SPORTS

Wide right: 25 years later

Sal Maiorana

@salmaiorana

Twenty-five years later, the kick no Bills fan will ever forget.

Thurman Thomas rushed for 135 yards on just 15 carries, and probably would have been game MVP had Buffalo won.
The Giants possessed the ball for nearly 40 minutes, one of the key stats of the game.
This remains the only Super Bowl to be decided by one point.

Twenty-five years ago, William Fichtner, star of the silver screen and the 65-inch high-definition screen, was just like any other born and bred Bills fan.

Raised in the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga, and a 1978 graduate of SUNY Brockport, where he earned a degree in criminal justice that he never used, the 59-year-old actor could barely fathom what was about to happen to his beloved Bills.

Scott Norwood was staring down at a spot on the Tampa Stadium grass 47 yards from the goal posts where, in a matter of seconds, the ball was going to be placed by holder Frank Reich for the most pressure-packed kick in NFL history. If Norwood could fit that ball between those faraway uprights, the Bills were going to win Super Bowl XXV over the New York Giants.

Actor William Fichtner attends a screening in Hollywood in 2014.

Fichtner was living in New York City at a time when he was just breaking into the acting business with a recurring role on the soap opera As The World Turns, and he remembered being in his apartment watching the game, which he thought, like so many of us, was about to change forever the course of Buffalo’s long-tortured sports history.

“This was going to be it,” Fichtner told me in December during a conversation in the foyer of the North Park Theatre in Buffalo prior to the viewing premiere of the ESPN 30-for-30 film Four Falls of Buffalo, which he narrated. “To be a fan in that time period, we had a lot to cheer about.”

And of course, there was a lot to cry about, too, and never were the tears more profound than that night when Norwood’s kick sailed wide right, birthing what remains today the saddest moment Buffalo sports fans have ever known.

But Fichtner, a revered character actor who has appeared in dozens of films, most notably The Perfect Storm, Armageddon, Black Hawk Down, The Longest Yard, The Dark Knight, and Seal Team Six, as well as stints on the TV shows Grace Under Fire, Invasion and Prison Break, looks back on Super Bowl XXV, and that period in Bills history, with great fondness.

Front page of the Democrat and Chronicle sports section Monday morning following Super Bowl XXV.

“I don’t look back on those years and think, ‘Oh, those are the four years we lost the Super Bowl,’” he said. “If you’re a fan of a team, what do you want them to do? You want them to win. Think about those four years, we had an awful lot of excitement being fans of the Buffalo Bills. Sure, we lost four Super Bowls, but there wasn’t any other team that was winning more than we were. Think about all those games we won.”

And he’s right, the Bills’ 49-15 four-year regular-season record during their Super Bowl run was the best in the NFL, and they tacked on nine more playoff victories in that stretch, too. It’s a point that Fichtner’s buddy and the quarterback of those teams, Jim Kelly, agrees with wholeheartedly.

"I think about 11 years," Kelly said, speaking of his entire Bills career. "I don't think about four games. If you want to sit in your rocking chair when you get old, think about what could have been, then you're crazy. I think about the great things that happened, the friends I had and the fun times I had. I was just happy to do what we did."

But that first Super Bowl, man, that’s tough for fans to get over, even 25 years later. Hey, it’s tough for this curmudgeonly sports writer, too.

As I think back on that night in Tampa, my everlasting remembrance was the minutes immediately after the kick and experiencing something that had never happened to me, and hasn’t since. I couldn’t write.

As a Buffalo native, someone who grew up a fan and attended games at the old Rockpile and later at Rich Stadium, I was rooting for the Bills to win. How could I not? Everyone back home, family and friends (except my father who was there in Tampa), were at their various Super Bowl parties living and dying with every play, and I knew the sheer joy a Super Bowl victory would bring to all of them. Of course I wanted that ball to go through the uprights.

When it didn’t, it felt like a Mike Tyson body blow, and my mind just went blank. Even with a deadline rapidly approaching, it was tough to bang out the words to describe such a devastating loss, and as I recall, a good 10 to 15 minutes passed before my fingers and brain cells began operating.

That day, nearly half my life ago, remains embedded in my memory, the sights and sounds still vibrant, which I guess is how it’s supposed to be when you have the privilege to be present for such a monumental event.

The SalSpeak Buffalo Bills podcast is now available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Soundcloud. Just search SalSpeak and subscribe for free to hear Democrat and Chronicle Bills beat reporter Sal Maiorana's analysis of the Bills. In this edition, Leo Roth joins Sal to share remembrances of Super Bowl XXV.

A security guard uses a metal detector on fans as they enter Tampa Stadium for Super Bowl XXV.

Sunday, Jan. 27, 1991, began with a long wait at a security checkpoint entering the stadium. With the Gulf War in full swing, the NFL took every safety precaution, and not until the aftermath of 9/11 was security ever tighter at a sporting event. Full pat down, scanned with a wand, all bags emptied … we were all potential terrorist suspects because that was the climate in the country that week.

“We had a police escort, the game is at 6:20 in the evening and at 2 we're headed over there and you can’t get near the place,” recalled special teams ace Steve Tasker. “The cops just jumped across the median and we're on the wrong side of the lane buzzing down the road. We didn't have to go through a metal detector like everybody else did. I never gave security a thought until then.”

Wide receiver Andre Reed said: “When I saw the guys up on top of the stadium, I’m like ‘We’re in America, what’s going on here?’ You knew it was the real deal when you saw that.”

The scene pre-game for the National Anthem.

The war was on the minds of everyone, and in many ways, this was the rare Super Bowl that didn’t seem all that important. “Yeah, we felt a little snakebit because this was our first Super Bowl and no one really cared because there were more important things going on,” said Tasker.

It was impossible to block it out because every time you turned on the television, you were watching missiles blowing up targets in Baghdad and green tracers lighting up the skies a world away. American lives were very much in peril and it was unnerving because anyone born after the early 1960s had virtually no idea what war was like. Vietnam was something you read about in textbooks.

“There was so much of it on TV, and it seemed more real than anything I’d grown up with during the Vietnam War when you just saw snippets on the evening news,” recalled Bruce DeHaven, the Bills’ special teams coach who was 41 at the time. “This was a 24-hours-a-day thing, and you could almost put yourself in the place of the people over there. It was constantly on our minds, when we weren’t working.”

Because of the heightened security, the stadium gates were opened earlier than normal because it was going to take more time to get everyone in. Thus, when the teams came out for pregame warm-ups, there were already a large number of fans in the seating bowl.

Before just about every game back then, Kelly insisted on walking onto the field for warm-ups with Tasker because as Tasker says, “He's as superstitious as you could get.” As they came out of the tunnel, Tasker remembered, “You could literally feel the attention of the world. I told Jim later I could have been blind and deaf and I still would have felt it. It was that electric, particularly walking with him.”

Several years before Tasker told the story during the filming of Four Falls of Buffalo, he shared with me his memory of the moments leading up to kickoff in a book I wrote entitled Game of My Life – Memorable Stories of Bills Football.

Whitney Houston belting out the Star-Spangled Banner.

“Whitney Houston sings the National Anthem and it turns into a hit single, I mean it's phenomenal,” he said. “The flyover with the jets, you see those at every opening day and it’s no big deal, but it was that night. And then the attack helicopter flies over with a gun on it, with a guy hanging out the side, low, low enough where you can tell the guy hadn't shaved that day and they flew it like they meant business. When Whitney Houston hits the last note of the Anthem, I look over at Larry Nemmers who's one of the officials and he's crying his eyes out. (Coach) Marv (Levy) is crying his eyes out. I turn around and look in the stands and everybody has a little American flag waving it with one hand and wiping their eyes with the other.”

Yeah, it was a sight to behold. Yet despite that cauldron of patriotic emotion, there was a football game to be played, and it turned out to be one for the ages, particularly when you consider that seven of the previous eight Super Bowls had been decided by 10 points or more, and the average margin of victory had been an unseemly 24.6 points per game.

Video: Sal reflects on the Super Bowl & the 1990 season

America needed a great game, and the Bills and Giants delivered.

The Bills' vaunted no-huddle offense went three-and-out on the game’s first possession, and New York marched right down field to a 28-yard field goal by Matt Bahr. Buffalo then experienced the first of several letdowns, which would become a trend for the evening. After James Lofton caught a 61-yard pass from Kelly that had been tipped into his arms by Giants’ safety Perry Williams, the Bills were on the 8-yard-line, but they could not punch it in and settled for a tying 23-yard Norwood field goal.

Following a Giants punt, Kelly crafted a 12-play, 80-yard drive that ended with Don Smith’s one-yard TD plunge, and then about four minutes after that, another one of the disappointing key plays of the game occurred. Giants quarterback Jeff Hostetler, playing in place of injured Phil Simms, was sacked for a safety, but it could have been much worse for New York. Defensive end Bruce Smith had grabbed Hostetler’s right wrist, and somehow Hostetler was able to hang onto the ball and not fumble. Had he fumbled and Buffalo recovered, the Bills would have had a 17-3 lead instead of 12-3. In a one-point game, you have to think that probably would have meant something.

The Bills increased their lead to 12-3 with a second-quarter safety as Bruce Smith tackled Jeff Hostetler in the end zone in Super Bowl XXV: Buffalo Bills v New York Giants.

Now came another critical part of the game that bridged the second and third quarters. New York closed the half with an 87-yard drive that ended with Hostetler’s 14-yard TD pass to Stephen Baker. And after the long halftime break, the Giants came out and put together a massive 75-yard march that consumed the first 9:29 of the third quarter and ended with O.J. Anderson’s one-yard TD run for a 17-12 Giants lead. All that time, the potent Buffalo offense could only stand on the sideline and watch.

During that interminable drive, another big play went against the Bills, and outside of wide right, I thought this was the signature play of the game. Giants wide receiver Mark Ingram caught a short pass on the right side and broke four tackles on his way to converting a third-and-13. Had anyone been able to tackle him, the Giants would have punted.

Mark Ingram (82) converted a critical third-and-13 for the Giants on the drive that led to O.J. Anderson's touchdown.

“On the play to Ingram, we dropped guys in the wrong zone, first of all,” said safety Mark Kelso. “That enabled the pass to be completed. I missed the initial tackle. There were other missed tackles. It came down to inches."

I reminded Darryl Talley of this play recently, and he just shook his head. Of course he remembered it; he was one of the guys who whiffed. "We just didn't tackle," Talley said. "We didn't play smart, we tried to do too much. It was not good football."

Despite so much going against them, the ever-resilient Bills shook it off. Late in the third, the Giants went for a fourth-and-2 at the Bills 35 and Smith stuffed Anderson for a loss of two. That sent Buffalo off on a 63-yard drive to the go-ahead score, Thurman Thomas’ sublime, tackle-breaking 31-yard scamper off right tackle.

Thurman Thomas's 31-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter gave the Bills a 19-17 lead.

New York regained the lead on Matt Bahr’s 21-yard field goal after another long march that chewed up 7:32 of the fourth quarter, and after an exchange of punts, the Bills took possession at their own 10 with 2:16 left to play.

Thomas had a big 22-yard run on third-and-1, the normally statuesque Kelly had three scrambles for 18 yards, and finally, with no timeouts left, Thomas broke an 11-yard run to the Giants 29. The Bills hustled to the line and Kelly spiked the ball to stop the clock with eight seconds remaining.

Wide right. Sigh.

On the sidelines prior to the kick all the Bills held hands, just as they had done the previous year when a last-second drive to beat Cleveland in the playoffs ended with a Kelly interception. Again, it didn’t work.

“We had done it in ‘89 when Ronnie Harmon dropped the pass and then Jim threw the pick and it was over,” Tasker said. “The next time we held hands was Super Bowl XXV and the kick went wide. It was the last time I ever held hands on the sideline.”

Norwood was crushed, but he stood there stoically after the game and answered every question. "I had positive thoughts," Norwood said. "I don't back away from kicks like this. It's something I've done my whole career. It's a kick I've made. I kept my head down good on it, but I saw the ball wasn't drawing in like normal. I've kicked enough footballs to know. It was an empty feeling watching it hang out there."

Twenty-five years later, it’s just as empty, and anyone who watched Four Falls of Buffalo knows the anguish Norwood still lives with.

Looking back on the Bills' first Super season

Buffalo Bills coach Marv Levy reacts during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl XXV.

For coach Marv Levy, it was the toughest football loss he’d ever suffered, and still is, but in the days after, he had to be the leader and he had to guide his team through those choppy waters.

"The people not close to the team don't understand what it took for Marv to get everyone on the team to get over the hurt," said Mark Pike, a special teams ace like Tasker. "His example and his message helped us come back with the same drive and determination over and over. He was awesome at that."

And what was Levy’s message?

"No. 1 is mourn," Levy told me many years ago when he recounted it. "You don't want to shake it off and say, 'It's just a game.' There's a period where you absolutely feel awful. But you can't lie there in the fetal position. No. 2 is own up personally without placing blame, and ask yourself what you can do better. No. 3 is recognize the good we got here. We've got fighting spirit. There's ability on this team. We have good young players. No. 4 is make a plan. We said: 'We're going to do some things different. How will we do it?' No. 5 is go to work. Don't just make a plan. Get the job done."

For the next three years, the Bills did all of that, but they just couldn’t cross that final river, the one that would enable Ralph Wilson and Bill Polian and Levy, Kelly, Smith, Tasker, Reed, Talley and all the others to raise the Lombardi Trophy above their heads.

“I'm just proud to say that I went there four years in a row,” said Kelly. “I joke about it, and that's pretty much what I have to do to keep my sense of humor going. I talked to (John) Elway and I forgot the exact words he used, but he said, ‘You accomplished something that nobody will ever do again; win or lose, that’s something to be proud of.’”

And that’s true, but … if only that ball had hooked a few feet to the left the way it did at the end of Four Falls of Buffalo.

MAIORANA@Gannett.com

In ESPN '30 for 30' film, 1990s Bills finally get respect

Each week during the 2015 season, Sal Maiorana — who in 1990 was in his first year as the Democrat and Chronicle's Bills beat reporter — reflected on the magnificent journey to Buffalo's first Super Bowl appearance.

Each Wednesday, Maiorana recapped the highlights of the Bills game that took place 25 years ago to the day with statistics, quotes, his player of the game and inside information via his SalSpeak podcast. Links to each regular-season and playoff story are below.

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