What was I feeling at that moment? I don't think I was feeling anything. I was just completely in shock. It's like when you're in a car wreck. At first, when something like that happens, your mind just goes blank. And I remember my mind going blank and I just couldn't believe it.
I literally had to see it again and again. And when the ball went up, it took forever. And he missed, and I went, 'No, that's not what's supposed to happen. It was like an out-of-body experience, I just remember sliding. And it must be what shock feels like. I just remember bursting into tears and sobbing, and sobbing, and sobbing. And I remember people coming over and saying, 'C'mon, man, it's just a game.
After that, he only remembers hearing a loud, harmonious "no! I was like, 'He had to have made it. They were at the yard line. He was supposed to make it. Antonio described his immediate feeling as "sick," and not in the cool way the kids use it.
Buffalo Fambase co-creator Del Reid only remembers silence before, during and after the kick. Reid's father-in-law, Tom Galla, used the word "demoralized. So you can imagine how the players must have felt. I wore a No. All the dreams that I had to lead an NFL team came true, except of course the ending when it went wide right.
Of course, at the time, the Bills and their fans had no idea they'd wind up losing each of the next three Super Bowls, becoming the first and still only team in pro football history to fall in four consecutive championship games. And while the next three losses might have been just as disappointing, the Bills were defeated by at least 13 points in all of them.
On the final Sunday of January in , and , they were beaten. But on the final Sunday of January in , they were tortured. Again, this all happened before Buffalo became the snakebite capital of the United States. This was the Bills' first Super Bowl, the infancy of what appeared to be a dynasty in the making.
When this game was played, Thurman Thomas had never missed Super Bowl snaps due to a lost helmet and Frank Wycheck wasn't famous for a controversial lateral. When Norwood missed, the Buffalo Sabres hadn't yet lost a Stanley Cup on a goal that shouldn't have counted.
These people believed the Bills were destined to win the Super Bowl, which only intensified the shock they felt when everything came crashing down. This was it. Everybody expected it would happen. They had already beaten the Giants earlier in the year and they were playing a backup quarterback. There was no fear, no scared anticipation. The Bills were gonna bring it home. That backup quarterback, year-old Jeff Hostetler, was actually pretty good.
The third-round pick offered a little more mobility than regular starter Phil Simms, and he had won all four of his starts since taking over for the injured former Super Bowl MVP.
But the supreme sense of confidence Bills fans possessed had little to do with what the Giants brought to the table and almost everything to do with the damage Kelly and that no-huddle offense had been doing.
They're going to win! Who's stopping this team? And of course it was Bill Belichick. Yes, Belichick. And on Jan. The Giants installed—for one game only —a totally new, linebacker-heavy defense that took away crossing routes and punished Buffalo's receivers, forcing the suddenly one-dimensional Bills offense to resort to a running game it hadn't been accustomed to leaning on.
By the time the Bills adjusted and started running Thomas down the Giants' throats, it was barely too late. How great was Belichick's game plan?
Today, it resides at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But even after the Giants dominated by controlling the clock for more than 40 minutes, when Kelly and that No. I thought, 'Oh, this is the way it's supposed to happen. It never even occurred to me that they would lose. It felt to me like, finally we're going to hoist that Lombardi and have that monkey off our backs. Yes, Norwood was a first-team All-Pro in But to that point, his longest career field goal on grass was a yarder against the Miami Dolphins in Norwood didn't have a strong leg to begin with and was less familiar with kicking off grass than some of his peers were.
He spent his entire career playing home games at Ralph Wilson Stadium known then as Rich Stadium , which at the time had artificial turf.
Thus, during the course of a game career that spanned seven seasons, he had made only 18 field goals on grass. To that point, he was 8-of in his career on grass, with most of those good kicks coming from short range. He had attempted just one field goal of plus yards on grass in the prior two seasons—a yard miss in Cleveland —and was 1-of-5 in his career under those circumstances.
So he was trying to do something he had never done before in the most pressure-filled moment of his life. Which raises many questions, all of which will be addressed. The first, though, is related to Norwood's psychological approach to the kick. If I had a second opportunity I might do something a little bit different.
Later on, during his postgame press conference, he noted that his "hips didn't come through," so the kick may have been flawed even if he hadn't drilled it through the break. What's more, at that point, Norwood's field-goal accuracy rate had actually dropped substantially in back-to-back seasons, and according to Carucci's superstitiously ominous article from the day before the game, he had made some adjustments earlier in the year in order to break out of a slump.
That again has to cause you to wonder if Norwood was overcompensating, especially considering that Reich noted he was hooking the ball more than usual during pregame warm-ups.
Of course, there's also former Bills running back Kenneth Davis' possibly-but-not-definitely-tongue-in-cheek theory that the government is responsible. And to this day I tell people that I think it was the wind that was blowing from the Apache helicopter that was hovering over the stadium.
Anderson and an array of role players worked for 59 minutes, 52 seconds to provide that final stage for the Virginia-born place-kicker. My thoughts were that Scott was going to get blamed for it, and that seemed really unfair, because we all felt like we could have played better, should have played better. Yes, the Giants were giving him space, but the man was still running possessed.
He averaged a ridiculous 9. That kind of stuff gets lost in it a little bit. But that's why nobody's really bothered by Scott missing that kick, because there's plenty of things that could have gone differently for all of us, and that kick would have been meaningless. Thomas ran the ball on 26 percent of Buffalo's first-half plays and 27 percent of the offense's second-half snaps. What's more, he ran just three times on the final two drives of the game picking up 37 yards.
So there's really no indication the Bills were willing to cave on their original design. Ultimately, the Bills ran 37 pass plays and only 19 run plays, which in a close game is rather ridiculous. And while even Kelly confesses a slightly more balanced attack might have been beneficial, he'd like to issue a warning regarding hindsight. For me personally, yeah, maybe we should have ran it a little more, but it's always easy for the outsider to say, 'You should have done this, you should have done that.
It's very easy for people to say these things once it's all over. This marked only the second time all year in which the Bills failed to register a takeaway on defense ironically but maybe not coincidentally, both were against the Giants , but they did score two points on D when Smith sacked Hostetler in the end zone for a safety in the second quarter.
On paper, that still sounds like a complete victory for the Bills. But take a look at the play and you realize how close Buffalo came to forcing a fumble, which might have resulted in a defensive touchdown.
After tripping over Anderson's foot during his dropback, Hostetler somehow found his footing in time to break away from Smith and avoid losing control of the ball, despite the fact the Defensive Player of the Year had Hostetler's right forearm in his monstrous hand.
It was the type of play that had Cross thinking the Giants, instead of the Bills, might have been a team of destiny. Bruce Smith grabs his hand and he goes down in the end zone. That just doesn't happen. That's kind of one of those 'We're destined' kind of moments, because that stuff just doesn't happen.
As a result, the offense was on the field less than 20 total minutes an all-time Super Bowl low. The Bills weren't getting any yards after the catch, their receivers were getting pounded and Hall of Famer Andre Reed had trouble hauling in several catchable passes, including one on 3rd-and-1 in the second quarter. On that final Buffalo drive, the Giants defense was somewhat inexplicably gassed. Imagine how much worse off that unit might have been had the Bills been able to stay on the field for more than nine minutes in the second half.
The Giants converted more third downs nine than the Bills attempted eight. Buffalo also made Hostetler and Anderson look like superheroes, but the tackling was the real issue. One particular conversion epitomized that problem while leading to what would wind up being the game-winning field goal. Early in the fourth quarter, with the Giants trailing by two, Mark Ingram caught a Hostetler pass eight yards short of the sticks on a 3rd-and and then proceeded to elude four different Bills defenders in order to pick up an incredible first down.
He played a pivotal role in helping us turn things around. After that game, Norwood was released, ending a seven-year stint with the team.
He and his wife, Kimberly, who hails from the Buffalo suburb of West Seneca, moved to Virginia, where Scott helped run an upscale landscape business, and they raised their three children, now all adults. For several years, Norwood laid low, stayed out of the public eye. Polian and teammates reached out to him, and about a decade ago he began attending Bills reunions and even returned to New Era Field formerly Rich Stadium , where he was introduced to the crowd and received a thunderous ovation.
The past decade also has seen Norwood participate in the card show circuit. He makes a handful of appearances each year, mostly in Western New York, and he enjoys mingling with Bills fans who remember those glory years of the late s, early s.
People will plop down blue-and-white No. And most people are good about it, not confrontational. So, I sign and keep moving on. Most of his students are aware of his previous occupation as a professional football player. These include how to handle defeat. With wounds still raw, he stood at his locker for nearly an hour following his infamous miss, answering question after question after question. It would have been understandable had he kept his comments brief and bolted for the showers after just a few minutes.
Instead, Norwood stayed until every last question was asked, providing thoughtful, occasionally poignant, answers. His classy response to adversity resonated with coaches and teachers across America. That offseason, Norwood received thousands of cards and letters, mostly from total strangers, lauding him for his grace, and encouraging him to soldier on.
I believe you have an obligation to stand in there, good times or bad. The reporters had a job to do. The fans wanted to know what happened. Sometimes, you got to soak up a little rain, too.
There still are occasions when Norwood runs into nasty people who lambaste him for the missed kick from long ago. It could be a projection of other things that are bothering them in their lives. Like Steve Bartman, Nick Anderson or the late Bill Buckner, he goes through life knowing that most people know him only for his greatest failure.
Other kickers understand that all too well. Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter at jaybusbee or contact him at jay.
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