by Adam Lazarus
[1]Reich’s statistics during those three games were impressive (60 percent completions, 482 yards, six touchdowns, one interception) and, in his first game, Buffalo beat the undefeated Los Angeles Rams. But the Bills’ rushing game also averaged over two hundred yards per game during that stretch.
11
The Irresistible Force vs.
The Immovable Object
Bobby Layne never lost a game. Some days, time just ran out on him.
—Doak Walker on Detroit Lions teammate, quarterback Bobby Layne
On the first play of the final quarter of Super Bowl XXV, Thurman Thomas stole back the lead for the Bills.
Buffalo aligned in their standard three-receiver, single-back shotgun formation on first and ten at the thirty-one. As they had been most of the night, the Giants were in their two-down-linemen, four-linebacker front. Giants Carl Banks and Gary Reasons crept near the line of scrimmage, but at the snap, they didn’t blitz.
From this read-and-react position, the two inside linebackers saw Kelly place the ball in Thomas’ hands. A powerful surge by Buffalo’s line—especially center Kent Hull and left guard Jim Ritcher, who teamed up to block Reasons and Banks—sealed off a huge alley for Thomas up the middle. He carried the football a full ten yards before anyone laid a hand on him.
At the twenty-four-yard line, cornerback Reyna Thompson and safety Myron Guyton converged on Thomas. They had him stuffed.
Thomas lowered his shoulder and plowed into Guyton, who tumbled to the ground. Thomas kept running. He sidestepped Thompson and darted outside to the sideline. Guyton’s hit, though it didn’t bring him down, did allow several Giant defenders to gain in their pursuit of Thomas.
Cornerback Everson Walls, who had begun the play on the opposite side of the field, raced to make the tackle. He was in position to bring the ball carrier down at the fifteen, and limit the run to just a first-down gain. Then, wide receiver Andre Reed approached him.
Reed had been severely punished by Giant defenders all day, taking shot after shot whether he caught the ball or not. Here was his chance to deliver the punishment. Reed dove at Walls’ legs, cutting him down to the ground two steps from Thomas.
“That was a freakin’ clip, man!” Walls remembered twenty years later. “That was an easy call to make. . . . He got me strictly from behind. I had the angle down on Thurman Thomas. I had made tackles before that. I was gonna make that tackle. I had him in my sights. Andre did a good job of hustling down the field, things of that nature, but the ref’s gotta do his freakin’ job as well. He’s gotta drop that flag! That was a bad no-call.”
With Walls safely on the ground, Thomas continued on to the end zone untouched. Lawrence Taylor came within a step of Thomas at the two-yard line, but by then, it was too late. Thomas crossed the goal line, pushing Buffalo ahead.
“It would be hard to argue that the best player on the field that day wasn’t Thurman Thomas,” Dan Dierdorf said in 2010. “His play was just exemplary. It was a joy to watch.”
Scott Norwood’s extra point made the score 19-17. Once again, Jeff Hostetler and the Giants offense would be called upon to produce. And once again—as they had done three times in the second half against San Francisco a week earlier and twice already this evening with consecutive, lengthy touchdown drives—they did.
The drive started in familiar fashion. First, Anderson grabbed a few hard-earned yards up the middle. Then, just prior to releasing a pass, Hostetler absorbed a brutal hit in the backfield: offensive tackle Doug Riesenberg had to peel his quarterback up off the ground. The incomplete pass set up third and long.
“Anytime, whether it’s run or pass, you can make a third-down conversion, it’s big,” Ron Erhardt said. “You called it because you wanted to make the first down; if you didn’t feel good about it, you wouldn’t have called it. So when we did make one of those, it was because it was a good call or it was executed well.”
Five times thus far, the Giants had successfully executed third and long situations (seven or more yards to go) during the game. The lone exception being Hostetler’s completion to Mark Ingram, which came up two yards short and set up Ottis Anderson’s failed attempt on fourth and two late in the third period.
“There was no panic,” Jumbo Elliott said afterward. “We can pass when we have to. We’re not one-dimensional.”
Even when trailing in the fourth quarter and facing a third and seven deep in their own territory, panic never permeated the Giants’ huddle.
Each of the Giants’ skill players—Anderson, Ingram, Baker, Meggett, and Cross—had come up with a clutch third-down play. Now came time for Mark Bavaro to contribute to the Giants’ incredible string of clutch performances.
Matched up man-to-man with linebacker Shane Conlan, Bavaro beat the all-pro to the outside, snagged a Hostetler pass, and made his way upfield to ensure the Giants’ eighth third-down conversion in thirteen attempts.
“He is a money player,” Frank Gifford told viewers.
Bavaro’s seventeen-yard reception put New York near midfield. Hostetler soon turned right back to his “money player,” hitting Bavaro with a play-action pass over the middle that netted nineteen. Wincing from the tackle of two Bills defenders, the already aching Bavaro—all week long, the twenty-seven-year-old addressed speculation about whether or not injuries would force him to retire—walked to the sideline, knelt on the ground, and was looked over by the trainers and the team physician. Thanks to a long television time-out, Bavaro returned to the field a play later.
“He’s the toughest guy on our team,” Jumbo Elliott said that week.
Even without the franchise’s leading receiver from 1985 through 1990, the Giants’ passing game continued to sparkle. Negotiating the Buffalo zone coverage, Hostetler threaded a pass to Mark Ingram, adding thirteen more yards. Ingram wisely decided against lateraling the football to a teammate at the end of the play: “I saw a few words come out of [Parcells’] mouth that you can’t say on television.”
Steely third-down heroics were soon needed again. An Anderson run and a short pass to Bavaro—his third catch of the drive—didn’t get the Giants much. But offensive coordinator Ron Erhardt found the situation manageable. Needing only five yards for the first down allowed the Giants the option of running the football on third down, which they did.
A simple draw play—Hostetler dropping into the pocket as if he were going to pass, then quickly handing the ball to running back Dave Meggett—was the call. Only momentarily frozen by Hostetler’s fake, Buffalo’s linebackers reacted well, filling the running lanes. With the middle of the line too crowded, Meggett bounced to the outside. He ran away from the grasp of Cornelius Bennett, niftily eluded Leonard Smith, and dove toward the three-yard line.
Although Mark Ingram flashed the first-down arm signal, the referees were not as certain, and the yardage sticks were brought out for a measurement. As it turned out, Ingram was right. Meggett had made the first down by three lengths of the football.
First and goal at the three shifted the Giants into their standard goal-line offense of three tight ends and two backs. Because their offense had historically been very efficient inside the ten-yard line, New York seemed destined to put the ball in the end zone. Although surrendering a field goal would still cost Buffalo the lead, the difference between a one-point deficit (20-19) and a five-point deficit (24-19) was immense.
Along the left side of the line, Bavaro, front-side guard William Roberts, and lead blocker Maurice Carthon cleared a path for Ottis Anderson to fire through. But a split-second after Hostetler handed off the ball, nose tackle Jeff Wright lassoed Anderson’s legs and brought him down four yards behind the line of scrimmage.
Anderson made up the lost four yards on the next play, following Carthon’s lead block up the middle, returning the line of scrimmage to the three. Shane Conlan and Carlton Bailey teamed up to make the hit, setting up yet another immense third-down showdown.
Running the ball on third down near the goal line
was too risky, so a pass play was the choice. Hostetler received the snap, stepped backward, and scanned the field. Rather than let Hostetler pick apart his zone coverage once more on third down, Bills defensive coordinator Walt Corey blitzed linebackers Darryl Talley and Cornelius Bennett. And with Bruce Smith occupying two Giants—Jumbo Elliott and Ottis Anderson—a pair of Bills defensive linemen penetrated. The pocket collapsing, Hostetler rolled right until he had no choice and was forced to get rid of the ball. Fortunately, his favorite receiver that evening, Mark Ingram, stood alone along the near sideline. But Bennett blocked Hostetler’s passing lane and batted the ball down, snapping the quarterback’s streak of eight consecutive third-down completions.
Even had Ingram made the catch, Leonard Smith was in perfect position to make the tackle short of the goal line. (Of course, that evening, Ingram’s penchant for breaking seemingly certain tackles had already produced one impossible third-down conversion.)
Trailing by just two points, Parcells sent out the kicking unit. And for the second time in two weeks, his reserve kicker, Matt Bahr, stroked through a go-ahead, fourth-quarter field goal.
After a somewhat slow start, New York’s carefully crafted offensive strategy of controlling both the ball and the clock—taking “the air out of the ball” —had yielded tremendous results. On four consecutive possessions, beginning with Stephen Baker’s touchdown late in the first half and ending with Bahr’s fourth-quarter field goal, the Giants produced seventeen points and ate up 259 yards.
But two additional stats were even more incredible. Over the course of those four drives, the Giants ran forty-three plays while consuming twenty-two minutes and forty-eight seconds of the game clock. (By contrast, during the entire game, Buffalo held the ball for just over nineteen minutes.) Win or lose, the offense more than met Parcells’ pregame objective of shortening the game.
Parcells was glad to reclaim the lead, but he knew the Giants had missed an opportunity.
“We had had a real good opportunity to score a touchdown down on the goal line,” Parcells recalled years later. “Had [Jeff Wright] not made that play, we would have walked in for a touchdown. But he did make it, and it forced us to kick a field goal. And that’s what kept the game close.”
From the moment Buffalo’s offense retook the field, the Giants’ lead looked even more tenuous. Back-to-back plays to Thurman Thomas—a run and a reception—garnered nineteen yards.
Thomas rested along the sideline, and, as was the case several times that night, the Buffalo offensive immediately stalled with him there. Short runs by Kenneth Davis and Kelly—he couldn’t find anyone open amid the sea of defensive backs—pinned Buffalo with a third and long of their own. And while the Giants’ 60 percent (nine of fifteen) third-down conversion rate at that point in the game had been magnificent, on third down the Bills were virtually anemic. Thus far, on that most critical of downs, Buffalo failed to convert each occasion.
When Kelly darted a perfect pass toward the left sideline, the third-down woes continued. Bills receiver Al Edwards was beyond the yardage marker and cradling the ball until a vicious hit by cornerback Perry Williams knocked Edwards backward on his heels. He dropped the football before hitting the ground: no catch, incomplete pass. The Bills would have to punt.
Less than six minutes now remained in the fourth quarter and the Bills still trailed 20-19. Given New York’s ball hogging, the Bills knew they might not get the ball back. A few Giants first downs would mean the Giants could salt away the game.
Rick Tuten came out to punt for the sixth time. The Bills punt team wasn’t accustomed to so much work: Buffalo punted only three times in their previous two games. Still, the kick coverage in Super Bowl XXV had been exceptional.
For a team that looked to generate yardage and points any way possible, Dave Meggett’s contributions (he returned punts for touchdowns in both 1989 and 1990, and led the NFL in return yardage both those seasons) had been crucial for New York. But after Meggett began the game with a terrific twenty-yard return following the game’s opening possession, the Bills punt team hemmed him in, coaxing four consecutive fair catches.
Meggett’s sixth opportunity, however, nearly broke the back of the Buffalo Bills. He fielded the ball at his own fourteen-yard line, drifted right, then scurried upfield. A trio of well-positioned blocks from the punt-return team sealed off a wide lane, which Meggett saw. What he did not see—until it was too late—was Steve Tasker.
Tasker, the former Houston Oilers castoff, that year earned his first of a record seven Pro Bowl appearances as the designated special-team ace. And in the Super Bowl, he went head-to-head with his counterpart, the NFC special-teams selection, New York Giant Reyna Thompson. Along with Everson Walls, Thompson jammed Tasker at the snap, then ran downfield, attempting to keep him away from the returner.
“The two guys were doing a really good job of doubling me, they really had me and they did a nice job all night, but I ducked down low, like went to the ground and dove between them, their legs, and just tripped Dave up. I got a piece of him, enough to make the tackle,” Tasker remembered years later. “When I got up to look I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, it was a good thing I got that guy, ’cause he would have been gone.’”
With Tuten the lone player in position behind Tasker, had Meggett avoided the tackle, he might have stretched a sixteen-yard return into the eighty-six-yard touchdown that effectively ended Super Bowl XXV.
“Dave Meggett had a colossal hole if Tasker doesn’t knock him down!” Dan Dierdorf noted on the broadcast.
“That could have [gone] the distance!” Gifford added.
Tasker’s tackle saved the Bills from potential disaster. Still, two plays into the drive, New York’s ground game started dealing Buffalo a slow death. Back-to-back rushes by Anderson bagged a first down for the Giants. Those fourteen yards pushed Anderson beyond the one-hundred-yard threshold and consumed time off the clock. Three minutes forty-five seconds remained when the Giants next snapped the ball. And after a third straight run (Meggett gave Anderson a brief rest on the sideline), Buffalo had to spend their first time-out.
Parcells and his “conservative” offense caught Buffalo off guard with a quick pass. Bavaro nabbed the reception, his fourth of the final period. The play picked up seven yards, creating another momentous third-down matchup between the Giants offense and Bills defense.
Knowing that a first down meant he could drain most, if not all, of the time remaining, Parcells did not want to make a hasty move. Hostetler let the play clock run down to one second, then called a time-out and headed over to the sideline to discuss their options. Running the ball would keep the clock moving but most likely would not gain the first down. Throwing the ball could gain the first down, but an incompletion would stop the clock and allow Buffalo to keep one of their time-outs.
New York’s repeated success, throwing passes to Bavaro—especially in the fourth quarter—tempted Parcells.
“We really didn’t want to give the ball back to them,” Parcells said. “The decision came down to, should we try to win the game with that same play, because we thought that play was there, or should we try to run the clock and maybe make Buffalo use another time-out and run the shotgun draw.”
Following the discussion with his offensive coordinator, Parcells asked his quarterback.
“What do you think about quarterback draw?” he asked.
Standing face-to-face—the two men who, for years, didn’t see eye to eye—debated the issue. Pressed for a decision, they settled on the shotgun draw, a decision that caused Parcells great angst over the next fifteen minutes.
New York aligned in a four-receiver set, with Meggett beside Hostetler. During the cadence, Meggett motioned out, leaving an empty backfield. Upon catching the snap, Hostetler set up as if he were looking for a receiver. The Bills defense didn’t succumb to the misdirection.
Defensive coordinator Walt Corey had chosen to pressure the Giants, rather than sit back and react. From their spots as d
efensive backs, Clifford Hicks and Kirby Jackson sprang toward the backfield. Hostetler ran away from Hicks’ side and eluded Jackson, but with only five offensive linemen in position to block the six defenders, Buffalo had the edge. Leon Seals tripped Hostetler up, limiting the play to a minimal gain. The Giants had to punt.
To prevent the clock from reaching the two-minute warning, Buffalo called for their second time-out. Sean Landeta booted a kick downfield, high enough that Bills returner Al Edwards called for a fair catch at the ten-yard line.
Two minutes and sixteen seconds remained. The scoreboard read “Giants 20, Bills 19.” Each unit’s objective was simple: for Buffalo, score; for New York, keep Buffalo from scoring.
Throughout Super Bowl week, one topic of debate saturated west Florida. Who would emerge superior in the battle of what Newsday’s Bob Glauber called “the irresistible force of the Bills’ offense versus the immovable object of the Giants’ defense.”
Fittingly, with the championship on the line, the outcome would be determined by one more showdown.
Kelly jogged into the huddle, called a play, and the offense spread out into the four-receiver formation. With Thurman Thomas to his left, Kelly stared down the defense; Lawrence Taylor and Carl Banks stared right back. Kelly barked out the cadence, caught the center’s snap, dropped back, and set up in the pocket.
“Two minutes to go, you’re the quarterback in a Super Bowl, you wanna lead your team down the field for victory,” Kelly said years later. “It was a dream come true for me.”
Flashback: Super Bowl V
Upon assuming command of the Washington Redskins in 1971, head coach George Allen issued an unusual decree. He barred all rookies from his team.
“We’re going to have an all-veteran team,” Allen said. “There will be no rookies, and that’s the way it should be.”
