew it. He turned around and I knew he was saying something.”
