9401040614
DETROIT FREE PRESS
940131
Monday, January 31, 1994
METRO FINAL CHASER
1C
Photo Color Associated Press
:
(BILL SIKES/Associated Press)
Buffalo quarterback Jim Kelly paces the sidelines during the
third quarter -- as the tide turned.
MITCH ALBOM
SUPER BOWL XXVIII
Copyright (c) 1994, Detroit Free Press
REPEATING HISTORY SHOOTS UNCOMPREHENDING BUFFALO
ATLANTA -- Bruce Smith, the symbol of Buffalo power, was on his knees in
the end zone, the posture of surrender. All around him, Cowboys were dancing,
doing high steps, mugging for the crowd. Half of them had their helmets off
so the TV cameras could catch their faces. They mobbed Emmitt Smith, who had
just scored a touchdown on fourth-and-one, a muscle test, yours versus ours,
late in the game, the championship on the line; Smith had gone in standing
up. Touchdown. Now flashbulbs exploded and rolls of toilet paper came flying
from the stands.
Bruce Smith watched all this, still on his knees, looking from player to
player, as if trying to find someone to blame. In the end, he stopped watching
Cowboys and turned to Bills, his own bench.
And the truth is, that's where the fault lies.
Four on the floor. Stomped once more. The Bills couldn't beat Dallas in
the Super Bowl last year because they made too many mistakes, and they
couldn't beat them this year because they made too many mistakes. The past
will come back to haunt you if you don't lear- . . .
Aw, hell, you don't need to tell that to Buffalo, do you?
"We're all wondering, what do we have to do to win one of these?" Jim
Kelly said glumly, after the Cowboys beat the Bills, 30-13, to claim
back-to-back Super Bowl victories -- over the same victim, the Bills, who have
now lost a record four straight Super Sundays. "What does it take?"
What does it take? Well, stop fumbling, for one thing. Stop throwing
crushing interceptions. And stop playing the Dallas Cowboys. That would help.
The Bills could have won this game -- they probably should have. But
their history seems to creep up on them now the longer they play these Super
Bowls, like a shadow that grows as the day goes on. They self-destructed.
Thurman Thomas coughed up two fumbles, Kelly threw an interception, and the
coaching staff kept calling plays that got dumped in the backfield. This all
happened in the second half.
In the end, here were Smith and Kelly and Thomas and the rest, an hour
after the game, dressed in street clothes, the same long faces, the same
postgame sighs, trying to explain their failure, even as the opposing team
could be heard whooping it up down the corridor.
Four on the floor.
"Does this one hurt more than the rest?" Bruce Smith was asked.
"It does," he said. "Because this is still in the present. Those others
are history."
Well, let history show that Buffalo did win something Sunday: the first
half. It was clearly theirs, in points (13-6), in yardage and in emotion. The
Bills came out smooth and focused, as if they'd never been here before.
In some ways, so did Dallas. The Cowboys committed a dumb penalty on a
punt that gave the ball back to the Bills and led to their only touchdown.
And Troy Aikman threw an uncharacteristic interception toward the end of the
second quarter, killing a drive.
By the time the country music singers came out for their halftime
extravaganza "Rockin' Country Sunday" -- the first halftime in NFL history to
feature four acts and three chords -- the Cowboys were losing for real.
But here's the thing about Dallas that makes it so great: If it's not
one thing, it's another. Last year, Aikman was a razor, the MVP, slicing apart
the Buffalo defense. This year, Aikman was a little hazy, so up steps a kid
named James Washington, a kid the lowly LA Rams let loose -- a Plan B free
agent, for heaven's sake! -- and he makes three huge plays that change the
game completely.
Washington was Thurman Thomas' nightmare -- not that Thomas needed any
help in that department. Washington knocked the ball loose from Thomas early
in the game, and in the third quarter he scooped up Thomas' second fumble and
proceeded to gain more yards on that play than Thomas would have all night.
Washington ran, darted, cut back, waited for blockers, cut back again, broke
free, and finally dashed into the end zone for a 46-yard touchdown that tied
the game.
His first career touchdown?
In the Super Bowl?
A Plan B guy?
Where does Jimmy Johnson come up with these kids?
"I look for playmakers," Johnson said, espousing the essence of the
Cowboys' roster. "Everybody on this team is capable of making a big play,
causing a turnover or a touchdown. That's what I look for. Turnovers and
touchdowns. And we have guys like that on this team -- even our backups."
Turnovers and touchdowns. Not coincidentally, in a prayer huddle before
the game, Washington and Emmitt Smith said those same words to each other:
"Turnovers and touchdowns."
Must have been some prayer. Washington got the turnovers -- and Smith got
the touchdowns. Two of them. His wind-sucking effort on the go-ahead drive in
the third quarter was the reason he -- and not Barry Sanders, sorry, folks --
is the most reliable running back in football. Smith simply bulled through the
Bills, leaving them grasping, cursing, looking at his back. He carried on
seven of the eight plays in that drive for 64 yards. And when he sliced into
the end zone, voters began filling out their MVP ballot.
"At the start of that drive, I was asking (offensive coordinator) Norv
Turner for the ball," Smith laughed, after winning the MVP trophy and gaining
132 yards. "By the end of that drive, I was saying, 'OK. Give it to somebody
else.' "
Fat chance. Smith is the pump that keeps the Dallas machine running --
and the monkey wrench that ruins the Bills. On that remarkable drive alone,
Bruce Smith went out with a rib injury trying to slow Emmitt down. Darryl
Talley went out with a shoulder injury trying to do the same. Phil Hansen was
injured on the touchdown play.
All these Buffalo bodies, limping to the sidelines, while Smith cruised to
the end zone like a fine roadster. Says it all, doesn't it?
Four on the floor.
"Did you earn your pay today?" someone asked Smith after the game.
"Earn my pay?" he mocked. "I'm kinda shortchanged right now, if you ask
me."
No, Emmitt. That adjective belongs to the Bills. No one should laugh at
what they've accomplished. But history will. Not next week. Not next year. But
five years from now, and 10 years, and 20 years -- when nobody remembers the
efforts, only the results. Four straight trips to the Super Bowl, four
straight defeats? You thought the Minnesota Vikings took a bad rap? The Bills
made history Sunday, the wrong way. Has there ever been a team that has so
raised our sympathy and our eyebrows -- at the same time?
"It is kind of weird," sighed Thomas, whose two fumbles, meager output (37
yards) and inability to play much of the game with leg cramps made him the
goat yet again. "Why did it have to happen today? I fumbled twice, and it's 10
points. If that doesn't happen, we can win the game. . . .
"I had one of the best games of my career last week, and now here I have
one of my worst."
How do you explain it? You don't. Toward the end of the game, Thomas was
all alone on the Bills' bench, and the TV cameras zoomed in on his face, two
sad eyes, wide open. All that was missing was the paw over his head and the
whimpering.
But then, that's a picture for all of the Bills and their weary fans.
Maybe it's something about this game. Maybe it's something about the opponent.
Or maybe it's something about the Bills themselves. Perhaps they need a change
-- a shakeup, a new philosophy, something. They clearly are not learning from
mistakes, including the ones they should know the best:
Their own.
Four on the floor.
And you know what? They're talking about coming back next year!
SUPER BOWL